@mondaydevil if you were my child, I would not advise the retake as in my opinion it adds no value. I suspect you have many better things to be doing with your time, including sleeping.
Congratulations, btw, on your score, it is phenomenal.
@cinnamon1212 Thank you so much!!
The only thing is, my parents and I were convinced that I was going to be getting a score in the 80s, which is really good, but I just wanted to better. So we already scheduled me for the December SSAT, and I don’t want to just cancel the test and waste their money when there’s the chance of me doing better.
Of course, you and your parents will make the ssat decision. However, it would be worth the $75 (or whatever the fee is) to me to let my kid catch up on sleep (or work on essays, or a paper due that Monday, or whatever) especially as (and this is my main point) even if you do better, it will not make any difference at all to your admissions chances.
Once you are in a range, or in a school’s range, a percentage here or there is irrelevant. (Yes, I heard this directly from a previous Dean of Admissions at Hotchkiss). The AO can see from the 95% that you are super smart. If you score a 98% nothing changes, they still think you are super smart, but nothing more. The AO’s know the ssat is imperfect, and that there is very little difference between kids scoring 3 (or 5, or pick your range) percentage points apart.
In fact the current Hotchkiss Dean of Admissions told me there really isn’t that much difference between kids scoring in the 75th percentile and the 90th – the percentages seem far apart, but the actual raw scores are not wildly far apart.
All that said, if you want to go ahead and retest, it certainly will not do you any harm! Have fun 
@cinnamon1212 Thank you so much for your insight! It’s a relief to know that it won’t do any harm. I’ll talk to my parents about using my time for catching up on essays.
So with a 95% you can cut some schools from this list. Pick some of these schools that you have visited and actually love. You don’t need to apply to ALL of them!
Lawrence academy
Governors
Millbrook
Thayer
Emma Willard
Berkshire
Brooks
St Marks
Mercersberg
Just curious, but what was the motivation for removing the other schools from the list? Also, how many of these would you say are matches/reaches?
@mondaydevil oh, nope, I meant remove some from the ones I listed. Those are more matches/safeties based on your stats. So of the schools I listed, only apply if you fell in love with the school. You definitely need to apply to some of them to cast a wide net, but not all.
The ones I didn’t list were your original schools (plus ca and middlesex both of which I think you would love). I think you have a good shot at all.
@one1ofeach Ohhh, I see now. I like St. Mark’s so I’ll be applying there. Thank you so much for all of your advice!
Just out of curiosity, where did you land?
I was waitlisted everywhere except Phillips Academy (Andover) where I was rejected! I’m applying again and will hopefully have better results this year (:
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To me, you are a very strong candidate, even for those ‘top’ name schools. Could you share a bit why no one accepted you last year? What schools did you apply eventually?
We talked a bit about it in my Chance Me thread from this year (Chance Me (again) for the new application season! - #13 by stalecookies), but I think the primary reason was that I wasn’t a good fit for most of these schools and the personal aspects of my application.
I’ve realized since then that a big, college-like, competitive high school is not one I’d thrive at. I prefer a small community that still has challenging academics, but feels more like a family and is an academic environment where you can explore and make mistakes, etc. etc. It’s very possible that the bigger and schools known to require lots of very very very hard work (Exeter, Andover, Choate, Groton, etc.) saw that in me and decided I wasn’t a good fit.
The other reason is my essays. I think I did at least decent in my interviews, but when I read them over again, they weren’t representative of my true character at all. They were choppy and awkwardly formal, weren’t personal or specific to me, and I think last year, I lacked the confidence to write about myself in a positive light well. I’ve since then learned a lot about myself, my interests, what I want in a high school, and I think I’m doing much better so far!
I also made the mistake of only applying to these very selective schools, meaning my net was decently large, but not wide at all. I think my new list is much more appropriate for my criteria (small/family-like, Latin, computer science, and exploration).
Here are the schools I’m applying to this year:
Putney (top choice at the moment haha)
Miss Porter’s
Westover
Hotchkiss
Middlesex
NMH
Brooks
Concord Academy (re-apply)
St. Mark’s (re-apply)
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rooting for you! i remember you from the last admissions cycle and I hope you get into concord. seems like you’d be a perfect fit here. let me know if you have any questions
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