verbal: 701 Grade 8 my total percentile 81 Grade 8 Female 82
quantitative 767
reading 671
total 2139
my first list school is Thatcher
I will be taking the SSAT again in December
I think these scores are too low for Thatcher and Hotchkiss
I know two students in the last two years who were accepted to Thacher with roughly equal or lower scores. Obviously, you need to bring more to the table than just scores. Best of luck with your upcoming SSAT!
@SatchelSF: Were they legacies, siblings, or staff/faculty kids, per chance?
@CaliMex - Oh yeah, both students had connections.
That score may be below the average but plenty of kids at the top schools will have scores in that range. My two at Hotchkiss did. It’s about the whole application so if you are on the low side for the SSAT you may need to make it up elsewhere in the application. My first kid at Hotchkiss wasn’t hooked as a legacy, sibling, development kid or potential impact athlete and he was your typical public school white kid from an overrepresented region. He did have good grades, good recs, and is a reasonably good athlete (JV) with a music hook. While I don’t know, I think the determining factor on his application was that he was able to articulate specifically why that school was his favorite and a good fit for him. My daughter was a sibling, a potential impact athlete and had a music hook as well. I guess what I’m saying is that provided the SSAT and grades suggest that the child could be academically successful at school, it really is about the strength of the balance of the application. It’s a bit off topic, but with my own kids I do not see a direct correlation between low SSAT scores and a student’s ability to be academically successful. My two at Hotchkiss are doing better than their SSATs might suggest and my son who graduated from Kent entered with much lower scores than their average and graduated in the top 25% of his class with the highest rigor classes.
I’m not on Thacher Admissions, but I think >80% and they think that you can do the work. What they want to avoid is admitting someone who would struggle and be unhappy. They average SSAT is higher of course. They pay the most attention to verbal/reading/writing. And definitely spell the name of the school correctly. It’s Thacher. And good luck!!