I’m in 7th grade about to apply to high school and I was wondering how I can improve my application and/or the essays when I write them. Right now:
Play 3 sports: soccer, tennis, cross country
Model UN/ Debate
I volunteer to take care of kids K-2 grade
Writing class + 3 week writing camp CT
I only took the SSATs once without studying and I got a 84 percentile.
Anything I should add or write about?
study for the ssat
^^ I agree, although the ssat only takes up a portion of the application, it is the best to impress the admission team. I also think you should add how passionate you are towards education 
You are definitely on the right track to be thinking about this so early.
SSAT- that’s a strong score for no practice. One of my kiddos scored the same thing. Having always scored in the high 90’s on standardized tests, kiddo was disappointed and studied after school every day for 2-3 hours between tests. Focused only on learning the math. Did this for about 3 weeks. Retook the test and scored a 98. If superscored, kiddo has a 99.
Develop a narrative and work towards it for the next year. What do you want the AOs to say about you? Cross country star who is passionate about community service? Three sport athlete who has self-published a novel or writes for a national magazine? Shoot as high as you want and work towards it over the next year.
Everything that others have said above? Yes, they are right.
While CC can induce anxiety, this community is filled with gold. Lots of excellent advice. Before finding CC, we had no idea how this process worked. Keep coming back and also search old posts. It will help you navigate the process much more easily.
Keep up the good work. The fact that you are thinking about this now will give you an advantage.
Best of luck to you!
Every single year, kids with SSAT scores above the 95th percentile are rejected from top schools in favor of kids with lower scores who have more compelling essays, stronger teacher recommendations, ECs that align better with the school’s offerings, or come across as kinder/nicer. Every. Single. Year.
A score in the 85th percentile tells the school you can handle the academics.
Having an even higher score does not necessarily help. It is unlikely to be tie breaker like better teacher recommendations, essays, and ECs, all of which carry more weight provided your SSAT score indicates you can handle the pace of the academics.
Those 2-3 hours a day people are suggesting you spend studying to raise your score? They are better spent improving your cross country times, increasing your ranking in tennis, or submitting your best writing for publication or awards.
@CaliMex, I respectfully disagree. Yes every year there may be some students with scores at the 95th percentile who are rejected from top schools while some with lower scores get in. But having a score in the 95th percentile does not preclude having great essays, strong letters, great ECs and being nice. High scores are very important to top high schools. An 84th percentile is not close to a 95th percentile. So, yes a higher score will help. It does not change everything else but it does change the score while you work on the other things too.
You may not think it fair that a high score is so important but it is. Why? It has nothing to do with whether or not the student will do well in high school classes. Pervious grades would provide that information. Rather, a high SSAT score suggests the student will score very high on the college entrance exams. And, that is important because average SAT/ACT scores are often posted on various sites and they factor into ratings of prep schools and they factor into decisions by other parents about which high school they should try to enroll their kids in. But, high scores also suggest the student will be viewed as desirable by “top” colleges. And, the lists of which colleges their graduates attend are on every prep school’s web sites. Perspective parents look at those lists to see if the graduates are getting into the “best” colleges. A student with very high scores is likely to get into a uber selective college-which makes the prep school appear better. And no, an 84% won’t do it. A 95% and above will tho.
I agree with most everything @CaliMax says except for the attempt to minimize the SSAT score. If you want to compete at the most selective NE schools, you really need to be the full package unless you are a highly recruited athlete or have some incredible hook. If you can study 2-3 hours a day for three weeks and get your scores in the mid 90s, I think that’s a good use of your time. I mean, if nothing else, why settle for something less than you’re capable of achieving? You’re clearly capable of doing better since you didn’t study the first time.
Best of luck. I think you will be in great shape this time next year.
@alison538 re SSAT, I agree with others that you should focus on the rest of your application since you are likely to be fine with respect to the test.
That said, SwamiJr got exactly the same score without studying. He focused on everything else in life…vacation (if he scored much lower he would have spent part of the time studying), ECs, sports, academics, friends, Instagram, Fortnite, FIFA, NBA2K and narrowing down/visiting schools. 5 weeks before the December SSAT test he began studying and seeing a tutor 1x a week. He scored @ the 96th percentile.
Only two takeaways, 1) Don’t wait until December to take the test. We got too comfortable because of the practice test, SwamiJr typically does well on standardized tests, and life was busy. A lot could have gone wrong and we could have needed another test. Take it sooner than December. 2) Don’t waste money on classes or tutors. Use one of the review books and you will score well. We were a bit panicked because December was the kiddo’s first time taking the test for real so we went for what we thought was an insurance policy.
Nice job getting started early.
You have to retake the SSAT anyway. As a 7th grader, you would have taken the middle level test. You need to take the upper level test as an 8th grader and submit that score. I don’t have personal experience comparing the two, but my impression from other threads/postings is that the upper is a bit harder, perhaps due to a larger group of high achievers competing for private and boarding high schools. Since you have to take it anyway, may as well study…how long is up to you. The official online study material, a review book and some time on Quizlet would serve you well.
You asked how to improve your essays. Do interesting things, particularly this summer…or more accurately, things that interest you and are uniquely you. Then, you will have great material for writing the essays for your application next year. You don’t have to travel the world or work on curing cancer. Just something simple in your community. It’s far more interesting to read about a kid’s summer spent as a neighborhood entrepreneur walking and washing dogs than it is to read about how they reached a new achievement on Fortnite.
Every single AO I spoke to during admissions season underlined that SSAT scores are important to establish whether a kid is able to handle the work and pace, but that once a score was at or above a certain threshold, improving the percentile by 10 points didn’t matter.
Kids have a finite number of hours to focus on schoolwork, essays, athletics, and ECs. There is an opportunity cost to shifting hours away from those other efforts to eek out a few extra points. There is also the risk of exacerbating anxiety by applying even more pressure. (I’ve also seen kids’ scores DECREASE over time because of the pressure to improve an already decent score!)
But y’all keep pushing your kids to score higher and keep assuming AOs are being misleading …
There can be a real real cost to that strategy (and I’m not talking tutors)…
@lostaccount I have to respectfully disagree with your comment. AOs are not looking for students that will score high SATs, they are looking to build a community. While a higher score on the SSAT does not hurt you, it does not improve your application more than any of the other excellent suggestions people have made will… and an SSAT a score does not tell the school anything but your ability on one day to take one test. And there is not that much of a difference score-wise between percentiles… @YoungThriver has a great example of this.
BSs reject people with 99th percentile SSATs every year, and colleges reject people with perfect SATs every year.
@alison538 – if you have the time, improve your SSAT score… it will only help you. But don’t think your SSAT score will determine if you get in, because it will not. I agree with @CaliMex … trust the AOs, don’t jump to conclusions, and focus on improving what makes you unique.
Regarding your essays, I just put up a long post with some essay advice on this amazing thread: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-chances/1968462-its-time-to-stop-chancing-each-other-and-give-back-to-future-applicants.html#latest but here’s the short version: for your essays, write about yourself. What matters to you? Who is the person you will be bringing to boarding school? That person is who the AOs want to get to know. Take the time to think about who that person is, pivotal moments in your life (even if you didn’t really realize they were pivotal), and then just write and be yourself. I wish you the best of luck 
Hey OP, try to give yourself at least three months to study. That way, you won’t have to cram the material and would find time to study at your own pace. The upper level SSAT is, in terms of content, much more challenging than the middle level SSAT. While it is impressive that you scored in the top 16% in that level without studying, I don’t recommend going into that testing center blind again.
Just to throw in my two cents into this SSAT debate (not that it was asked for but I just couldn’t resist) I could see a score in the mid to high 80s harming an applicant if another applicant had a similar “resume”, along with a much higher score. Also, applicants such as I, who are applying for full aid and aren’t really anything too special, should try to get a score above the 90th percentile. It’s already known here that needing aid is a disadvantage. No need to disadvantage yourself further by getting a way-below-the-average SSAT score.