So my kid is settled, this isn’t really a personal question but I am curious.
I have read many, many discussions here over the past couple of years warning kids with (relatively) low SSAT scores that they will have a hard time at a school where the incoming SSAT score is 10 or 20 % points higher than theirs. This seems to make intuitive sense to me, if we are agreeing that it is a predictor of academic success or a measure of pure ability than the kid with a 75 will have to work harder than the kid with the 95 and should be wary of being in an environment where the average is much higher.
But is the reverse true? What about the thousands of kids who get above a 95, without much or any preparation. Are those kids happiest when surrounded by similarly scoring kids. If they are “gifted” are they bored in an environment where the incoming average is more like a 75 or 80? Do they need to be around other kids who process the information as fast as they do, or whatever. Because the list of schools with average SSAT scores above 75 is not that long and we are always encouraging everyone to broaden their search.
What I have observed at the school some of my kids attend which has a relatively broad band of academic ability, but less than you find in a LPS is that the kids at the bottom struggle incredibly hard, they work much harder than the rest of the pack, but the kids who seem to be at the top of the range don’t really seem to work very hard and are perhaps bored in classes like math where its hard to move at a quick pace. There is a sweet spot of kids for whom the school is perfect and the pace is just right, not too fast and not too slow.
Ideally I would want my kid to be in a place where they could be stretched but where they felt good about themselves and would hate for them to be in an environment where they always felt they were running to catch up. Maybe all of this is an argument for a larger school where everyone can find their niche?
I don’t know, just something I have been thinking about.
A really interesting question. I don’t know the answer either, but I think to some extent it may depend on whether a kid is more focused on the humanities or math/science. Math and science are obviously more level-based. A class covers a particular set of material, and it’s relatively more difficult for a teacher to challenge one particular student for whom the class isn’t challenging enough. Instead, what you really want is a range of classes and levels so that that kid can just be moved into a harder class that goes at a quicker pace. I’d think that a math/science kid who has high SSAT scores could be perfectly well challenged in a school with a lower avg. SSAT score as long as that school has a broad enough range of classes to keep that kid challenged for 4 years. In other words, it wouldn’t be a good fit if the school doesn’t offer accelerated math classes, AP or honors science classes, and science and math classes beyond the relatively standard offerings.
On the other hand, I’d argue that a good humanities teacher can more easily challenge a group of kids who differ in natural abilities. Humanities is less about teaching content and more about using content to teach skill sets – analytical thinking, good writing, research skills, etc. A teacher can push a kid by making sure that his topic for a research paper is a harder topic, pushing harder to get the kid to do meaningful re-writes, encouraging him to look for additional sources.
That said, obviously the teachers can only do so much, and a big part of the “stretching” that a kid does in school comes from being around similarly interested, engaged students. So I think my focus would be less on the average SSAT score of the school and more on the tenor of the classrooms. It’s a hard thing to get a feel for, of course, but I think what you really want is a place where most of the kids are actively engaged in wanting to learn, and not just there because their parents made them, or because the school excels in whatever sport they play. I’d take a group of lower test-scoring but enthusiastic learners any day over a group of naturally higher scoring but intellectually lazy kids any day.
I have thought a lot about that same question, not so much from the academic point of view because I largely agree with @Soxmom’s point (although humanities classes can be a snooze if the class dialogue is not pitched at the level your kid is at… since analytical skills can vary widely and what passes for insight does too) but from a peer group aspect. For socialization purposes, some high IQ kids really need a critical mass of peers who think on the same plane and process the world on roughly the same level… kids who will think your dumb nerd jokes are funny, for instance, or who enjoy a deep, esoteric conversation on whether the first World War was really started over a sandwich or whatever. And kids who will also challenge you, I don’t mean in an aggressive way, but who are smart enough to keep you on your pins conversationally and otherwise, and keep any smoldering hubris or general complacency at bay. Not every high-scoring kid needs that. There are many who form close friendships with kids up and down the score range…(and as we know scores are not always an indicator of cognitive ability since some folks just do not test well)… but there are other kids who do need a cohort of peers who “grok” how they think to feel comfortable in their own skin.
My DD is just starting BS in the fall, so this is pure conjecture on my part. However, DD was the one pushing to go and her reasons were “I am tired of getting the strange looks when I am the only one who can answer the question” or “the only one who has ever heard of …” or, even better, “the only one who cares” about the material." She wants to be in a class filled with other students who, as her report card states, “go above and beyond” and is truly engaged in learning. The school she will be attending does have multiple levels of classes, so she should find her fit. Hope she does!
As for the kids who are being pushed by their parents to go to BS: haven’t they been weeded out by the savvy AOs??? This is an injustice to those kids who REALLY want to go and challenge themselves and do not have the chance. Shame.
How much is SSAT score REALLY linked to how intelligent someone is though? I think there is some correlation, and it kind of puts everyone on one level to compare, but I go to a school/background where standardized testing is not felt to be that accurate. Also, as my dad says, there are skills…like being able to BS your way through things and being able to read a teacher and figure out what makes them tick that are more linked to actual success in school and life vs JUST ability to perform on one test (he says he had to study a lot less in school - he was smart yes, but he understood exactly what he needed to do to be successful at certain things and was able to spend less time on some things and not on others). I kind of get that even though I am just in middle school.
I’ll find out in a few years how my 93% child fares in ~65% average school. At the moment, I have zero concern. My kid is intelligent but deals well with variety of friends of varying interests and intelligence.
I have a good friend whose daughter fits this model and is very happy. Math, science, language, and some history classes were all leveled at her school starting freshman year (honors or AP classes were offered). English and other history classes did not have honors or AP sections until Junior year. The one class in which she was very bored was a sophomore English class (she loves English and writing), in which she thought the discussion level was very poor-- but Junior year is much better again, as she is in AP English. She’s pretty grade-driven, and will work very hard to get a “high A” (97 or 98) rather than just a " middle or low A." Because she’s mostly in classes with other high-achievers, her friend group over time has morphed into a group of other high achievers (I don’t think she intentionally sought out those peole or excluded others-- it just happened over time). The school seems to be able to challenge a very broad range of kids. Anyway, this is just one anecdote, but she is very happy and continues to be challenged-- but, as I said, she’s pretty grade- driven and hard working, so I don’t know if she would have been as challenged had she had a different personality.
This topic is not unique to boarding school selection, and is chock full of obvious complicated trade offs one can over worry. Is it better to be surrounded by highly intelligent peers who are far from representative of the general population than it is to find ways to be challenged in a slightly more representative world? Clearly there is no correct answer. It’s another version of the big fish small pond problem. Seems that whatever path one chooses, there is a necessary augmentation to deliver a complete experience set. Go to a small elite school with mostly super geniuses? Better throw in some life experiences dealing with folks who don’t fit that profile. Head to a school with more diversity and a lower average future Nobel prize winner per capita number? Better find ways to stretch the mind outside of school.
In these forums I often feel there is too much focus on how to gain admission to the hardest to enter schools rather than how to gain admission to the right schools for the given student. Having spent many moons running companies with a wide variety of employees, I can tell you that executives with all brains and no ability to relate across demographics and intelligence levels are not that great. By definition, leaders lead very few people who score over 95%…I am not implying that going to a high scoring school implies the student will miss these skills, but rather meaning they should be valued as much as anything else.
I’ve posted it before… an article from a Professor at Harvard who said that SAT scores give very little indication of who will become a good student. I really like what Blackbeard is saying… how life skills and problem solving are an important part of growth and potential.
SSAT average is probably not a good metric for this right “fit.”
Above comment reminds me of “Hope for the flowers,” caterpillars struggling to get up into the sky. “There’s room in the sky for all butterflies.” (Gosh, I found after googling that Trina Paulus has a blog!)
Please don’t think I’m highjacking the thread… I am responding to this conversation because it has great questions that i care about So… here’s an interesting talk from Malcolm Gladwell about these ideas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEwbRWFZVc
@jdewey, that Gladwell talk was fascinating, thanks so much for posting. It really helped crystallize some things I was thinking about for my daughter and her choices of boarding schools.
One thing that he doesn’t touch on, though, is the relative value (or not) of attending an elite institution if you’re going to be middle of the pack anyway. I totally buy his notion that it’s better to be first in your class from Podunk School than to be middle to bottom of your class at Prestigious School (and interestingly that’s already the hiring model that my company often uses). But of course this assumes that the kid who would be middle of the pack at Prestigious would be at or near the top at Podunk, which may or may not end up being the case. There are also plenty of kids who gravitate to the middle, no matter where they go, for many reasons. I would argue that in that case, you’re better off being at Prestigious than at Podunk, at least for colleges. I’m not sure this matters as much for BS in the long run. Your college education stays on your resume pretty much forever, but it starts to look stupid to make much of even the most prestigious BS on your resume once you’re past your early 20s.
I can definitely say that the name of the prestigious college on my resume has opened many doors for me over the years even though the grades I got there were only just decent. I had a lot of fun in college and was probably going to just scrape by on grades no matter where I went, so I’m clearly a lot better off in the long run having Prestigious on the resume than Podunk.
I too went to a highly competitive/prestigious college, I was recruited early admission but ended up being pretty average at best. It wasn’t a good fit for me and I wonder how I would have progressed at a different style school ( but probably helps my CV). Regarding my own ( very middle/regular)children and placement? I feel pretty confident that they would end up feeling ‘not special enough’ at a more competitive school, and it would change their progress. Acquiring the skills to self direct and learn leadership in a ‘warm’ environment makes sense to me. It’ll be VERY interesting to see what happens in just a few short years.
I too have shiny names on my resume and barely managed to float. A few classmates sat around one day and decided to use a calculator to find our average IQ and it was over 140.
I did find, later on, my “small pond” or niche. What Malcolm Gladwell misses is that, in the long run, the bottom feeders do come around and have successful lives afterward. It may not be what they have imagined going into top programs but they do find their niche, they don’t just disappear into oblivion.
I am not sure what to make of the SSAT at the higher levels (>80%) since it appears that 3 questions answered correctly can swing a sub section percentile by as much as 10%. Looking at scores for 2 separate tests taken 2 months apart revealed this. I think that it serves as a reasonable mechanism for screening out applicants for some schools. But once we start talking about “super scoring” and getting to the higher percentiles, I think that there is no way that you can argue for its impact on future success at age 13. I think that personal qualities innate and learned are better predictors.
@heartburner that may be true but that kind of proves the point I am asking about. Thousands of kids score in the high 90’s without superscoring or multiple test taking, there is a big difference between the top 5% of test takers and the top 20% I think, especially if that top 20% actually is superscoring, taking the test multiple times etc
I agree with @LifeLongNYer. There is a big difference between the kids who take a weekly prep class, have personal tutors and superscore , and the ones who walk in with minimal prep and score in the high 90s. Both can work hard and be successful in a BS, but the starting points are vastly different. The student who had to work super hard just to get into a BS may not be able to take advantage of all that a BS can offer. Parents and students should consider this when looking at school options. The SSAT helps determine what kind of schools would be a better fit.
So… here’s an interesting talk from Malcolm Gladwell about these ideas. 