Please Help - Bad SSAT Scores (I think)

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>A friend asked me to look at her daughter's SSAT scores but I cannot determine how good or bad they are. I know she is trying to get her 13 year old into a prep school but I am not sure which one. I've posted a link to the actual scores here... </p>

<p>PDF Format
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmt4siebx9qza6f/SSAT%20Scores.pdf"&gt;https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmt4siebx9qza6f/SSAT%20Scores.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>JPG Format
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ujjkwecjvregwh8/SSAT%20Scores.jpg"&gt;https://www.dropbox.com/s/ujjkwecjvregwh8/SSAT%20Scores.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>These scores are not great. They are much below the averages of most prep schools discussed on this board. If this is her first try, perhaps she can prepare the test using test prep books and try it again. </p>

3

<p>Sorry to say this but I highly doubt she’d get into any of the acronym prep schools (if she’s even applying to them). I agree with what payn4ward said, if it’s her first time and she’s just unfamiliar with the whole test format then buying some prep books and working through them would help immensely. Personally, I took my first SSAT in November, didn’t do any prep at all because then I wasn’t even serious about applying to prep school. I got 76% overall which is WAY below the average of the schools I’m applying to. I worked on prep books for less than two weeks over Christmas break, took the January SSAT and got 94%. So all hope isn’t lost! I strongly suggest for her to retake the exam, getting much higher than the first time isn’t difficult if it’s just a matter of unfamiliarity and unpreparedness.</p>

4

<p>How does one prepare for this test? I did a search for SSAT test prep books and they look as if they are simply full of sample questions. If someone does not know the material, and will get questions wrong, what then? It seems impossible that any test prep book will be able to thoroughly teach any concept.</p>

5

<p>Seeing as math seems to be her major weakness, I suggest getting Kaplan or Barron’s. They both have large math sections that teach you the main concepts that will be covered on the Quantitative sections of the SSAT. For vocab, have her learn the words in the Kaplan book. Learning about 800 words boosted my score 50 percentiles, so learn as many as possible. For reading, I suggest using the Barron’s prep and reading a newspaper article daily. If its easier, you can read the online MSN articles.</p>

6

<p>If she doesn’t want to memorize words I would learn Greek and Latin roots.</p>

7

<p><a href=“Boarding Schools with the Highest Average SSAT Score (2023)”>Boarding Schools with the Highest Average SSAT Score (2023);
Here is a listing of prep schools, grouped by their average SSAT percentiles</p>

8

<p>I think that test taking strategies and math exercises from the prep books boosted my score the most.</p>

9

<p>My question is: are they applying or did they apply for September 2014? Depending on the entry year, this score can mean everything or nothing at all.
If this is for this September 2014 and for the schools that do not have rolling admission, thus the top BS schools, the chances are slim, very slim. However, if she is thinking of applying for September 2015, the results can be greatly improved.</p>

10

<p>realistically speaking there not that great and many students have much higher scores…but there is still room for improvement theres a website that really helped me in my ssat you could try it…
<a href=“http://www.99percentileprep.com/”>http://www.99percentileprep.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11

<p>what school did she get into??</p>