My son is wrapping up 7th grade and will be applying next Jan for a spot Fall 2024. Should he wait to take the SSAT until closer to the application date to gain as much additional knowledge from school as he can? Or is the knowledge tested really stuff that will not differ much between now and next year? Thanks!
Has he taken a practice test? Any plans for tutoring to fill gaps and/or pick up some tips and tricks? He can take multiple times - but knowing his score a bit earlier could shift your school list too. Earlier could also help with what areas to work on the improve his score.
Depending where you live - 9th grade can be a tough admit. A lot of it is an “it depends” scenario and based on his school list and average scores of applicants.
Hunh? Applying in 8th grade for 9th grade is pretty standard.
You can take it more than once. Try taking it in early fall. That gives him time to retake it if deemed necessary.
“Additional knowledge” is only relevant for the math portion, I think. But some practice tests might help him determine what he should focus what his strengths/weaknesses are.
The scores are weighed in context. And every year there are applicants that are post on here about their near perfect scores that have unhappy M10s. There are plenty of people with below 90th percentile on the SSAT who do well on M10 - AOs are looking something more interesting than SSAT scores.
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Where we live - schools only add a small amount of the class at 9th grade as they go from 5/6th grade through 12th. Some Catholic schools start at 9th, but use a different test.
9th grade is considered the most competitive for entrance besides the “off” years.
I’d recommend taking it in the early fall and then if you want another crack at it, you can do that in mid-winter. We were not planning on two sittings, but my kid was sick on the first one, so we were glad that the schedule allowed it.
If you are doing test prep over the summer, you can pick your first date to coincide with the end of that. Prep can be a good way to fill some of the math gaps.
The other advantage of doing this early is that it can give you a chance to change your school list if you find your scores aren’t as high as you need for the schools on your list. That, of course, is more relevant if you are planning to board, which affords that flexibility.
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The overwhelming majority of schools discussed here most often are predominantly 9-12 grades, so the most common entry point by far is 9th grade.
To the OP: I would recommend having your son take the next available SSAT. Have him do the very bare minimum prep (as in, do the practice questions provided on the SSAT website - they have a handful for each section) so as to have a general familiarity with the format.
Get that baseline score. Who knows? Maybe they crank a 90th percentile or higher, and you’re done. Or, there’s a clear shortfall in some area or other and he can work on it if/as needed before taking the test again.
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Both of my kids took their first ssat the spring of their 7th grade. Then they had time to work on weak areas over the summer, if needed, take another test in the fall of their 8th grade and still have time for a backup test in December, if the fall test didn’t go as planned (sick, test cancelled, really bad day, etc).
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Do take a look at the earliest test dates accepted from the school’s your kid plans on applying. We had hoped that DS’s scores from MARCH/22 (98%/800 math) would count toward all his schools of interest… I mean… he took the test at 13 with those scores… why wouldn’t it?
As it turns out we were wrong. All schools took that score except Exeter, who wanted a score from APRIL/22 and beyond. WHAT??? 3 weeks really make a difference?? We didn’t notice that test date stipulation until Jan/23 right before the application was due. He called the school as well as emailed. They would not take the previous score but would accept a late score. So, after much back and forth he decided to retake it… and got a 99%! (he got into Exeter, and I was thrilled when he chose Choate instead 
So I will give you this advice: if a school sets a date they mean it.
With that said, the great thing about the SSAT is that you can take it as many times as you’d like and only report the scores you want (not like the ISEE), so that’s on your side. Also, the SSAT practice questions are fabulous. $140 ish for all the practice questions is a great deal. No need for tutoring. I say make it a point to have your kid spend about 30 min/day on those practice questions and take a full-length test starting in late July/August. By the time fall rolls around and you start down the application road, he will have a great test score. Just my 2¢ but do look at the required testing dates.
If your kiddo needs extra practice on the reading comp (many schools find this # very important) there’s a free service: readtheory.org. DS has been doing this at school, starting in 2nd grade and his comp skyrocketed in a matter of months. It really is incredible.
NOTE: The most important thing from the test is the WRITTEN PROMPT. Why? Because the schools feel this is the only real writing they read from the application- writing that has not been edited by adults. Heard this from several BS admissions folks directly (mostly from the Ten Schools… Exeter stressed this in our city’s in-person sessions… A LOT!). So if you’re going to concentrate on anything, concentrate on that.
Your kid will do great! Good luck!
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As a “piggy Back” kind of question- is the added snapshot worth it? Do BS really look into that or is the application process enough? I am on the fence about adding the SSAT snapshot to the package.
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Anecdote but our kids got into the GLADCHEMMS to which they applied without doing the snapshot.
In my opinion, no.
I think we had one or two schools that required the snapshot.
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One thing to consider: the upper-level SSAT includes 8th-11th graders, so there will be math topics that an 8th grader is unlikely to have covered. While the test (if I recall correctly) is scored by grades, it pays to be able to handle the higher level math.
In other words, a student who is entering 8th grade will need to study many things they wouldn’t have covered already and even won’t cover in 8th grade. I think prepping over the summer on ALL topics and then taking the SSAT at the first opportunity is a good way to go.
Keep in mind that our family’s experience is several years old now. So check it out for yourself, check with your child to see what they have and haven’t covered, find some resources for prepping, and fire away on the SSAT. For those prep schools/BS that don’t care how many times the SSAT is taken, it seems to me that it pays to take it earlier. If the score is not good, your child can take it again.
Worst case: they will be ahead of learning many topics that will be covered in later years. That’s what happened with our child, and she did exceedingly well on the SSAT, as well as on math in school.
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Agree, summer study and early take first one (and possibly only one) in early fall.
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This was true for my daughter this past year. She is entering boarding school this fall and was in pre-Algebra as an 8th grader. There were many, many topics she hadn’t seen - even having Algebra would have been super helpful, but she had to self-teach a bunch of stuff and get tutoring to help her be able to understand more questions. The topics ranged from equations of lines, absolute value, functions/quadratic functions, inverse variation, slope/intercept, lots of stuff with lines on a coordinate plane (finding midpoints, finding distance, etc), volume of 3d figures, and more. She just hadn’t been exposed to any of those topics previously and it was a lot of work to get her to a point where she could understand the questions and answer. She definitely employed a strategy of skipping questions during the SSAT! In the end, she had a solid score, but didn’t report it anywhere as her math was still well below her reading/verbal (those scores were always in the high 90s with no studying) and she didn’t want it to potentially be an issue. She was admitted to all six schools where she applied.
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So I’m in grade 9 rn and I’m going in to grade 10 in 2023 fall. I go to a public school in Canada.
I got waitlisted for Choate + Exeter this year and I am reapplying for the fall of 2024 for a grade 10 boarding.
Would it be better for me to take the SSAT or SAT?
Last year when I applied, my SSAT percentiles were between 90-94
Idk why I wrote so much info abt me but because everything really depends so…
Thanks for reading and please reply thank youu
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If you are asking about reapplying/regrading search CC. There are many threads discussing this, especially for international applicants. Also, the school’s websites have tons of information about applying so check there too. good luck!
Which SSAT practice books do you recommend? Thank you.
Vocab was our daughter’s weakness so we ordered this book.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BF44Q2Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
For the basic we used this for her year:
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Thank you 
Vocabulary is my son’s weakness too.
He is using this book now (1-2 sessions per day)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1726358070/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1