I know in the aftermath of Covid it seemed like there was a big jump, but I guess I thought maybe it would have settled/gone back to somewhere between pre-Covid and post-Covid numbers. The numbers at some of these schools are super intimidating!
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I know someone who works on the website and they say the difference is because Boarding Schools don’t usually get updated on Private School Review
I would assume that since most schools are still SSAT optional that is driving numbers higher at the top schools as kids that might otherwise have not applied give it a shot. That is not true at LVille or Groton, not sure at some of the others.
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Exeter as well
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You children are lucky. All we got back in my day was a thick envelope.
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Exeter is mandatory SSAT taken AFTER April 2022. I know this b/c DS had a 98% score from a test date 3 weeks before Exeter’s arbitrary April/22 date (March/22). By the time he realized it, it was too late to study. He had to RETAKE it cold … got a 99%. It all worked out but incredibly frustrating. The way they handled it makes us think twice about what kind of environment Exeter fosters…
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Great point! That makes a lot of sense. My daughter didn’t end up sending her scores anywhere (she had an 80% on the SSAT) and likely would not have applied to test-required schools. I can see how being test optional opens up the application to a lot more students who may have self-selected out of applying simply based on a score.
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I would have expected as much too @handsclasped. I was surprised to hear that Lawrenceville Admissions had approximately 3,000 applications to read (in an information session recorded in January 2023, which was emailed to applicants). They reported 2,064 applications in 2022. I suspect that all Admissions Offices engage in a certain amount of aggrandizement, however!
I wish there were a “WOW” or “OMG” reaction available for posts. The “thumbs up” isn’t cutting it for me.
I’ll just post a few here instead. 
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i heard it was 2,500?
LVille has upped their game since my kid received a ‘yeah’ from them. It was probably the most underwhelming of the acceptance swag. Kiddo received a letter and I think that was about it.
My fave swag was Hotchkiss which sent a whole assembly kit with some kind of light box. They hosted a zoom as part of accepted student virtual revisits and worked with the kids on the assembly.
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I detected a bit of fudging @christiania ! There could be a lot of rounding! 
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def not me lying! I was at the info session and watched the replay lady said 2.5k. but if its 3,000 that rounding is WILD
Our favorite too … and it was not particularly close.
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Something like 2507 applications rounded up to “about 3000”? 
I was just discussing with my daughter how, depending on how data is presented, you can make it seem like many different outcomes from the same base data.
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This actually made me LOL.
Even the approach taken by other HADES schools where the test was optional varied. On our tour one school made a point to emphasize that optional really was optional and that you could spend your test study time doing something more productive. Another school indicated that while it was test optional, they were interested in receiving the test scores.
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But EMA wouldn’t release scores for applying Fall 2023 and schools wouldn’t get test scores from before August 2022 so he would have had to retake it regardless. Exeter didn’t make the decision until summer if they were going to be optional I thought?
The numbers game is where I asked before if they are counting completed apps or people who simply started the process. In data analysis/research, it is all about how you get those numbers to say what you want them to say!
Not true. Every other school received and accepted the scores from his March/22 test date directly from the company, as did Exeter… Exeter just wouldn’t accept them. So he ended up with 2 SSAT scores at all the schools all sent by the SSAT folks. Both scores showed up in all his application portals, even Exeter.
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