Does retaking the SSAT hurt your chances?

london203
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 20:44:21 +0000

Surely the goal is to have your kid attend a school that is in his/her academic “sweet spot” - that point where they are challenged academically but can still do well on report cards. If too much focus is put on raising scores (artificially maybe?), then the child runs the risk of being accepted to a school that will potentially swamp them. Grades are only one part of high school - especially boarding school. If the child has to spend 100% of his/her time keeping grades up, they will miss out in other, dare I say, equally valuable lessons.

I am not saying that trying to get the best score you can is wrong, but after 2 times it seems reasonable to accept that the score is representative. In fact, if all your child has going for it is a 99th percentile score on the SSAT, you may find that you lose out to athletes/actors/etc. - some of whom actually have a lower SSAT score…