<p>AUGUST
-Start thinking about the factors you want in a school- location, size, etc.
-Request viewbooks and look through websites.
-Create a preliminary list of schools.</p>
<p>SEPTEMBER
-Narrow down your list of schools, and eventually decide on your final list.
-Study for the SSAT.
-Talk with your parents about tuition, and decide if your should apply for financial aid.
-Schedule your visits and interviews.</p>
<p>OCTOBER
-Decide on your final list of schools.
-Give your parents the SSS Parent Financial Statement if applying for financial aid.
-Take the SSAT for the first time.
-Do your very best on the interview and tour!</p>
<p>NOVEMBER
-Study for the SSAT again! Pay attention to your score report from the October test. Focus on the areas with the lowest scores.
-Ask your teachers for recommendations.
-Start writing your essay and work on other parts of the application.
-Interview and visit.</p>
<p>DECEMBER
-Finish your essays! Have several people proofread them.
-Take the SSAT again.
-Finish the rest of the application. Have your parents and teachers look over it to make sure that it is an accurate representation of who you are.
-Pick up your recommendations and receive your transcript from the guidance counselor.</p>
<p>JANUARY
-Look over your application one last time.
-Make any last minute changes.
-Turn it in!
-Turn in your financial aid application.</p>
<p>FEBRUARY
-Pray.</p>
<p>MARCH
-Find out your decisions!
-Go to revisit days.</p>
<p>APRIL
-Decide on which school you will attend!</p>
<p>That’s a great list! The only thing I’d change is that I’d suggest studying for the SSAT in the summer, when there’s less going on–between school and sports and EC’s, it can be hard to find the time come fall. My kid only took the SSAT once, in December, but took lots of practice tests (in pieces), and he did very well. Also, it can work well to send in Part 1 of the application well before Part 2–I think it helped my son prepare for his interviews to get that piece done early.</p>
<p>I only took the SSAT once, but I know people who schedules to take the SSAT in August, September, October, November, and December. Even January. I guess it is personal preference and how good one is at test taking. The Princeton Review book is quite good and has practice tests as well as lesson plans. </p>
<p>If your school is like my school was last year, you can give them envelopes and they can mail the recommendations and transcripts directly to the school themselves. This avoids possible mix ups. You don’t want to be turned away from a school because you forgot to send something. </p>
<p>Also, I think it would be wise to practice for you interviews. If there is anything that needs explaining, such as why you are leaving you school even if it is considered to be once that is very good, or why you no longer want to play a sport not offered at the school in which you have been successful in, you need to be sure you have correct answers. Maybe sugar-coat things a little ;)</p>
<p>I’m loving February!
I wish I had done my applications this way! I basically did everything in the months of December and January, I don’t recommend!!</p>
<p>Good list! Except, I don’t think you should turn in your applications by January. You should probably turn them in sometime in December - cause it can be a pain in the butt. Sometimes, the boarding schools misplace part of your application (I think thats what happened with Taft - either that or it got lost in the mail). So, if something bad does happen, you’d still have a few weeks to fix it all up. Also, remember that it can take SEVERAL days for them to process your application.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it’s better to study the SSAT over the summer and find out what you would score on it if you took it. If scored in the 85th percentile or better on the practice test you should probably take it once;however, if you aren’t really good at standerdized test or just want to have a back up just in case then take it twice. I only took it once and did pretty well; there is no use spending unecessary money if you don’t have to.</p>
<p>JoshByron is right. I turned in my applications in December while many people on CC scrambling to get them done. Don’t Procrastinate it’s not “cool” or worth it. I was only applying for one school, but if your applying for 4+ you should make a schedule, use the common recomendations, and once not Procratinate. Also, many schools have close to the same essay topics so you might only have to write 3 or 4 essays.</p>
<p>I learned it is good idea to make your interview early because spots fill up quickly and if you have a certain date it would be best to make the interview in early September and schedule it for a time when students are actually on campus.</p>
<p>*For the essays, you should write them when applications come out, but then put in a drawer for maybe 3 weeks or so and then when it’s late October look at them again with “fresh eyes” and it will help revise or catch any mistakes you made the first time. This really helped my essays tremendously.</p>
<p>Advice: DON’T DO YOUR APPS LAST MINUTE! It doesn’t turn out well and you forget things, and people don’t send things in and it’s just a giant hassle.</p>
<p>I would advise against studying for SSAT in the summer.
A)b/c its summer</p>
<p>B) The SSAT doesn’t require much studying [for the most part] </p>
<p>C) It doesn’t take that long to study for the SSAT. Plus you’ll forget the knowledge between then and the test. There’s not that much to study for, its just to get you used to the format of the test [which itself is actually pretty easy].</p>
<p>The vocab portion of the SSAT is something one should definitely study for! Most study guides have lists of commonly included words, and it would be very beneficial to study those over the summer and through the fall until you take your SSAT</p>
<p>I agree with cutie that vocab. is worth studying–helps with both that section and the analogies. I also think that practice with analogies makes them easier (some are connected in surprising and devious ways!)–and studying for math is helpful, if only to figure out the SSAT way to do things (for example the fill in the answer way of doing doing algebra problems) and to remind yourself of mathematical terminology and formulas you’ll need to know. </p>
<p>Rad–absolutely no offense intended–but why tell people that studying for the SSAT is not important when you’ve said at other times that your low math score was one of the reasons you didn’t get in to school this year? Or have I misunderstood something?</p>
<p>Studying in the summer, followed by squeezing in practice test sections when you can in the fall is a good way to do it–Rad’s right that just studying in the summer probably wouldn’t work as you’d forget. None of this studying has to take hours–twenty minutes a day, maybe 4 days a week worked great here and didn’t blow anyone’s summer plans .</p>
<p>No offense taken- I’m a) citing other people who DID get in this year [who didn’t study much] and b) I’m naturally bad at math [not an excuse but hey] c) IMO - the english based parts were extremely easy save for a few questions. [97 V 92 R] </p>
<p>plus having gotten the book, there’s not much studying to do. the basis of the whole book is to familiarize you with the format of the test, rather than to teach you anything. There are people like me who have standardized testing drilled into their heads and people who don’t. Take my advice w/ a grain of salt. There are also people like me who didn’t really ‘get’ math up until this year so really, results [may vary, no lol] are subjective.</p>
<p>I disagree with what rad said. I think the book was extremely helpful. It included vocab words that have been in previous SSATs and the math review was extremely helpful, because I am a level higher in math then others in my grade, so I NEEDED the review. </p>
<p>People also say that they don’t study much to sound smart. I have done it. I know it’s true. But anyone that did pretty well on the whole thing must have studied at least as much as me.</p>
<p>I do agree with Rad about the verbal and english. I also thought it was quite easy [98 R 90 V Overall 90]. But I know that there are people who have trouble with reading and writing, just like some people have trouble with math.</p>
<p>honestly, you really should study for the SSATs. take a practice test and use that as an indicator of how much you should study (like, if you get 40, you better start working!!!) people have different things they’re good at, and some are just better at taking tests, or smarter, than others… some don’t even need to study, and get 99th percentile, while others study really hard and end up with 80, etc…</p>
<p>^ oh rad, i’m your polar opposite … i did really well in math, pretty bad with reading which makes no sense, since i got a perfect score on my provincial exam, but ehh</p>
<p>@cutie: which i said the test was subjective. You should study based on personal strengths.
Note I never said DON’T use the book, I said don’t use the book like every day for 2-3 hours. That’s a bit extraneous. I say do a bit of review [however much you feel like] do the practice test, and then polish up what needs to be polished.</p>
<p>Also. I don’t say ‘I don’t study’ to seem smart. Actually, I’m opposed to all things poseur-ish. I say that b/c I, in reality, don’t study much. </p>
<p>Key things: I didn’t say don’t study at all, just don’t study OBSESSIVELY.
Also, remember this, the math is weighted more than the english. The test weights things somewhat strangely.</p>
<p>^ i don’t think so, it’s just composite score, and the overall percentile is where your composite score falls under… so if you get 700 in math or in verbal, no difference (i think!!)</p>
<p>if what you’re saying is true, i’m very grateful. hahaha</p>
<p>I HATE ANALOGIES!!! I did really bad in both english sections and ok in math. </p>
<p>I found the book pretty useless. Maybe that is why I did so bad on my ssats? The vocab is helpful but even if you memorize all of the words, only 1 or 2 will show up on the actual test, so it doesn’t help that much. </p>
<p>Hopefully I can send in my PSAT scores next time. The PSAT is so much easier for me. Sentence Completions and Grammar > Synonyms and Analogies.</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying Rad–agreed. Compulsive studying is not healthy–if a person must be compulsive about something, it’s probably better to be compulsive about essays. Kids with good SSAT scores are a dime a dozen (as my son, who scored a 99% overall and got waitlisted at 2 good schools could tell you). </p>
<p>And I don’t think that studying will work miracles…from seventh (studied a little) to eighth (studied much more though not obsessively), my son’s scores only went up a few percentage points in each category and maybe 6 points overall. </p>
<p>That said, it is important to study to know how to take the test, and the SSAT is different than many other kinds of standardized tests (most don’t have analogies anymore, for example.) And a little vocabulary and math review never hurt anyone :)</p>
<p>I think Dive’s right–the overall percentile comes directly from your composite score–so English actually counts more than math since you get both a verbal and a reading score, but only one score for math.</p>
<p>I think they only use it to match your writing sample to your actual essays. Unless your essays are not your own, you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>This is the issue I have with the SSAT essay for you pros to weigh in on. How do you expect the 25 min SSAT essay to be similar in quality to an application essay on which you spend weeks? Am I missing something? It’s like asking you to grill a chicken sandwich in 2 mins and say it’s not as yummy as a sandwich grilled well for 30 mins. </p>
<p>pulsar, are you going to apply this year, or are you still doing it for fun? It sounded to me that you were so turned off by all the ugly surrounding the BS scene. No?</p>
.</p>
which makes no sense, since i got a perfect score on my provincial exam, but ehh</p>
</p>