<p>My son took the ISEE. It gives you scores for 4 sections (Verbal Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Quantitative Reasoning and Math Achievement) as opposed to SSAT's 3 sections and an overall score. Anybody have any insights into how the boarding schools deal with the comparison since they typically will accept the ISEE in lieu of the SSAT?</p>
<p>My daughter is taking both, too. We signed up for the ISEE first and then discovered that a couple of the schools take only SSAT.
We just received her ISEE results and they didn’t look that great - 80s percentile but 7 stanine.
Would anyone comment on how these scores would relate to the SSATs?
She usually scores in high 90s percentiles on other standardized tests so we’re a little shocked.
Oh, and she’s in 8th grade applying for 9th.</p>
<p>Genchedi,</p>
<p>Keep in mind that other standardized tests compare your student to the general population. The ISEE and SSAT compare her scores to a much more competitive group of kids. National and state norms and benchmarks are not very high and are really pretty worthless in determining the extremes. The SSAT and ISEE tease out that extreme and redistribute along a new curve. </p>
<p>Put another way: on the SSAT and ISEE she is being compared to all those other kids who generally score in the high 90s on standardized tests. </p>
<p>A stanine of 7 means that she is an slightly higher than average high achieving student. It’s not a bad thing at all!</p>
<p>thank you! I was hoping that was the case but is a 7 stanine good enough? I guess 9it depends on everything else - grades, essays etc…</p>
<p>I certainly believe that ISEE 80s percentile are going to be good enough for even the most competitive day schools. That means she is above 80% of all ISEE test takers.</p>
<p>It seems like one should just look at the percentiles on the ISEE and the SSAT and view them as being the same. I don’t know how much the underlying test-taking populations for these tests differ. Here in NYC, nearly all the private schools require the ISEE but may will accept the SSAT. For boarding schools, it seems like it’s the reverse. I don’t know what other groups of students take each test. Each of them determines percentiles based on its test-takers during the past three years, so if their test-taking populations differ significantly that could lead to a differering interpretation of the percentiles. Presumably, the admissions offices of the schools would be familiar with that differential if it exists and is substantial enough to be relevant.</p>
<p>The only other significant difference that I see is that the SSAT summarizes students scores into one convenient overall percentage, while the ISEE does not.</p>
<p>(This is all academic interest on my part now. My son scored high enough on the ISEE’s that any boarding schools are going to find the comparison easy to make and move on to the other aspects of his application - grades, recs, essays, extracurriculars)</p>
<p>I think it is difficult for you to compare your daughter’s ISEE score with her SSAT score. Unless the caliber of students taking both tests is similar (and maybe it is, I don’t know) the percentile will be difficult to compare. Comparability is, however, an issue. Boarding schools can compare heads better with the SSAT, as the majority of applicants use this–at least for the ninth and tenth grades.</p>
<p>My kid took ISEE first and got high 90’s in each section, and then took the SSAT anyway after knowing SSAT is more common among BS applicants. Although I was told ISEE was fine by the schools, I thought well just in case they thought it was an “easier” test (which is of course not), and why not make it easier for them to compare with other applicants. Looking back, I think I was TOO cautious. No need to take SSAT really if your kid got good scores on ISEE. It’s just one piece of the puzzle. There are other things equally if not more important.</p>
<p>wow! i don’t know what to make out of this. My daughter scored in the 80s on the ISEE and the day after (Dec 12) took th SSAT and thought that the SSAT was significantly easier?! We’re still waiting on the results. But I was assuming that the testakers are fairly similar between th SSAT and ISEE so I’m curious to see whqt her percentiles will be on the SSAT</p>
<p>It probably doesn’t affect percentiles that much, but the ISEE, particularly the math section, changed a bit this year. They know seem to ask more questions which require a student to think on his/her feet. They also ask questions that go somewhat higher up the math ladder: the sample test on their web site has one question with a “sin” in it as well as matrix addition. There was even one question that I couldn’t answer (and I was a math major at one of HYP!) because it involved some nomenclature that I had never seen (once I looked up the nomenclature on wiki, the problem became easy, though). I’d think that trig is beyond nearly all 8th graders (though not all, of course) and even most 9th graders. I told my son not to worry about the trig question (just guess and move on) but taught him how to do matrix addition (which is quite easy). On his actual ISEE, there was no trig, but a matrix addition and a matrix subtraction. Some of his classmates reported seeing a trig function, though.</p>
<p>I think it is difficult for you to compare your daughter’s ISEE score with her SSAT score. Unless the caliber of students taking both tests is similar (and maybe it is, I don’t know) the percentile will be difficult to compare. Comparability is, however, an issue. Boarding schools can compare heads better with the SSAT, as the majority of applicants use this–at least for the ninth and tenth grades.</p>
<p>Yes, the question is comparability of the two groups. So, who takes the SSAT as opposed to the ISEE? I know that applicants to NYC private schools take the ISEE, in general. Applicants to boarding schools take the SSAT, in general. What do others take? For example, what do applicants to day schools in other areas take? What other groups am I missing?</p>
<p>I don’t think there are other groups taking the tests. For the day schools in other areas (I have personal experience with one metro in the east other than NYC and one in the west), most schools accept either ISEE or SSAT, but when I asked one school which test was taken by most students, I was told that more students would take ISEE.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a private school which we LOVE (but they don’t have high school). Her school doesn’t believe in standardized testing and they have expressed numerous times that they don’t teach in a way that would make the students good standardized test takers.
I’m not sure what that means but it always made me a little nervous. She has straight As in her current school and seeing everyones’ stats here in the high 90s I assumed she would score that high but I’m not dissapointed so far. She is up against very strong candidates so 80th percentile is still pretty good.</p>
<p>In my experience (I’m a tutor), most students get the same percentile scores on the ISEE and the SSAT, within the margin of error. There are a few exceptions, such as students who are exceptionally good in one subject above the others (students who excel at math often, but not always do better on the ISEE, for example), or students who have test anxiety about guessing penalties. But that’s rare; usually the tests get essentially the same result.</p>
<p>I have had students apply to schools that only take one test or the other. Usually all it takes is a call or a letter from the parent to the school explaining that the student has already taken the ISEE and asking if that is an acceptable substitute for the SSAT. I’ve never had a school say no – though of course they always reserve the right to!</p>
<p>vrooje,
You were right. We received the SSAT results and they were similar to ISEE I guess. I was hoping she’ll jump over to the 90th percentile or higher but 88% overall on the SSAT is not disastrous. </p>
<p>ISEE
Verbal 88%
Reading 87%
Quantitative 77%
Math Achievement 86%</p>
<p>SSAT</p>
<p>Verbal 88%
Math 80%
Reading 83%
Overall 88%</p>
<p>I am risking being considered patronizing, but since no one has pointed this out - 88% is a pretty good score. You said “everyones’ stats here in the high 90s”, that’s not true. I don’t think your D’s SSAT score will ever negatively impact her applications.</p>
<p>I agree with Benley. 88 is a VERY good score, especially when all subject areas are 80+. Buy her an ice cream!</p>
<p>Considering that 88% is above the average SSAT score at all but a few schools, those scores seem perfectly fine. And 88% is only a few points below the average at those schools, so it’s a score that’s certainly in the mix. That score won’t be the part of her application that puts her over the top at the highly competitive schools, but it won’t pull her down either.</p>
<p>I agree with you that 88 is a good score considering the group of kids she’s being compared to. After the test she felt like she did extremely well so she’s dissapointed now but we are making sure she knows we’re pleased.</p>
<p>In the most selective schools, her score may not stand out as either high or low. It’s just in range. I am not sure though how much a high SSAT score itself can impact the outcome of an application anyway. That’s actually something I haven’t found out. I’ve heard so many people say SSAT score is the LEAST important in one’s application (we do see people with scores significantly lower than the published average score get admitted), so I am convinced that as long as your score reaches a certain threshold, it’s just as good as a high 90 percentile.</p>