You can eliminate “I think” from the above sentence and be 100% accurate.
I’m sometimes puzzled by statements on CC like, “…99% SSAT - it’s so commonplace…” It is not at all commonplace. With approximately 60,000 students taking the SSAT annually for admission to independent schools, only approximately 600 globally can be in the top 1% each year.
In addition, many of these 600 students are applying to selective independent day schools, and not to the boarding schools that compose the topic of greatest interest in CC Prep School Admissions forum. There are day schools of equal or greater selectivity than even the most elite boarding schools, so it is only a subset of the 600 or so kids who actually enter the admission funnel of each application cycle of the 20 to 30 boarding schools that might be deemed to be selective, or at least, aim to assemble classes for which high average academic merit and potential is sought for each cohort. In cities like Boston or New York, the percentage of high SSAT scorers going to day schools might very well exceed the number seeking boarding school admissions.
No doubt, anecdotes (in a few cases, very personal and meaningful to to a CC poster who has experienced a surprise outcome) and occasional AO comments demonstrate that no factor provides assured admission. The truth of this, however, should nevertheless not diminish the fact that schools that seek to maintain high average SSAT class scores as a reasonable way to map to high SAT scores, NMSF stats, etc. to sustain the school’s reputation and matriculation results are probably taking very serious looks at a 99th percentile SSAT candidates. There truly aren’t many of them in any given year, and if they are strong in other areas, it seems reasonable that they will always be compelling candidates.
What might be true, to the extent that high levels of intelligence might help with a high SSAT score, the 99% group might have a higher percentage of kids who need financial aid to afford an expensive schooling experience. I think it is uniformly established in many discussions on CC that financial aid need puts a candidate in a pool with a steeper climb to admissions, and that might very well account for many of the anecdotes.
@tamenund thank you for your excellent post, you raise some great points. You are correct .- a 99% SSAT is not commonplace, and there are only about 600 globally who receive this per annum. What one AO told us is that, given the number of applicants from the Far East, they disproportionately score 99% given the number of applications from that region (in other words, far more than 1% applying from the Far East score in the top 1 percentile).
What is more accurate to say is that a 99% SSAT with zero or no significant ECs means very little to the GLADCHEMMS admissions departments. (This is a GLADCHEMMS oriented thread, but of course, there are many, many other selective boarding schools which have largely the same criteria - they are looking for well rounded candidates).
What I have tried to point out through stats and data in this thread (perhaps indirectly) is that a high SSAT score is very, very meaningful when combined with significant ECs, good interviews and good essays. By my calculation, if a strong candidate with high SSATs applies to 4 or more GLADCHEMMS, they have about a 50% chance of admission.
How many kids taking the SSAT each year are intending to apply to GLADCHEMMS? Less than 5,000 of the 60,000 who take the test globally. How many kids score above 80% globally? About 12,000, and many of these will apply to a variety of other boarding schools and private day schools across the US and around the world.
@tamenund thank you for bringing us back to reality on the 99% on the SSAT
@MtnTrailX That makes sense to me. Any candidate who is at the upper extreme of a quality a school values (intellect, athletics, other extracurriculars, philanthropy/development office potential, sociability, contribution to institutional identity and virtue signaling, etc.) is going to get a serious admissions read. Combine two or more of these values, plus establish no other quality is below the school’s minimum expectations, and then you have a very strong candidate, indeed.
Not certain. But very strong.
The current reality of candidates applying to five, ten, fifteen selective schools in one go has depressed admission rates to percentages that seem far more daunting than the reality of the situation is. If your estimate of 5000 annual candidates to classic boarding schools is close, and if each applies to an average of five schools, that’s 25000 applications floating around. That’s applications, not applicants. An average school admissions rate of 20% would ensure every applicant was admitted.
In reality, applicants choose schools imperfectly, of course, and thus disappointments are more common than they might be were it not for the skewing effects of desire, ambition, and incomplete understanding between candidate and school.
Such an interesting thread!
Any guesses on how many kids score 99% in each section (V, Q and R) of the SSAT? I think I read about one kid here who scored that.
@Winter2018 Approximately 200 annually.
@tamenund Wow, that’s a lot more than I expected.
@Winter2018 It’s basically the group who have a combined scaled score of approximately 2350 or higher. There’s still further variation within this group but the SSAT isn’t designed to distinguishing among them…and appropriately so since that’s performance terrain that few schools are institutionally interested in exploring.
How many kids you think are in the 99% percentile in at least one area of the test? Also, do you think these facts are the same for the ISEE?
I’m sorry, but I don’t know the answer to your first question. I’m not clear what you mean by your second question…but, if you knew how many applicants take the ISEE each year, you would know how many fall in the 99th percentile. I don’t remember the number, I seem to recall that fewer take the ISEE. The entry grade patterns for the two tests are also very different, with ISEE typically for earlier grades than the SSAT. I’m not sure how a valid comparison might look. They don’t overlap as much as the SAT and ACT, for example.
99 across the board is exceptionally difficult, and I wouldn’t say a 2350+ guarantees that. I scored a 2360+ and have 99 in all except for verbal, but because of the way it’s scored, a 94th in verbal is still a relatively high scaled score. I remember from somewhere that a 49/50 in the maths section automatically results in a 94th percentile, so that also is pretty hard.
You guys are talking about 99s? I only got that in reading, for verbal I got 70th while for math I got 51st! If I get in to any of the competitive schools, I will be FLABBERGASTED.
@snapchat i’m sure you’ll do great!
@altablue Lol, thanks, you too!
@altablue Wow, you had amazing scores!
I looked it up and an approximate 94% percentile on Quantitative 8th Grade would result from a score of 44, which would be 45 correct answers and 5 incorrect less a penalty of 5/4 = 43.75 ~ 44.
46 correct out of 50 with 4 incorrect would be scored as 46 - 4/4 = 45/50 resulting in approximately a 96th percentile on the Q section.
To those of you who are impressed by high SSAT scores, what would you think if you found out that even the most selective schools only look at those scores to see if an applicant can do the work at their school? As in, if the total score is above, say 85%, check – no further points, on to the next item. Would you still chase a point or two if you knew that it really didn’t matter to the school? These schools are NOT looking for 99% scores, they are looking for compelling candidates who will add to the fabric of their communities. 99% will not keep you out; it will not get you in. You only need to prove you can do the work. That’s all. Why add more weight to this one facet of admissions than that? Some of you worry too much about the wrong things. The wrong focus will do more damage to your candidacy than any standardized test score. If you are at or above the score averages for the schools you are applying to, you have checked that box. On to more important things. Let the score anxiety go. Plenty of stories here of 99%ers who get rejected so, clearly, schools are basing decisions on more than test scores.
GO OUT AND PLAY!
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BTW – the same rule applies to college admissions. Our son took both the SAT and ACT once, scored above average for all the colleges he was applying to, and his GC sent us an email that said, “I’m sure you and ChoatieKid are glad to have testing behind you. Now we will focus on…” She would not, under any circumstances, advise him to waste time taking either test again. Her words, “Any rejections he receives will not be due to his test scores.”
Same for our 2019 son at our LPS. I sent the GC an email telling him that son would not be taking the SAT, but that we were still deciding if a second sitting of the ACT might be worth considering. He suggested not to bother and the score would not keep him out of pretty much any college. I think the same is true with BS.
@ChoatieMom has an interesting perspective, but the facts do not support her statement that “if the total score is above, say 85%, check – no further points, on to the next item”.
If it didn’t matter to these schools, then PA/PEA would not have average SSAT scores of 94%, a full 9% higher than the Choate/Deerfield/Hotchkiss SSAT average, and SPS/Groton wouldn’t have 90% average SSAT scores.
PA/PEA/SPS/Groton have significantly higher SAT/ACT average scores and 25%-75% percentile ranges. Furthermore, SAT scores are highly correlated to a student’s entering SSAT scores.
These schools all know this, and do care about SAT scores because they care deeply about elite college matriculation rates. College matriculation “success” is significantly (not entirely, obviously) correlated to SAT scores.