What’s URM and ORM?
URM refers to under represented minorities while ORM refers to over represented minorities.
Thanks. Acronyms are not my forte.
My personal sense is that BS have much more invested in being the right place for the student than do colleges (who are happier to take your money and trust that you can make these decisions on your own.) DS was turned down from one of the Big Eight (I think that’s right!!!) with a 96% SSAT, all As, good sports and ECs, and honestly, I think it was the right decision. He’s not a super-competitive kid – much more laid back and collaborative – and he probably would not have thrived there.
I think that prep schools care about the SSAT, but I don’t think it works as a screening tool to the extent that it does for colleges because one of the major “outcomes” that prep schools care about is college placement. It seems to me that they care less about a standardized test when they sense that they’ve got a kid who is going to have a “hook” when it comes to college applications (i.e., someone who’s likely to be recruited for sports); they will have given that kid a good education and made him/her more academically appealing, and that probably aligns with expectations when applying. And in many cases, parents who attended these schools have a more realistic sense of how the system works so might be happy for what the kid gets even if he/she isn’t the brightest bulb in the string.
Which is all to say that “anomalies” will be many.
In most schools, FA need plays a very big role and can easily make up the difference of 10-20 percentage points in SSAT. As long as the school believes one has a reasonable chance to succeed academically, full pay is worth a lot of bonus points in admission. Remember we are taking about a smal subset of customer base, most of which are well prepared academically but fewer feel comfortable shelling out 60k/year for high school.
Great points everyone. Very informative and illuminating.
From a purely anecdotal, non-scientific POV, it’s pretty common to increase one’s SSAT scores by anywhere from 10-40 points through tutoring and/or repeated testing.
Agree with @GMC2918. My child took the exam with minimal preparation (familiarized herself with the format and took one practice test), and did the same one month later, without any additional preparation before the second exam. Her second score was 81 points higher than the first one and translated into 15% higher overall score, which was enough to put her where she needed to be in terms of applications.