Hello,
I am quite nervous about applying to Andover due to my terrible SSAT grade of a 2106! Yet I am quite well rounded; I have created my own non-profit company, Charity Is Now. I play lacrosse, basketball, field hockey, and I alpine ski race. I have also won two Silver Key Scholastic Art Awards. I can act and sing pretty well. I also have sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I have won various awards for sports and drama. I am also a freshman applying for my tenth grade year. Do you think I have a shot? Please let me know for I quite nervous!
I also have all As and have been on the honor roll for the past three years.
What percentile is a 2106?
You do realize that the average SSAT is just that, an average. So there are higher and LOWER scores.
If you have already done the work of an interview and writing the essays why not apply? Do you love the school? Are there other schools you love?
It is roughly a 70% 
If you are faced with being an average kid at Andover, you should seriously consider staying at home. You may find the pressure is great, and the outcomes (at least in terms of college acceptance) are not that great. Of course it completely depends on what kind of person you are, what your aspirations are, and what your local hs is like. But if itâs important to you, you should look at the colleges a 50th or lower percentile kid with no advantages (âhooksâ) at Andover ends up attending. It is certainly not an Ivy League school.
That is helpful. I am also applying to Choate and SPS, I would assume that they have the same scenario as Andover.
For one1ofeach: Yes, St. Pauls and Choate
OP, you sound like a wonderful kid, who would be an asset at any school you attend.
If your heart is set on boarding school (in my opinion how it shapes you, for your life, is way more important than college placement) then the advice people give for college applies here: youâve named your reach schools â Iâd urge you to consider applying to schools where it is very likely youâd be admitted. Perhaps that might alleviate some of the stress â it isnât quite so all or nothing.
All these schools will give you a fine education, served up with a healthy dollop of pressure - esp if youâre an unhooked kid shooting for the ivies. You may be happier at your local hs, where it may be easier to build a fine college resume and to enjoy a higher quality of life. Dont make the mistake of thinking that a name prep school will magically open doors at college admissions time. You may end up very disappointed.
Thank you for all of your help! I sincerely appreciate it! The whole boarding school world is quite new to me, so I thank you. Minimickey, you brought up a good point; I am competing against the most smartest kids in the world! Maybe it is a good idea to just go to my local private school. Also, it is just high school, kids go to Harvard that come from public school. But I still am going to apply, just to see what happens!
If your end goal is admission to Harvard then public school is likely the best avenue. I absolutely believe that BS can decrease that chance if itâs your top priority.
I think a 70% is a problem for admission, especially applying for 10th grade. There are not a lot of spots. It really depends on the rest of your application, grades, essays, recommendations. Coming in after 9th grade can be a hard adjustment and they want kids who can hit the ground running with no academic hiccups. If you would consider repeating freshman year you might want to let your AO know that would be a possibility for you.
As the mom of a DD who has scored much lower than she hoped on the SSAT, I have been steeped in this very question over here, too. And, as many point out, there are a few questions that might be helpful to consider.
- Is it worth applying at all?
- Would Andover be a fit for you, even if you got in?
- Where else might you get the benefits of BS?
- Is it worth applying? In other words, do you even have a shot? The answer is: you have more of a shot if you apply than if you don't. (A version of: you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.) I truly do believe that the test scores are one piece of the "academic readiness" element of your profile. Your grades and recommendations are the other. The schools say scores aren't everything, and I believe them. And, note that once you are below the median school score, it doesn't "matter" in terms of their school stats whether you are 1 point below or 30 points below. So what that means is: really -- I do think they care about whether students would struggle academically. I think THAT is the concern with low scores. Have you given them solid evidence that you won't? (especially in your weak SSAT spots?)
Do you have as great of a shot as someone with 85 SSAT with your same profile? No. Your scores give them something they need to get past. Perhaps you could take the january 4th SSAT? I would strongly recommend that, if Andover is really your dream. Is it impossible to get accepted with a 70%? None of us really know that, but it wouldnât strike me as totally crazy. We have no idea how your interview went, and how you come across in your essays, which I personally believe matter a ton in life. People want to see people they love succeed and are willing to overlook the negative to justify their decisions (just human nature). So much in life is won and lost in the interviews (and I would include the essays as part of the extended interview).
- Would Andover be a fit for you, even if you got in?
I was completely disagreeing with the comment above that if you are not in the top 50% then it might better to stay home. And then, when you commented about that being maybe a good idea because you could go to Harvard from anywhere -- I kind of stopped in my tracks! First, I think only playing on a field where you are sure to be in the top 50% is such a limiting strategy in life! Maybe it's because I was born poor, and grew up on food stamps, but my whole life has been about surrounding myself with people smarter than I am, buying the cheapest house on a nice block to build equity, seeking out the very best education I could afford with the smartest kids I could find, and as an adult, hiring a team who is smarter than I am. The idea that anyone would ever walk away from an opportunity because they wouldn't be one of the smartest kids in the room seems so counter to any advice I would ever give my kids.
Deciding not to go to Andover, or any school, because you would truly struggle too much , or the stress culture is too much, or whatever, is a whole different animal. Life is short. Don't be miserable and don't sacrifice your emotional and mental well-being, of course. But not applying because you are worried you won't be in the top half of the class would be something I would advise my kids against. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF PEOPLE WHO ARE SMARTER THAN YOU. Especially at the age of 13. Guess what. Most people are smarter than you at 13. I agree with the concept that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Select wisely! Furthermore - Your SSAT scores do NOT (necessarily) indicate where you would be in the class. So many people train and prep and are tutored for that test, or are in private schools that even include that training as part of the curriculum. There are lots of reasons why you might not have done great. (Now, the hard truth is that if you did study for six months and take a prep class or get a tutor and take the SSAT 5 times and still got a 70 that might be more of a yellow flag to yourself that maybe you aren't cut out for an Andover. But if you are like my DD who was just totally clueless about this BS world and she didn't know any of the vocabulary and tanked it -- 31! -- well, personally I am not worried one tiny bit about her ability to succeed. I am worried for her that she won't get in, but that's a different concern. I've seen her in school and life for 13 years. She is so up to the task. You probably are too.) Also, you will be amazed at what you are capable of doing when the standard around you is high. You will rise to the occasion, if that is the kind of person you have been for 13 years.
All this, however, maybe doesnât matter, because when you say that perhaps you should stay home so you can go to Harvard, I think you reveal your reasoning behind going to BS in the first place: to go to an ivy. And absolutely â you can do that from anywhere. Our personal belief is that our DD will likely end up at the same college either way (BS or LPS), but WHO SHE IS when she gets there will be different. We are investing in who she will get to become over the next four years, in our opinion, not the college acceptance letter. I say that not to suggest you have the âwrong reasonâ for wanting to go to Andover. But just to say â my advice may not be valid for you because it may presume a certain value system that we may not share. (Again, yours isnât âworse;â just different.)
- Where else could you get the BS experience? If you are only applying to 2 or 3 schools, you are skipping over a bunch of schools that are super rigorous and amazing and who would give you the same benefits as an Andover. So if you want to get the "andover experience" then consider adding a few schools to your list ASAP. However, if what you really want is the Andover name, then obviously, my advice may not be helpful. Thinking there are only 2 or 3 "top" schools is a little like saying that Duke or Williams aren't great colleges because they "aren't Harvard or Yale." I'm just saying that there are a bunch of Dukes and Williams- level schools that you are overlooking. There is time to fix that but not much.
Hope that helps. I am in your corner and feel your pain on the SSAT front!
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@Calliemomofgirls i hope youâre writing something like this ^^ for your parent essays. The part referring to your daughter. It sounds great.
@Calliemomofgirls Amen! Now if people would just listen.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I just had a wave of relief go over me. I am still contemplating if Andover will be a good fit. Would you recommend this; if I email my Andover AO and tell her about my bad SSAT grade, so they have a heads up?
The rule for colleges is that you should communicate with ao only if you have meaningful information which is not part of your application. Suspect same with preps. If youâre unhappy with a score, advise taking a class and then retaking test.
I actually can help provide some context for this whole 50th percentile at Andover issue. I have relatively recent data for the graduating class of 2018, and it goes like this: the 161st student (of 321), from a college outcomes perspective, goes to what I define as a âvery goodâ college. In fact, the 161st student is right smack in the middle of this category. This âvery goodâ category, as I define it, includes colleges such as Georgetown, Tufts, Barnard, Wesleyan, Berkeley, Virginia, Northwestern, and Rice, to name a few. Thatâs a pretty darned good outcome for the 50th percentile at Andover: you can certainly throw me into that briar patch.
What about a real âbelow averageâ Andover student â to the extent thatâs not an oxymoron. Well, the 25th percentile would be the 241st student. That student would fit into the âgoodâ category of colleges. This âgoodâ category includes âlowlyâ schools such as NYU, Brandeis, BC, Trinity, Rochester, Union, and Wisconsin.
Stated differently, up and down the class, 88% at Andover go to a good school or better (including the very good, great, or elite categories). The other 12% arenât exactly stuck at a community college, either.
Now, if your goal is Harvard, I have to be blunt and say that it shouldnât be: 70% â or 80%, or 90% â wonât come close to cutting it, Olympics aside, irrespective of where you ultimately go to high school (the SSAT and SAT are highly correlated). For you, the real issue should be where you feel the happiest and, at the same time, challenged. If college outcome is your sole criterion, it is really hard to say: you will probably end up at a good or very good college wherever you go to high school (the Williamsâ of the world are a notch above that, though; they are also likely out of reach).
My advice: find a school where you will be happy and thrive. Forget about perceived college outcomes. Forget about going to only the âbestâ schools for college (or boarding school). You will be fine: there are a ton of good or very good colleges out there. Keep doing what you are doing and you will get there. Meanwhile, do expand your boarding school list if you want to go to boarding school.