The SSAT is a Worse Test than The SAT/ACT - BY FAR!

Point 4-

Since people lack an understanding of the scoring, like they better understand with the SAT and ACT - they resort to those percentages. One problem is that people look at those percentages with great ignorance. For example, there are scenarios when a person misses just 1 question different from another person and that results in more than a 20% difference in a 50 question section. And even some prestigious schools do not understand how to interpret those percentages beyond the fact that an 80 is better than a 74.

The SAT and ACT (which I also do not like) have none of these issues.

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Sorry. This sounds like a very sour grapes thread. Kids and parents are often surprised when their ssat score isn’t stellar. Yes, it’s a self selecting set of kids who take the ssat so it’s harder to score very well. Yes, if you’ve always been the smartest kid and then don’t do well on the ssat it can be quite an ego blow but that doesn’t indicate a testing problem. Yes the test is not geared for international ease.

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That was not my intent. One student in top private already and 1 in college.

Think differently… maybe this thread will surface something that people do not already know. Maybe we are just years away from major changes with this test for reasons being identified.

Point 5-

Recent EXAMPLE in Verbal Section applying for 9th grade-

Raw score of 15 - 42% (seems about average)
Raw score of 14 - 17% (can this student read)

Point 6 -
EXAMPLE

21 correct and 24 wrong with 15 blank - 42%

25 correct and 21 wrong with 14 blank - 34%

How can that be?

Wow. Didn’t know this thing existed until now…

2x per year if applying for high school.

I do not understand your point. Yes, percentiles don’t often draw the entire picture, but there is a reason why score reports contain the number of questions that the student got right/wrong/blank - I highly doubt that the percentiles on sections are the only things schools look at. Furthermore, section percentiles do not impact the scaled score or the total percentile.

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My point is that the test is flawed and the way it is used is also flawed.

Yes, schools mainly look at percentages. It goes raw to scaled to percentage, so what you are suggesting seems to be a confused thought.

The vast majority of the students who perform well on the SSAT do not sit on plush chairs in fancy rooms with overly friendly proctors, not that such amenities would impact the results anyway. Most of the kids who perform well have studied math and English diligently for years and have prepared for the SSAT though learning about the particularities of the test beforehand. They should be commended for such preparation. In my own child’s case, he/she prepared with free stuff online and a study guide that cost something like $50, and we drove 90 miles to a rundown testing center in a depressed part of the state. He/she did well enough.

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Would you please share flex test averages verses traditional classroom, or are you just guessing?

The highest performers attend private schools already. Kids who attend underperforming schools don’t stand a chance.

You would have to compare kids with that “flex” option against other kids who are exactly the same in every other way. Otherwise you can’t tease it out. But then, I am sure you know everything about the “flex” option, including the number of students who partake in it every year; otherwise, you would not have mentioned it. (I had never heard of it before you brought it up.)

As for your second point, I am sure many, perhaps most, of the highest performers do attend private schools already, although there are likely plenty (like my child), who did not. One reason for that is top-performing private-school kids are more likely to want to attend boarding school than top performers in public schools. (At least, that’s true in my neck of the woods.) However, it’s likely the boarding schools take quality of school and opportunities into account when they are comparing applicants.

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SSAT is actually a lot easier to access than the SAT. Easier to schedule. Better administration. No more expensive for kids with fee vouchers. My kid scored pretty similarly on the SAT (at 6th, 7th) as he did in the SSAT. And yes, IMHO SSAT is more challenging than the SAT.

I think the rigor/speed/vocab of the test is surprising if you haven’t taken a similar test before. It is much more challenging than a public state test or NWEA. And the competition is at a much higher level. All of the big fishes in the little ponds are competing now.

But that has nothing to do with ERB which is more competent than College Board. Nobody is getting a great score because of a fancy chair. They are getting a great score because of prior academic preparation and preparing for the test.

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I understand that some of you are protective of a test that your child (or you) did well on. My hope, however, is that the test is eventually replaced by a better one. I have shared ways that an elitist test with scoring and school interpretation issues allows people to use wealth to access better accommodations (no fee waiver for those) and rescoring and hand scoring (no fee waiver on those).

Fwiw, I think that the admissions offices at most prep schools understand what the test is and how to use it (if they have it). Plenty of kids are admitted with low test scores and have amazing high school outcomes and at the same time, schools frequently pass on kids with high scores.

It’s one data point among many.

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I would like to believe that many do, but some do not. Do the scoring examples I shared not trouble you a bit?

I would mostly agree with you here. One of the reasons I started this forum is because the more active people who write in the prep school forums advise kids incorrectly about their odds given their test scores. As I have shared many times, 1/3 of the kids at top tier prep schools have a total score in the 50-75% range. And yes, they reject the majority of the kids in the 75%+ range.

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Do we know who the 50-75% kids are? They could be hooked kids. For the unhooked they still need higher scores. They can’t look at the numbers and say I’m fine.

I try super hard not to use the word hooked because it means different things to different people.

If you have a 50% score (as flawed as I feel that test and score may be) and you get admitted to a top school, you stood out. A portion of the admits would be athletes, minorities and legacies and a portion stand out in other ways. I think it is important for people to remember the fact that they are not all athletes, minorities and legacies. That’s what makes the process great!

Agreed. Not all of them are legacies, developments, athletes or fac kids. As you said, some of them stand out in other areas. The point is, for many, or most kids who are just good, well rounded kids, they can’t say 70 is enough because many other 70s get in. You never know who they are. Because there are a lot of well rounded kids out there, this pool is more competitive. And probably most 70s were rejected and didn’t appear in stats. It will be interesting to see if schools publish acceptance by ssat score and gpa deciles. That’ll tell a lot.

I remember quite a few on CC said you would want to be close to the median score of the school’s range. It may not be true for everyone, but there’s some truth in there for many.

@michaeluwill

Unless you work for the ssat org or are an AO at a prep school your “data points” don’t mean that much since you’re a parent and not an insider with actual scoring knowledge. You have anecdotal knowledge of a few tests, that’s all. AOs absolutely pay attention to both score and percentile in every section - I have spoken to AOs who have said as much and more (about the small weight given to ssat’s anyway, even before Covid).

I am certainly not protective of the test. It simple is what it is. For the most part it functions fairly well. I have two kids, neither the son nor the daughter did brilliantly well. But they still got into top schools. Neither is a great test taker in general, it’s just not the way their brain works.

It may not be perfect but it certainly
Isn’t flawed enough to need replacing. Standardized tests are always going to have flaws. This has been debated to death on CC, not having standardized tests doesn’t always benefit low income kids so you can go round and round about it.

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Many understand the flaws in the SSAT and standardized testing, but I really do think admissions offices do as well.

I don’t think much advantage comes from the test environment (personally I think hard chairs are better for concentration than comfy ones!), but some kids are taking the SSAT 4-5 times - twice the year before application (once as a practice at school, once officially as a baseline), then 1-3 times during the application year. Plus a lot of school-offered tutoring, not to mention other intensive test prep options.

At the same time, test prep advantages also exist in the SAT/ACT world. Fortunately it seems to be the case that BSs will continue de-emphasizing the importance of the SSAT, just as colleges appear to have. At a minimum, I think AOs are increasingly putting test scores in their proper context, and are very aware of the test taking advantages bestowed on kids from affluent areas and strong school districts, results accruing from superscoring, etc.

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