Overall score or subsection score?
@CaliMex “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.”
You perhaps misinterpreted me or maybe I wasn’t clear. (probably). I was speaking to the OP’s very broad question.
YES: dozens of applicants are admitted with lower scores and grades quite frequently BUT in general they are in some basket that fits the schools’ needs. The OP basically asked if there was a bottom limit for the SSAT score. He/she didnt specify any other relevant factors -unless I missed something. For an applicant who is not in a special basket and is simply a top student then they really must match or exceed the average score. Because that score plus their grades are, in all likelihood, all they will have when applying to colleges 4 years later. So they must have the scores (especially if coming out of PA etc) . If the applicant is a recruited athlete or minority or legacy or musician etc, those factors will trump the need for a top score because that student will have their sport, their skin color or some legacy as a factor 4 years later . At schools like PEA, PA, SPS etc, the accommodation for scores is actually quite generous for certain categories of applicants. So-think about this. If, for example, there are accepted athletes at PEA or PA with have SSAT scores of 80 for example think about what the scores are like at those schools to make that average so high. ( One also has to remember that most student athletes at say PA or PEA are going to want to attend better schools even for their sport. Many of them are admitted on the strength of their AI to boost a college teams GPA. So the scores cannot be but so low or they wont hit a compelling AI-but thats another issue.)
@CaliMex “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.”
Sorry to disagree again but it is not really all that random. Each school has needs every year. Applicant loved by PEA and not admitted to Choate didn’t fit a need. We know a kid who was not accepted to PEA: 99%, 4.0. An excellent athlete in his sport but the wrong position…they didn’t need any more of that position. Take a school with an incoming class of 300. 1/2 boys/girls, 1/2 students of color, enough kids to play on 50 +/- teams (V and JV). and so on.
@Center : I meant “random” to those on the outside, who aren’t privy to the specific discussions. Applicants will never know if they were passed up because there was a bumper crop of violinists or lacrosse players. Hence the desire for a quantifiable metric that can guaranty a good outcome.
Don’t forget all the relatively “average” kids who are admitted to even top places based on family or corporate relationships with admissions officers, board members, the “right” consultants, etc.
Except for Exeter and, to a lesser extent, Andover, you can hide plenty of average in any boarding school.
gotcha @CaliMex. I think we are saying the same thing to some degree.
@SatchelSF : I’m sure that happens at Andover and Exeter, too. Their bottom third is quite large.
@CaliMex - Oh, I don’t necessarily disagree. It’s just that if you look at the numbers that we have on things like achievement test scores, SAT scores, etc., I think more average smart kids would “stick out” a little more at Exeter and Andover. At the opposite end, just looking at, say, percentage of NMSF, a surprising number of “elite” boarding schools post numbers no better than what you would expect at a moderately good public high school (no reason to name those boarding schools imo, but for anyone who is curious the data are not that hard to find).
If you’ve worked with gifted or profoundly gifted kids in any meaningful way, you know that there is a world of difference between, say, a 115 IQ kid and a 145 IQ one (two standard deviations’ difference). Even one standard deviation is very noticeable.
In this thread, we’ve been talking about lower limits for SSAT, but I think that given the interest that boarding schools have in fostering a sense of community, many of them actually limit how many “super high horsepower” kids they admit. I do think that the SSAT is a reasonable proxy for intelligence, but of course very imperfect. Moreover, there is always a lot of pushback about how certain kids get all the advantages, can pay for study courses, etc. and there is a small bit of truth to that for the youngest kids. But literally decades of research have shown that by the early teens, and certainly by the middle teens, most environmental factors fade away.
FWIW, it was mentioned upthread the number of NMSF at certain schools and more specifically Exeter. Don’t forget that Exeter is in that sweet spot and right over the border in NH with a pretty large graduating class.
I don’t think Exeter being in New Hampshire makes a difference for NMSF. Someone could correct me if I am worng, but I think all boarding schools have to meet the special higher boarding school NMSF index cutoff, so the NMSF data we have should be comparable among boarding schools. Day schools, on the other hand, will be subject to the state index cutoff of the state in which they are located.
That being said, the entire boarding school complex is quite a lot lower on the NMSF metric than the “best” day schools. It’s not even close. Only literally 10 or 12 boarding schools post numbers higher than you expect from a random group of PSAT takers, and only Exeter and Andover (roughly 60% of the Exeter number) are at all notable. I find the relatively low numbers of NMSF at bs versus day schools pretty interesting.
I want to say that if you go to school in NH you are looking at a 217 and if you go to school in MA, the cutoff for 2018 was 222. This would be for boarding students from any state and in state commuters. Why would the cutoffs be different for any school regardless of category? Maybe someone can confirm whether that’s the case.
I thought it was the permanent residence: these kids are from all over. And I must say having lived and had experience with top public gifted schools, private day and boarding, PEA is extremely challenging: meaning to get grades for that component of the NMS/F is much harder than most other schools. My kid scored in the 99% for PSAT and SAT and would not have the grades for NMS. We didnt even bother applying.
^^ not sure what being in NH has to do with it. BS are in their own category and usually have the same cutoff as the highest state (often NJ).
That’s my understanding as well, that boarding schools are in their own category.
Grades are important for the finalist competition of the national merit scholarship, along with a bunch of other things. But NMSF (which is “semifinalist”) is purely based on PSAT score.
@Center’s characterization of the academic challenge of Exeter is consistent with everything I’ve heard. For very smart kids I’ve never heard that any of the others are hard.
Apologies as I didn’t realize the NE boarding schools are grouped or even together with the mid-Atlantic schools. At home or at school the cutoff is high for my kid! I guess I always think of nearby Rhode Island which is far lower than Massachusetts.
Per another thread, it looks like NE and mid-Atlantic boarding schools fall within different regions, and the cutoff for each region is that of the highest state in the region.
Word on the street is 85% and above.