ssat scores low help

Prep School Admissions
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If you are trying to make the point that if a kid is outstanding in a certain aspect (e.g. much needed recruited athelete, a <em>desperately</em> sought after disversity case, etc.) then low SSAT’s wouldn’t stop them from getting admitted, I am with you. Otherwise, I am genuinely curious about these couple that got in a top school with < 50% SSAT. What top school is this? Was their SSAT scores really “out of range”? (I’d say it def was if the school’s average was say about 85%) I’d bet they have some “hooks”? If they are just our ordinary “well-rounded” kids, then it sounds to me like a lottery system, because as you know there are just <em>too</em> many such kids out there.</p>

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<p>Deerfield is one of the schools, and St Paul’s the other.<br>
Good “well rounded” kids. Their “hook” or what set them apart may have been something other than the scores. Not athletic recruits or legacies but maybe they had great recommendations or a terrific essay.<br>
My point is that SSAT’s are certainly considered, but they by no means are high on the list. Anything upper 70’s and above gets you “in the game” without question. Below that, you need a stronger transcript, a great written application, interview, etc.</p>

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<p>Interesting comment! Makes for a good case study on whether workload is manageable by those scoring in the top decile (>90%) of the overall population (~mid-70s on the more selective SSAT).</p>

<p>Which is why AO’s view each piece of the student’s application in the context of all other parts. Personally, I find the process very thorough (far more than college apps), with grades/rec’s/scores buttressed by the essays and the in-person interview.</p>

<p>Most AO’s have met thousands of kids, so they know what to look for, and how to bring it out, both in person and from the papers submitted. And since each application is read by a handful of people, individual biases are countervailed.</p>

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<p>Yes, I 2nd what Tinkerbell is stating. I know a few cases like that.</p>

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Just for the sake of argument, does your story support your point though? Do we know how many kids who have high SSAT’s but not so great recommendiations or less than terrific essay get admitted? How do we know which is “high on the list” - recommendation, essay or SSAT? So I guess maybe we can settle on that all of them are important and none by itself is a deal maker or breaker.</p>

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<p>It is absolutely more thorough than college. We were told that each college application gets about 11 minutes.</p>

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<p>Do some students get in to top schools with low SSAT scores? Yes (according to muf123 and Tinkerbell41). However, I think it’s important to note that if schools’ self-reported SSAT averages are accurate, those cases are exceptions to the rule.</p>

<p>To make an analogy, some famous models are not tall. Kate Moss is one small top fashion model. That doesn’t mean that height isn’t a factor when agents are recruiting models.</p>

<p>I know this sounds pedantic. As posts on this site remain for years, any applicant should look for schools at which his SSAT scores are comparable to admitted students’ scores. It’s fine to have reach schools, but if the objective is to have a choice of schools in mid-March, the applicant and his parents should not be counting on lightning to strike.</p>

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<p>Periwinkle - Tinker Bell is small and pretty (just ask Peter Pan), yet she is not a top model. </p>

<p>Do Lagerfeld and Valentino look for the tallest 5% of all women each year? Or do they say: if you are over 5’10", we will take a closer look at your other qualities? (Relative vs absolute standards.)</p>

<p>Extending your above logic to the SSAT also assumes that a “certain relative percentile score” (cf. “absolute knowledge level”) for a prep school student is clearly detrimental. While very low raw scores probably are, I remain skeptical that a “top 5” vs “top 25” percentile performance is really required to do well at a non-specialist (i.e. non-Physics Olympiad Training Camp) secondary school. No evidence to clearly support either claim.</p>

<p>As I pointed out on another thread, to the blind quest to seek SSAT score perfection is unjustified: the numbers do not add up. Unless statistically the SSAT is light years from a normal distribution; in which case the test itself is meaningless in the manner it is intended to be used. Please ask if you need clarification on this.</p>

<p>Fairy dust notwithstanding, there likely is an SSAT score that is too low to do well at a fine school. “Percentile 75”, however, is not it, and likely never was.</p>

<p>St. Mick’s School, SSAT scores for 49 students, with median score of 90:</p>

<p>58 61 65 65 66 68 71 72 72 74 75 75 77 77 78 80 83 83 83 85 86 86 88 88 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 95 96 97 99 99 99</p>

<p>Average: 84. Below 75: 1/4 of graduating class. Graduating: all. Going on to fine colleges: all.</p>

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<p>p43531, I never said that one must score in the top 5% of the SSAT to do well at a competitive prep school. If those schools are posting SSAT score averages above 80, and for a number of schools, in the 90s, large percentages of students must score at or above the average. Thus, if a student scores in the 55th percentile, he may be challenged by material other students will take in their stride. He may be able to handle the material, but not the volume of material.</p>

<p>None of us have access to charts listing the distribution of SSAT scores. Parents have asked about expected SSAT scores for applicants. Some have been told by the most competitive schools, “they like to see 80 on subtests,” as in, if the score’s at or above 80, it’s not barrier to admission.</p>

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<p>Not all of the students who enter a school graduate. Some students may decide to leave, or be encouraged to leave, if they can’t keep up. Not all the graduates of prep schools go on to fine colleges–check the matriculation lists of your favorite schools for more information.</p>

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<p>How does someone define “fine?” I think p4353’s distribution curve is relatively accurate for many schools. I’ve certainly seen the SAT distribution curves for MIT and many years the bell curve is similar.</p>

<p>Why? Because not all smart kids perform equally well on standardized exams. It’s a benchmark, not an absolute.</p>

<p>As for “fine.” I remember Exeter pleading with my parents when my sister decided to skip college to train with Alvin Ailey. She was messing up the “stats.” But she did just “fine” and later went on to college and got her MBA. Also - there are colleges all over the country that are “fine.” Who is to say that one college is better than another just because it’s got prestige? A lot of midwestern parents would kind of bristle. And some kids don’t want “top” colleges - that doesn’t make their choices less valid or valuable.</p>

<p>So - the reality is - the average stats are just that - average, but there are students who score much lower and go on to do amazing things in school because there - the “test” is about ability and performance over time, not over a 3 hour artificial time block.</p>

<p>I remember my favorite Physics teacher saying the problem with tests is that it only tests for certain things and that our “test” was to give an oral presentation on a topic of our choice and show him what we learned in his class. Best darn class and hardest test I ever took.</p>

<p>Which is why school’s wisely look past lower than “average” test scores if the rest of the application suggests otherwise.</p>

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<p>Seems 700 in math, and 650 in Verbal and Writing are the threshold below which chances of getting admitted are becoming lower significantly. (Can anyone post what national percentiles of 700 in math and 650 in V/W are?) </p>

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<p>As MIT’s own Dr. Perelman showed, the longer the essay, the higher the writing scores. So I will omit that iffy metric. <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?_r=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>SCORE/M/R Percentile Ranks For 2009:</p>

<p>800 99 99 730 97 96 660 91 88
790 99 99 720 97 95 650 89 85
780 99 99 710 96 94 640 88 83
770 99 98 700 95 94 630 85 81
760 99 98 690 94 92 620 84 79
750 98 97 680 93 91 610 82 77
740 98 97 670 92 89 600 79 74</p>

<p>Many MIT classes are math-intensive, so the admits self-select on this criterion. Based on the information provided, MIT’s admit pool has 75% above the 98th percentile in Math, and 75% over the 91st percentile in Reading.</p>

<p>cf. Harvard College

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<p>Harvard’s admit pool has a 75% above the 94th percentile both in Math and Reading. Very consistent, nice PR work. Someone has thought this over.</p>

<p>More important for our discussion: two of the most selective, and arguably most challenging academic institutions in the world admit a quarter of their class below these levels.</p>

<p>Harvard is socially smart enough not to provide further breakdowns (so reverse engineers cannot pinpoint the exact constitution of a Harvard class). MIT is too wicked smart to care, so they provide data (so reverse engineers waste time on such nonsense instead of improving their overall candidacy).</p>

<p>How meaningful is all this? Minutiae aside, one clear pattern emerges: MIT shows that all their admits came from the top 15% SAT Math, and top 20% of SAT Reading. It would surprise me greatly if MIT applied less academic rigor in their selection process than the nation’s top prep schools, and I assume they certainly will not accept an applicant if they are unconvinced she could handle the workload. I would venture a guess that SAT M/R ~Top 20% also holds for most Ivies and selective LACs.</p>

<p>There you have it: anecdotal evidence that some ~20% of the SAT population (10% of overall population?) could handle such academic workloads, assuming motivation and opportunity. However, how does this translate into earlier SSAT scores?</p>

<p>Well, it is doubtful that the overall SSAT pool of sixty thousand would be less selective than the overall SAT pool of two million. Thus the above top 20% (at least) would carry over to the SSAT. Also, there is quite some crowding on the high end of the SSAT, skewing the overall percentiles. Both tests are easy, but while the SAT casts a wide net, the SSAT does not. Therefore the SSAT as a test may perform best mid-range, and in raw scores; not with “scaled” scores (which nobody cares about) and definitely not with percentile ranks of a small, elite pool, further divided by grade and gender into ever-smaller test populations. Indeed, doesn’t the SSAT intend to diagnose absolute academic preparedness<a href=“as%20opposed%20to%20ranking%20an%20elite%20pool%20from%20#1%20to%20#60,000%20on%20a%20curve”>/U</a>?</p>

<p>Now it is a different question altogether what the school needs when assembling the class. This is one piece of information, and that only in the area of academic preparedness.</p>

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<p>700 seems to be a reasonable general boundary for elite college admissions–working backwards from published overall statistics, that is, in the sense that a score at or above 700 on either math or reading on the SAT means the score doesn’t disqualify the applicant.</p>

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<p>But a high score on the SAT math section doesn’t necessarily correlate with a high score on the critical reading section, and vice versa. The SAT doesn’t create an overall percentage, as the SSAT does, so we can’t assume that it’s as simple as “25% scored below 700 on the SAT.” A future lawyer may score a 730 on the verbal section, and a 570 on the math section. A future biochemist may score an 800 on the math section, but only 600 on the verbal. I would expect many of the SAT scores of admitted candidates to elite schools to be lopsided, along the math/humanities divide. </p>

<p>So a college applicant who scored 550 on both sections is free to apply to MIT, but he shouldn’t only apply to elite colleges. Yes, all colleges and prep schools admit a range of candidates. They also turn down many applicants with stellar scores and grades. I would say that any applicant should be realistic about his weaknesses as well as his strengths, when it comes to making a list of schools and colleges. Include “likely” schools as well as reaches.</p>

<p>Looking back at the OP, I would think that an applicant who has a solid record of achievement inside and outside of the classroom would have good chances. If he attends a school which regularly sends students to boarding schools, they will know how their students generally do, and they will not set their students up for failure. The thread’s OP is two years old, so the question’s already found an answer.</p>

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<p>I know this was 6 years ago, but which school did he decide to go to??? what did he get into???</p>