<p>Hotchkiss is obviously one of the elite BS in the world, providing an exceptional educational opportunity for its students. However, I understand the concern voiced by several on this thread. A year ago we began the search for a BS for our son. We want only the best for him. SSAT average scores are a very imperfect measure of future academic success, and an even poorer indicator of the quality of the school. Nevertheless, it was certainly one of the measures we used to narrow down the list of schools we considered applying to. Unfortunately, perception often translates into reality. If you have to choose, which group of schools do you want your child to consider attending? You can say the difference in the SSAT average is irrelevant, but over time, on the margin, it will shift the applicant pool to the school – a negative feedback loop, reinforcing a lower average score. I don’t think you want to manage your admissions process around the average SSAT score, but I think it would be naive to discount the relevance of the average to future applicants. You can say the SSAT average doesn’t matter, but based on the passionate response of others on this thread, it obviously does.</p>
<ol>
<li>Phillips Academy 93%</li>
<li>Milton Academy 90%</li>
<li>Groton School 90%</li>
<li>Georgetown Preparatory 90%</li>
<li>Deerfield Academy 88%</li>
<li><p>Middlesex School 87%</p></li>
<li><p>St. Andrew’s School, 83%</p></li>
<li><p>The Hotchkiss School 83%</p></li>
<li><p>The Thacher School 83%</p></li>
<li><p>St. Mark’s School 82%</p></li>
<li><p>The Taft School 82%</p></li>
<li><p>Lawrenceville School 81%</p></li>
<li><p>St. George’s School 81%</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That’s probably why some schools choose not to disclose that info. As always they want to disclose information that they think “helpful” and do not want to “confuse” you with the information they think would confuse you. In that sense, I admire Hotchkiss for the disclosure because they might’ve been aware that a 10% drop in a year could lead to some questioning.</p>
<p>Exeter123 is dead on spot with his/her analysis on the fall out from the 10% plunge in average SSAT scores at Hotchkiss. This school and its supporters must, I fear, brace itself for some deterioration in the academic qualities of its applicant pool in the years to come or alter soon that portion of its acceptance procedures dealing with SSAT scores because, on at least one front, the gap between, on the one hand, Andover, Deerfield and, I bet, SPS and PEA and, on the other hand, Hotchkiss has grown on the HADES playing field.</p>
<p>tennisgeek1, every kid wants to a part of the best. I assume that you want Hotchkiss to be the best BS in everyway possible. A few weeks ago, Hotchkiss had the best SSAT scores in the country: 93%. I’m displeased that my son’s school is no longer the best BS in an area watched and ranked by many. If you don’t care about your school’s collaspe here, that’s your sad problem.</p>
<p>Last spring, ImCrazy, your question was absolutely critical. This September, it is completely irrelevant. My family is now “all-in” on Hotchkiss. So the issue today is not my child’s choice for BS. That issue is moot. The issue we have now is how, if at all, Hotchkiss plans to address its dramatic slippage in the SSAT sweepstakes.</p>
<p>Tennisgeek1, please read my prior post. I never called you a “sad person”. And I never would. I said that you had a “sad problem”. I hope that you will read your lessons more closely at Hotchkiss than you read messages on CC. So (a) if you don’t give one little hoot at all that Hotchkiss is no longer the very best BS in the nation, if not the world, in a renown ranking catagory, although you are now a Hotchkiss student, and (b) if you can’t read messages correctly, you now have, in my humble opinion, two problems, sad or otherwise, both of which, however, I am hopeful you will address and remedy over time.</p>
<p>Well if you had no other choices there’s no reason to be complaining. Thats why I asked, I would understand if you turned it down for like 3 other top schools.</p>
<p>My son had several choices. Would he/we have chosen a BS other than Hotchkiss last spring if the Hotchkiss SSAT average been 83% not 93%? Well, maybe, maybe not. Because the average was then 93%, however, we based our choice on the facts then, not now. This line of inquiry is a useless exercise.</p>
<p>Would we pick some school other than Hotchkiss now that we know the SSAT average is 83%? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Again, this question is fruitless; we can’t redo our choice, as a practical matter. We are committed to Hotchkiss financially for 2009-10, and the doors are now closed at almost all other BS’s for this year.</p>
<p>Will we move our son from Hotchkiss next year because of the lowered SSAT scores at this school? No. We and he will make the very best we can from the many opportunities this school offers, and we hope and believe that all will work out well enough.</p>
<p>In response to toombs61’s comment "I’m displeased that my son’s school is no longer the best BS in an area watched and ranked by many. "</p>
<p>Wow. Just because you sent in a check doesn’t quite make it your son’s school (yet)…he has not even moved in yet! It is mighty brave of you to “make the very best we can from the many opportunities this school offers”, and best of luck to your son. Hopefully he is arriving in Lakeville with a positive attitude and a desire to take advantage of all the great opportunities without worrying whether the kid next to him only had an SSAT score in the 80’s.</p>
<p>As a Hotchkiss parent, I just hope you don’t plan on storming the admissions office with some insane call for a return to the 93%ile+ SSAT bar, or whatever would return Hotchkiss, in your eyes, to glory…you know very little about Hotchkiss, which is true for any parent whose child has not even started classes yet.</p>
<p>You may be horrified to find others at Hotchkiss who, like tennisgeek1, don’t give “one little hoot at all that Hotchkiss is no longer the very best BS in the nation”, as most of us understand that it’s a bit obnoxious for anyone to claim their particular school is “the very best” for all students.</p>
<p>Enjoy the last few days home with your son. Last, enjoy the move-in at Hotchkiss and hopefully you will meet some wonderful students, faculty, administrators, etc. who will convince you that they REALLY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING!</p>
<p>My 2c about this argument: Toombs61 expressed some concerns about the somewhat drastic yearly drop of the average SSAT scores of Hotchkiss’ entering class, which I think is legitimate. Given the current economy, I know more than one new BS parents who’s having doubt or “buyer’s remorse” about the decision of sending their child to BS. However, I think as a “set to go” Hotchkiss parent, Toombs61’s questions should focus on why this happened - was it because Hotchkiss had to take in academically weaker students because of the endowment shrink as it happened to almost all schools, was it because the school put more weight on something else other than SSAT in admission, or was it because a low yield reduced the quality of the admitted students? Instead he is arguing whether it means Hotchiss is not the “best school” any more, which is not gaining anyone anything and obviously is unlikely to have an answer. By the way, I think the acronomy HADES is doing more harm than good. The misconception of “5 best boarding schools” is causing confusion, and to compare these five very different schools is just a bad idea. 4square, on the other hand, made a good point in saying that there is no best school for everyone, and that a boarding school has so much to offer and focusing on the SSAT score is not wise, but I feel his tone was condescending, and he didn’t even try to understand where Toombs61’s concerns came from, let alone try to find an answer for him. I would want a current parent to be a little more understanding and supportive.</p>
<p>Thanks, NoDarma, for your injections here. About the only comfort I can take away from 4square’s stout reply to my concerns is that he/she loves Hotchkiss very much and, in time, my son will too. I hope that he/she proves prophetic.</p>
<p>I remain, however, a bit nonplussed by some of the Hotchkiss folks who think that everyone connected to Hotchkiss should somehow be happy or remain unmoved or stay quiet about the incredible drop in recent SSAT scores at Hotchkiss. Such reaction is puzzling; worse, I fear that unresponsive and bitter reactions by some true believers at Hotchkiss to those expressing concerns over the recent crash in SSAT scores could encourage some highly attractive applicants to eschew Hotchkiss. A drop in scores is one thing; a complete denial of any concern whatsoever over this drop and then attacks against those registering any such concern is another. </p>
<p>I hope that Hotchkiss and many of its supporters will soon start looking into the reasons for this drop, and, what, if anything, it should do correct this collapse.</p>
<p>I ask that only because your child wasn’t really accepted into any other high SSAT averaging school judging by the mast list of acceptance, so I don’t see what other choice you had. Are you worried that you should have kept him at home? Other wise you really have no choice but to deal with it, hotchkiss could drop 20 percentile points and still be better than his next best choice so why complain? I’d be grateful he even got the opportunity to attend a top boarding school…nothing against your son or anything, that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>That’s like me complaining that Brown dropped 3 spots in the rankings when my next best choice was my state school. Makes no sense, who cares? Well I guess you do…stupid question.</p>
<p>Goodness, you’re such a whiner. There’s nothing you can do about it unless you get a job in the Hotchkiss admissions office, so get over it. And yes, I am ready for you long hate rant, so bring it on.</p>
<p>ImCrazy, you are crazy. It doesn’t matter whether my son was accepted in 20 schools with better SSAT scores than those Hotchkiss is now reporting or 20 schools with worse scores or both. The point is that Hotchkiss is, in at least one ranking, dramatically different now than it was weeks ago. Hotchkiss has changed its profile. As a parent now invested in Hotchkiss, I’m concerned that it is not the same school, in at least one respect, that it was when my family decided to enroll our child. </p>
<p>As for my choices, I now have none. As for my choices in the spring, I had many. (My son was accepted or waitlisted at 9 of the 10 schools to which he applied, plus he was attending the best private day school in the State.) Again, that all means zip now. </p>
<p>But if you somehow think that only folks with kids accepted by, say, Milton, Groton or Andover can now moan if they didn’t send their children there but instead sent their children to Hotchkiss, you are foolish. As we have heard constantly on CC, there are many things that make a BS. So true. If a child was accepted at, say, Hotchkiss, St. Andrews (Del.) and Thacher and liked them all but decided he wanted to go to Hotchkiss because, as a tie breaker, it appeared to accept on average the smartest kids in the country based on SSAT scores, although he loved the culture, location, weather, etc. at these other two schools much more than Hotchkiss, you would tell him to shut up, based under your fractured logic, because these two schools still don’t have higher SSAT scores than Hotchkiss.</p>
<p>I don’t even understand what the hell you just said. I would break down your post, but I don’t have the time to waste. All I can say is my craziness got me into a prep school with a better SSAT average than Hotchkiss (seems to be a big deal to you), I guess Im better than your child. My craziness got me into a top Ivy league (your childs chances at this are ruined because hotchkiss is just a failure school now). I like my craziness. So far my craziness has achieved for me everything you want for your son. Your crazy in a different way, a way that won’t really help you with anything. Good luck to your kid. I was trying to help at first but you’re ridiculous.</p>
<p>tennisgeek1, you are wrong: there are many things I can do about the sharp drop in SSAT standards at Hotchkiss. I can mention it to all who read CC that this collapse exists; that I don’t like it; that, in the opinion of many, this decline is not in the best interest of the school; that all who love Hotchkiss should be concerned about this decline; that all who care about Hotchkiss should work with the school to figure out how it arose, how best to address it and how best to correct the decline, if at all, etc. I have many other things I can do, but why engage you in this discussion? It is absolutely clear that you are not here to discuss SSAT scores at Hotchkiss but to incite and then get swept away in some “long hate rant”, whatever that is. </p>
<p>Boy, are you going to be a delight at the Harkness tables at Hotchkiss!</p>
In that sense, I admire Hotchkiss for the disclosure because they might’ve been aware that a 10% drop in a year could lead to some questioning.</p>