Let’s leave aside the kids who truly are great students and just cannot take timed tests like the ssat. In general ssat is helpful in some way to sort kids and figure out if they can handle the workload.
In the new test optional world how are schools going to be making sure kids can handle the workload? I know everyone says AOs have super secret special sauce systems but I’m skeptical. Here’s why I’m skeptical: at my sons school there’s a grade that was “designed by an AO” to be a wonderful meshed group of kids. They are. They also have the lowest gpa of any grade at the school and more of them are struggling to keep up. Maybe that’s fine, some struggle is good for kids (?), but I kind of lean towards it isn’t fine. It isn’t fine because I see my academic superstar kid struggle mightily and I question every day if the rigor of this d*mn school is worth it. What would I be thinking watching a less academically advantaged kid struggle even more???
I would ask: is the grade in question the 9th grade? If so, those kids are making their transition into BS during Covid with all that entails. In this case it wouldn’t surprise me that the 9th grade is has the lowest GPA in the school. They’re the least equipped, all else equal.
Honestly, I feel like the whole “test-optional” thing is fake. If a school wants to keep its prestige, they’ll accept kids with the ssat just to make sure they can take a test. I was on a zoom with a BS AO and he said that they’d much rather accept someone with the ssat but not have as good extracurriculars as opposed to someone with no ssat and a few good extracurriculars. They’re really just saying no ssat required to get more money on application fees.
@jackb192
Do you have kids at BS currently? It’s been my experience that they truly do mean what they say, I just don’t see how they will manage to execute on their good intentions. I am not worried about the test opional statements being untrue or a means to increase application $$, nothing I have seen or heard has led me to believe that is the angle.
I do see scenarios where kids will be accepted - because they have a compelling application otherwise - and then struggle mightily because there was no ssat score to equalize their application.
I have heard AOs say that a writing sample done while interviewing is pretty much all they need. They point to kids who came in with terrible test scores (less than 50%) who headed off to Harvard 4 years later. Fluke? Who knows.
That same AO also always asked interviewees lots of questions about how they handled homework. Whether she was right or wrong, the underlying assumption was that a hard-worker who had evidenced decent writing and reasoning skills (in that writing sample) could be a good student.
But I also agree that a test can be a good equalizer. I will say this - if you admit a ton of super high-achieving students, you probably don’t need high quality teaching. They’ll work it out. If you admit more middling students, the teaching needs to be top notch because this cohort needs it. There’s a part of me that wonders how this will play out for schools. To the extent that they admit students who need “more” to succeed, how will they do?
@one1ofeach I’m currently applying to BS but my two brothers and both parents all attended. That zoom was one of my interviews with a school and I asked how the test-optional thing would be handled; and if you’d end up negatively impacted.
The interviewer pretty much said that someone with high scores will be more likely to get in just because they know that they will succeed at their school and this was for Andover so I could see where they’re coming from. I bet they’re doing things for the money because when my brother was in Andover, he saw that they’d do whatever it took to get a lot more money. And even so, a college will do the fees for money and to pay for the AOs to review; I’d assume that the same would go for a BS.
In my opinion, with 3 boys having gone through boarding school (so, not an expert, but some basis for my opinion) the single best predictor of academic success at boarding school is good time management skills.
Also, just like colleges are familiar with certain schools (boarding, top public etc) the boarding schools are familiar with feeder schools too. Whether they are junior boarding schools or local day schools, the boarding schools know what good grades from those schools mean. Yes, just like with colleges, it disadvantages kids from unknown schools.
I couldn’t agree more. I believe the super select BSs will tend to admit somewhat more than normal numbers of kids from the feeder/JBS/LDS world, as their curricula and grading are known and understood quantities. We’ve also been told by those who dialogue with admissions officers the SSAT gives them comfort when someone is applying from an unknown school. At the same time, good admissions departments will be aware of this inequity and hopefully address it as well as they can. With all the work BSs have done to try and open admissions to a wider, less privileged audience, it would be a shame if it all got tossed this year. I don’t think it will, yet I don’t think this year will be completely “fair”.
I actually think SSAT has become less useful over time, much like SAT/ACT has, and not using it will enable the schools to take the students they want to have, and who will most benefit from the boarding school education. The fact that many kids now take SSAT three times, with serious tutoring, there are ‘flex’ options where you can take it with your tutor instead of group setting, so many families manage to figure out how to qualify for extra time, it is as much of a function of the resources you have as your academic readiness, if not more.
I don’t think the schools, including the most academic ones, want a class full of academic superstars. They get enough of them regardless, and it benefits everyone to have a bunch of kids who shine in other ways, in terms of their personalities, their extracurriculars, or bring the experience/background the school has been lacking. If the schools are serious about becoming more diverse, there is a great opportunity to make it happen.
And I don’t think the kids who come in less prepared will necessarily struggle, they may get the biggest boost by great teachers and support the boarding school has. They won’t be starting 9th grade in calculus, but that is just fine because all schools have algebra and geometry classes to fill, and are better suited to provide excellent HS math curriculum instruction than teaching college math. Yes our school has a big group of kids chasing curriculum rigor and taking hardest classes possible, but there are plenty of kids who aren’t in honors classes or maybe just one or two and are spending more time taking advantage of the non-academic things BS is offering. And they do very well in college admissions too, because they generally have other things going for them besides academics.
So I definitely see an upside in not requiring the SSAT, and taking chance on kids for other reasons. I think the interview in particular is good enough window to access a student and with all the other pieces of information they can make reasonably well informed decisions.
@417WHB
Very interesting perspective. I think maybe I know more kids applying to schools that are academically too much for them than you do?? I know multiple kids - maybe it comes from the parents (I’m not really sure). They got “good grades” in some classes in middle school/highschool but have literally no idea what it takes to survive academically at a top BS - and I do mean survive in regular level classes at BS. I know kids who were “top level” students in one subject and get to BS and cannot get placed in honors in that subject. And these are kids coming from good public school districts.
Pretty much all the parents I know in these cases do not have a good handle on what an actually exceptional, even just strong, student looks like or what their work looks like. I spend a lot, really a lot, of time listening to parents tell me how good their kid is in x subject and I’ve seen the work, parents just don’t understand what good work really is when all they’ve seen is their own kids’.
Out here in the Midwest, my son (prospective BS 9th grader) took the SSAT because we assume the schools in which he’s interested have no way of knowing what an “A” means in his particular middle school, of which they likely have no familiarity. The fact that he got an excellent score should remove any uncertainty about his academic aptitude.
While I can understand making this year SSAT optional for reasons of unequal access, I think every applicant who does take it should be required to submit it to every school to which he/she applies. An applicant shouldn’t be able to opt out just because he/she performed less well than hoped.
I don’t see how less data is better. In fact, I believe that less data is worse.
All elements of a typical application are imperfect when evaluated in isolation - test scores, grades, interview, LORs, EC list. But together, they provide a fairly comprehensive view of a prospective student. Removing any component is like removing a perspective from which to see the applicant.
I cannot imagine the difficulty in evaluating BS or college applicants this year. No tests, whacky recent grades on top of historically inflated grades, no live interviews, and kids unable to participate in most of their ECs or sports. While schools are emphasizing their holistic approach, there is unfortunately a paucity of data from all holistic angles.
I think it will be an interesting experiment, we shall see if/how different the classes end up being. In NYC they don’t seem to be able to pull off the regular high school admissions test due to covid restrictions, and there is a movement to just use lottery instead. We’ll see where that ends up soon.
I have to say that IME the kids struggling at boarding school did/do not struggle due to low SSAT but due to inadequate time management skills (much like @cinnamon1212 suggested). My own high 90s SSAT kid had a hard time with it, the official study hours end much earlier than he was used to doing his work, and are not sufficient to get everything done. It took him time to learn to use his free periods and Sundays to get a head start on the week. I know some kids needed help from learning center to do this, or even executive functioning tutor. But I don"t think it has much to do with intelligence and academic ability. Plus there is the willingness to grind, some kids strive for all As/A+ grades from most challenging classes and are willing to put in the work it takes to get there. A lot of kids are not quite so motivated, or their motivation is toward their interests only, academic or otherwise. In order for class to work well you need a balanced class with kids in all the categories.
@one1ofeach my DD wasn’t admitted to that school for her sparkling SSAT score that’s for sure. She was late to the application game and could only take it once with zero prep. AO definitely took the holistic approach. A hook got her to the table, but her application shone in every other way BUT the SSAT. We are pretty sure that admissions ultimately came down to her character and how that was displayed in so many ways throughout the process, rather then being an “academic superstar”. Her grades were good, but not over-inflated and we definitely come from an “unknown” school. I’m not really sure how they knew she would do well academically there, but it’s probably because they could definitely see that she is extremely bright (not always displayed by grades/test scores for many kids) and a very hard worker. It worked out because she absolutely loves it there!!!
She’s in the grade below your son’s. How did you find out about class GPA’s? I don’t even know hers.
