SSAT percentiles at top boarding schools

I see schools like St Pauls, Groton, Phillips Exeter have ssat percentiles for accepted students of 90% and higher. Does anyone know what would be the lower limit, if there is one, for acceptance? These scores are intimidating even for talented students.

I don’t think there is a strict lower limit, but anything lower than 60/70 ish would be a huge red flag for AOs

I believe the figures for Exeter of around 93-94%. Exeter typically has 40-50 National Merit Seminfinalists each year (roughly 12-15% of the class). SSAT and SAT scores are going to be very highly correlated. I don’t think the numbers at Groton or SPS are anywhere near that high, given relatively low percentage of NMSF at those schools (well under 10%, in some years under 5%). Bottom line, if there is a lower limit on SSAT, I’d guess it will be much higher at Exeter than at the other two schools.

Those scores are medians, no? That means half the kids have lower scores… I’d assume that candidates with scores under 80th percentile are high achievers in other areas (sports, arts, etc)…

I read average not median for these 90+% scores.

Ah… It would be interesting to know the distribution, though it probably doesn’t matter

my understanding is it is the average. the year we were applying the previous year was 94%. By definition of average there are higher and lower. thats a pretty high average.

There are a lot of interesting things that schools (and colleges) could tell us, but they won’t.

Andover, when they do quote numbers, uses median. Note that any secondary source like boardingschoolreview, is just that - secondary. They might quote average, but I am unconvinced that the writers know the difference between average and median (or mean or mode for that matter). Unless a number is on a schools’ website or has been quoted by a school official, take it with a grain of salt.

Regardless, it’s potato/potahto. The number is but one part of the application. Yes, if it’s far under the average/median the chances of acceptance decreases. But it’s not worth the effort trying to parse the data.

I had thought most used median as well.

It is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. Most AOs like to brag about how many kids with 99th percentile scores they reject every year.

The more I talk to AOs, the more I suspect they all have a threshold above which your score qualifies you as capable of the work.

In other words, a kid with an 89th percentile and a kid with a 99th percentile might be considered equally qualified and the decision to admit one and not the other will come down to teacher recommendations, essays, ECs, FA/FP, “fit”, and personality. Test scores will not be the tie breaker.

I disagree with @CaliMex. I have observed that SSAT scores are hugely important to BS and other top prep schools. There is a very strong correlation bewteen SSAT and SAT. And, great standardized scores are critical to college admissions. A 98 will trump an 89 all day long wit other factors being similar. This could be a dissertation but think about all the ways the SAT/ACT matters: it matters to the AI index for certain schools for college admittance. It matters for NMS and so on. And no teacher recs are not all that meaningful because they know that most of this is just like anything else: fluff. Remember every stakeholder has an agenda: A boarding school is assessed by many metrics but where there kids go to college is front and center. I happen to know the minimum number at a couple of schools for athletic recruits. Keeping in mind that athletic recruits will have that same EC for college.

@Center: What is your explanation for the large number of kids with scores in the 99th percentile who are rejected every year while those with scores in the mere high 80s and low 90s are admitted? If scores were more important than the rest of the package (ECs, essays, fit, recommendations, ability to pay, etc), that wouldn’t happen. The 99s would win the day every time.

My opinion probably falls someone between the opinions of @Center and @CaliMex.

I think the schools generally say that they don’t implement a hard SSAT cutoff, but especially at schools having the highest average (or median, as the case may be) SSAT scores, it seems difficult to make a case for the proposition that the scores aren’t important. It seems to me that those schools in particular have demonstrated the extent to which they value high scores by consistently admitting classes in which the students on average have very high SSAT scores. And the reasons provided by @Center as to why the schools might value high scores seem reasonable to me. For the same reasons, I would expect the schools to look more favorably on a candidate with a 98 than a 89.

On the other hand, I agree with @CaliMex that high scores alone aren’t enough to guarantee admission and that other factors do (and should) matter. With regard to recommendations, for example, I believe that they may be important, particularly if the applicant attends a school from which multiple students are applying to the same BS. I’ve written a lot of employee reviews, and I think it’s fair to say that anyone reading a handful of my reviews together can quickly ascertain which employees I think are the real superstars. Also, I think intangibles matter. The forms found on Gateway ask teachers to rank an applicant relative to other students in a wide variety of areas, including maturity, concern for others, responsibility, respect afforded by faculty and peers, etc. In at least some boarding schools, faculty and students review the applications. As some of these reviewers (and possibly reviewer’s children) may wind up living or otherwise interacting with admitted students, I have to believe that considerations such as maturity, independence, and likability carry meaningful weight. Finally, I think the teachers and counselors at middle schools whose students matriculate to BS with some regularity want the students they recommend to reflect well on their school, as recommending a student who does not work out may negatively impact future applicants.

I’m not suggesting, of course, that a recommendation would be the primary driver of who is granted admission, but I suspect that recommendations (along with interviews, essays, etc.) can take a candidate out of the running, even if the candidate looks good on paper. When one applies for an important job, it’s generally not enough to just send in a resume, transcript, and test scores. Companies conduct interviews, contact references, conduct background checks, etc. to get a better sense of candidates who look “good enough” on paper. The attributes that got the candidate past the first “good enough” paper-based threshold will continue to carry weight, but they will be considered in concert with other factors and intangibles.

Overall, I would expect SSAT scores to matter less and less the closer one’s score is to the school’s average, and visa versa. But I think it’s clear that no one should expect to be admitted based on a high score alone.

@CaliPops, we are on the same page.

I believe it’s a non-issue as long as you meet the median or average. They then know you can do the work. That score will not keep you out of said school. It seems most every school could fill their halls with 99ers but they don’t right?

What we were told at selective BS like SPS and Choate (not Exeter or Andover though…kid did not apply to either) was that anything in the high 80s and the scores wouldn’t be the thing that was a deal breaker. The SPS AO we worked with used a phrase like “Anything from the high 80s and up, and we know the kid can do the work.”

OTOH, SSAT not be all-end all…as I’ve recounted before, 7D1 had 2380+ (a “high” 99%-ile) on SSAT and got rejected by Choate. She was also NMF (and Chem E major) eventually, so not a dummy…

Agreed. Wait until your kids are doing college apps. Colleges at the HYPMS level routinely reject applcants with 4.0/1600/36 stats while accepting students with lower stats. A high SSAT score is not the Golden Ticket.

Yes appreciate a high score is not a golden ticket but thread is about whether there’s a score below which any other factors won’t save an application.

The process is arbitrary… random.
We long for certainty and want quantifiable metrics to calculate our chances, so we obsess about test scores and want there to be a “magic” number for which to strive. There isn’t one. The 99th percentile girl who the St Paul’s and St Andrew’s admissions officers LOVED, wasn’t admitted to Choate.

This is just my opinion, but I think a low 80s/high 70s score WOULD be an issue — without other offsetting factors (athlete, musician, URM, legacy, development case, etc.).