<p>no it just means SOME ppl who are giving advice on here dont even know what they are talking about.</p>
<p>If he is a recruited athlete, then he may receive an offer of admission with the stipulation that he repeat his current grade at Hotchkiss. This will also have the effect of raising his SSAT score because a 47 for a junior year applicant may become a 60 for a sophomore applicant. The 85 SSAT figure is something that Hotchkiss admissions has suggested for the last decade. “The admissions committee seriously reads apps with an 85 SSAT or above” is the unofficial byline. Do not worry as this is just the response to questions about optimal SSAT scores. And yes, it is true that Taft publishes a statement that a 50 SSAT is the lowest considered but, if one is willing to repeat their current grade, the SSAT will be regraded resulting in a much higher score.
Hotchkiss is a very serious academic school. Even if admitted, a student scoring below 60 on the SSAT is likely to have a very uncomfortable experience academically. Has he considered the Kent School? Deerfield & Hotchkiss may just be too much for him to handle academically.
Often public school GPAs do not correlate well with private & parochial school GPAs. The SSAT is the equalizer created & designed by a group of the elite prep boarding schools to more fairly represent a student’s academic abilities & potential. The SSAT, therefore, is the single most important admissions factor for the top prep schools such as Hotchkiss & Deerfield.
When my son entered boarding school, he had scored just above his class’ median score of 90 on the SSAT. Although finishing in the top half, it was an academically challanging experience.(Although he attended a school ranked slightly above Hotchkiss.)</p>
<p>Yes, Senay, I’m aware of that, but what I’m saying is who are you to judge who’s giving good advice and who’s not? Unless you’ve already been through the process and graduated from these BS’s that we’re talking about, I would say you are one of the “blind” people you mention and therefore should not be telling others that their advice is not worthy. It’s hypocritical :)</p>
<p>I always have believed that schools discredit this “I’m just a bad test taker” thing. Schools want their kids to go to good colleges and if there bad test takers then they’ll probably do badly on the SAT’s and won’t go to a good college. </p>
<p>Hope its not to harsh.</p>
<p>rao95 I’d have to disagree with you. The SSAT scores(and this is a fact), are a bell curve. So your correct in saying that a few points will get you up a bunch of percentile, but once you get into the nineties it gets increasingly hard and requires more and more points to move up a single percentile. </p>
<p>For example on my practice test I got a 2232-91%
On the real test I got a 2310-98%
the difference in points between those two scores is 78
the difference between the 60th and 50th percentile is 54 points. </p>
<p>So in short, seven percentile in the 90’s was 78 points 11.1 points per percentile.
ten percentile in the 50’s was only 54 points 5.4 points per percentile.</p>
<p>I know that these numbers could be slightly off depending on whether I got in the high 91’st percentile and then in the low 98th percentile but they’r not off by much.</p>
<p>ColdWind, that’s not true. Even if you are applying to repeat your current grade your SSAT scores are compared to kids your age.</p>
<p>people who have graduated from boarding school are also blind. just because they go there doesnt mean they know what the school wants. exeter students have told me tons of times that “sometimes i just wonder how i got so lucky to attend this place” or “i dont even know i got in”. </p>
<p>anyways, taking the ssat’s again is logical since they want a better score. it’s not really blind advice, it’s logical. the poster probably already knew that</p>
<p>Charp I do not know much about this BUT:
As you get into the higher scores you have less and less people ahead of you to get ahead of (hence percentile). In the “top” score difference is done on a point by point basis, maybe in the 50% area it is on a 10 pt by 10 pt basis. Anyways, I do not know much about the system, but what I take from it is as you get higher you get a higher percentile with fewer points.</p>
<p>well luckily hotchkiss deerfield and choate are letting him retake the ssats in february so he is very happy and he studying 2 h9urs a day since they told him so hopefully he does alot bettter</p>
<p>Charp no actually your wrong. Im applying as a repeat to SPS and my first SSAT score was horrid, they called me and told my parents they were working on trying to improve it by converting the score. Although it didn’t matter becuase my next one increased by 40% points, but still.</p>
<p>Ya, its definitely possible to increase by a lot for your brother…I did.</p>