I’m applying to really competitive schools, and although I have great references/grades/ECAs, I’m a little worried about the SSAT score. I haven’t had interviews yet. On the surface it seems to me 89% is an okay score, especially for a first test, however, the breakdown is 99% Verbal, 92% Reading, and…51% Quantitative, which is…not good. I’m generally very good at maths, and this score could be attributed to a) self-study b) fire alarm at 3am morning of test in hotel 
, or c) (most likely) just felt pressured to answer more questions and got reckless, which I’ll assume is common for first-time test takers…my grades in maths have been A average this year, which is good, and my recommendation from my maths teacher is likely to be very good if not excellent, so do I submit my score? I’m proud of the verbal and reading score, and I consider my writing sample to be pretty good. Thoughts?
If your math grades are excellent, your low SSAT math score might be due to mis-bubbling on your answer sheet.
Probably better to submit an 89% SSAT score if a strong recommendation is included from your math teacher.
Part of the problem might be that if you got reckless, you didn’t just not get the points for that question, but you actually lost points as a penalty
Are you an 8th grader applying for 9th grade? And are you submitting your applications in February? I just want to get a sense of how much time you have before you submit everything.
Regardless, 89th percentile is an excellent score. Obviously, math is the outlier. There is a January 8 test date coming up. Do you have any interest/ability to take it one more time?
If not, as one poster said, get a strong LOR from your math teacher. And yes, it’s totally understandable that your score was affected by a 3am fire alarm in your hotel!
Yes, I am an 8th grader applying for 9th, submitting my applications in January. I can’t really go for the 8th January date, because I’d have to travel to the UK and Omicron…overall, I just don’t want my low maths score to define my level, if that makes sense.
Totally understood.
I agree with @Publisher: check to make sure you can submit an LoR from your math teacher (some of the applications/portals limit how many LoRs you can submit and what kind of person can serve to write the LoR for you (e.g., some schools require it to be an English teacher).
If you can get your current math teacher to speak to your strength and also the fact that you had to travel overseas and were disrupted in your sleep, then submit the score.
Very best of luck!
You don’t get a chance to explain your scores. If you do try to explain an 89% you’re going to sound silly so don’t try.
Almost all (all?) applications require a math teacher rec. so it’s not an extra step.
I’m aware I don’t get to explain the score, that was just to explain it to the people on here, hoping to make the point that the score doesn’t accurately indicate my maths skills, which is why I’m not sure about submitting it. For the schools I’m applying to, the maths rec is required, and I’ve already got it.
Ssat scores are often a shock. You are being compared to kids who are going to start freshman year in calc BC. Compared to kids who are veritable math geniuses.
While that’s true, a student need not be on that level to perform splendidly on the quantitative portion. I do not believe the SSAT tests pre-calculus, for example. In fact, students who have proceeded far beyond geometry and Algebra 1 would be wise to freshen up on them before taking the SSAT, otherwise they might forget some of the basic concepts that are emphasized in the test.
I would say the difficulty of the math section of the SSAT arises from stress more than not knowing the material. It can take a single problem to trip someone up. You blank out on a problem, spend a lot of time on it, hear the clock ticking. Realizing you won’t solve it, you move on, pressured to do everything quickly because of the time spent on a single problem, and nervous because you didn’t get it. The next time you get stuck on a problem, you would be much less willing to skip, because you skipped already. It snowballs quickly.
Stress would apply equally to the verbal section, no?
Maybe, but I feel like in the verbal section, much depends on what you know already. With math, the wrong approach to a problem can cost you lots of time.
Personally, the stress in the verbal section is mostly due to the fact that I had 10 minutes of break to realize how easy the math problems I missed were 
Perhaps the reason why I feel this way, is because I expect a near perfect score from myself in the math section, while in the verbal section, I can afford a skip every now and then.
This is definitely true, I myself have been a little beyond these, but I would recommend strongly that people revise this, and earlier concepts too, for example even basic mental calculation, although test problems don’t tend to involve too much. I feel like (I used the Princeton Review study book) when I revised I ended up looking at concepts that weren’t even on the test (my practice tests placed my maths score at 92%).
I think it depends on the student. I didn’t really study for the verbal, but have a good vocabulary due to years of varied reading, this was something I had really built up over years, like I suppose some people have for maths?