My son is applying as a 10R to Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Middlesex, Concord, Nobles, BBN and safety is Rivers and International School of Boston. My question is … if they say SSAT is test optional this year, should he still take it? He has a great GPA (4.96 weighted, 3.96 unweighted)… advanced classes, 11 years on violin, filmmaker and a bunch of internships and fellowships. Should he still do SSAT or skip?
I’d take it and see what kind of score he has. If it’s good, it could help his app by substantiation his GPA. If it’s not, you can apply without.
What do you think of his chances in general? Are there any safeties you could suggest?
There is a longer thread on this topic Boarding Schools Test Optional Again - #15 by maybeboardingmom
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I’d say he has a fair chance. Those schools are hard to get into - 10-20% acceptance rate. That’s about his chance. Maybe a bit better if you are full pay. He sounds like a smart kid but it’s very hard to chance kids who don’t have an actual hook.
On Rivers being a safety school. Again. You need to rethink. Unless your son is an outstanding athlete Rivers is not a safety school right now.
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So he is a violinist of 11 years, and also has some various impressive fellowships and internships. He has documentary short films he can add to supplements and both parents are immigrants. Would any of this be a hook?
A hook is something that meets institutional priorities. An Olympic athlete in a sport the school doesn’t have may be desirable, but they aren’t hooked. A very good soccer goalie, otoh, may be hooked. If schools are aiming to increase diversity and if your son is part of an underrepresented group, that could be a hook. If the orchestra director needs violins, that could be a hook.
Your son sounds like a solid applicant. His role will be positioning himself as a good fit. He could probably make a good case at George School, for example, because of its strong film program. (I am not saying you should add a school in PA to your list but am using that as an example.)
After addressing institutional priorities, most schools focus on kids who will thrive there, not simply survive. That usual involves engagement, so you want to think of this as an exercise in finding the place where the AO, after saying “this kid has passed the screen for being able to do the work” is saying “this kid will get so much out of what we offer and contribute so much to the community”.
Does that make sense?
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Strong applicant overall, yes, which means he has a chance. But as implied elsewhere, even a better-than-average chance is only 20%, because most of the schools you mentioned are closer to 10% admit rates. If you guys are Black, his chances would probably be better. Maybe being Hispanic would be a slight advantage as well.
How long your son has played violin doesn’t matter as a data point. What matters is how well he plays. My understanding is that the admissions committee sends submitted recordings of applicants on their instruments to the music director, who, in concert with private-lesson teachers or not, tells the admission committee which players he or she prefers. To be preferred, your son would probably have to be on the level of a very good high-school violinist, with good facility and musicianship as demonstrated by a strong performance of a movement of a concerto from, say, Bruch, Mendelssohn, etc. Decent violinists are plentiful, so he’d have to be better than decent for it to help.
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If you can, take the SSAT. What type of school is he coming from? If it’s a public or no-name private, you should prioritize taking it. Considering he is a repeat 10th grader, would they accept an SAT or ACT score in lieu of an SSAT? Might be easier to get a seat for one of those at the moment depending on your location.
In the summer as part of a project I was working on, I asked a connection I have within one of the admissions offices you listed how going test-optional impacted the admissions process. From their response, the cohort of students who submitted test scores had a slightly higher (but noticeable) acceptance rate than those who didn’t submit test scores. While students are given full consideration either way, and we only have 1 year of data points to make an assessment, I’d advise you to treat the SSAT as necessary.
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Disagree on the ssat. Kids who submitted scores last go round likely started with much better applications for many other reasons. The scores were very unlikely to be the thing that got them in. If my kids had submitted without scores their apps still would have been incredibly strong. They had great scores because they were great students with teacher recs that said so.
If your kid can take the ssat and does well. Go ahead and submit it. Not doing so with an otherwise excellent application probably won’t matter. If a school says they’re test optional believe them. If you’re worried ask the AO. In my experience they are happy to be honest. No one here is an AO so taking the collective wisdom route on something so new is going to get you a lot of opinions and little fact.
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This makes great sense and is super helpful. Thank you. We had George on our list - will put back on. What other schools have a film department? This is one of his EC passions bordering on obsessions 
Sort of off topic but, should I worry how colleges will view any slip in GPA… say he goes from stellar grades (say A+ student ) to a B +’s in a pressure cooker like a top BS like Andover etc? I keep reading that this happens a lot and wondering how this is viewed when it’s time to apply to colleges.
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He will drop from an A+ student, so level-set his expectations.
95% of Andover students graduate with a less-than-perfect GPA, and they all go to good colleges. Every single college that has BS applicants knows the grading standards, and knows that A’s are not given out like candy.
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Thank you. Good suggestion. Now, how to get a kid who is his own pressure cooker to accept that slide… that’s the million dollars question Glad I asked !
FWIW, and I can only speak for Andover, the pressure cooker is due to the studeñts themselves (or sometimes their parents, unfortunately), in most cases, and not the school.
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Some schools do have more of an emphasis on mindfulness and intention. So while they are asking everyone to be their best selves, they are asking them what that is and to what end. It’s certainly a better context than "get into an ivy league school " or “be better than everyone else.”. It’s a helpful exercise for the more Type A types!
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For my kids, the satisfaction they got from the challenge of their BS–not to mention the crazy amount of course offerings and opportunities—was worth the slide. We’ve drilled the importance of effort over achievement their whole lives, and reiterate it all the time. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been tears and frustration, but my oldest who is a senior has so much pride in what they’ve accomplished—they never had that at their old school where they got straight As with very little effort.
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I do not know the international school well, but am intimately familiar with all the others. Hard to say whether he will be admitted to all or any based upon the information shared. He sounds like a great applicant, but A students are somewhat common these days. Early indications say that schools are going to have another record year with applications. What is the reason for repeating the year? In some schools there are very few 10th grade spots. From experience, you are better off selecting a boarding school as a safety than a day school. There are no easy boston area day schools from my experience (among the competitive set). As far as testing goes, I think he will need tests in order to compete as a top academic applicant.
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I don’t get the impression that @Julez was thinking their kid would be top of the class. Realistically, this is a problem for many BS students. Often the kids looking at a BS education have been the top students in their middle schools. Many have never struggled to learn a concept. Few have had to face staggering volumes of work.
Remember that through middle school, the goal is often to try to get all the kids to simply do the work as well as master the material, so getting credit for correcting test mistakes or having extra credit opportunities makes it possible for a kid who learns quickly or who is diligent to be a stand-out. To be top of the heap in a cohort where everyone is both is tricky.
I applaud the OP for thinking about this upfront. My kid actually said he’d prefer to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He settled on medium fish in a pond with lots of exotic fish! But this guided us all in selecting a school because he was essentially saying he wouldn’t be thrilled to be in the bottom of the class. This doesn’t mean we looked for schools where he’d be a top student but one which truly recognized and valued everyone’s gifts, in and out of the classroom. Some schools promote this better than others, and some kids work it out fine without the promotion. YMMV but this is important to think through.
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