How do ISEE/ERB scores relate to SSATs?

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>I have a 7th grader who will be applying to schools for 9th grade. Last year she took the ISEE and scored relatively poorly. Although she scored around the 90% for the nationally normed group, this translated to just over 50% for the independent school group.</p>

<p>Does anyone have experience with taking both the ISEE and SSAT? I suspect that because the SSATs are taken by a self-selected group the percentile scores for the SSAT will fall closer in line to the percentile scores for the suburban public or independent school groups on the ISEE. Am I right? Does anyone have experience with both tests?</p>

<p>BTW, she will be doing test prep next fall. Hopefully she can improve her scores. We just want to manage her expectations a bit so that she doesn’t get her hopes up for schools that her test scores will make an impossible reach.</p>

2

<p>I have taken both the ISEE and the SSAT.
The ISEE in 5th grade.
SSAT in 6th grade and 8th grade.</p>

3

<p>My daughter took both. She took the lower level tests as she is entering 6th grade. Neither score was comparable to the standardized test scores she takes at her private Christian school (she scores mostly 90th+ percentiles on those except for Math which is usually 80th+). She did better on the ISEE for math than the SSAT. That may be because ISEE doesn’t penalize for wrong answers. Her reading and vocabulary were pretty comparable, although reversed (higher vocabulary than reading on ISEE and vice versa on SSAT).</p>

4

<p>In my experience ISEE is easier to get a higher percentile on</p>

<p>but don’t get your hopes down too much:
when you take a test a second time, you most likely will get a much higher score
ex: 80% to 97%</p>

5

<p>My daughter took the ISEE in 6,7,8th grade. As I recall she got 6/7/8/9 with the lower ones math (prep school norm). She just took the SSAT in 10th grade and got 80% in math and 99% in everything else, overall score 99% She did not study at all. So for her, the SSAT was much better.</p>

6

<p>I have taken all three of the tests you’ve mentioned.
My scores for each test are all relatively similar. The main difference I’ve noticed between ERBs/the ISEE and the SSAT is that the vocab is much harder. At the same time, she may be more prepared since she’s already taken a bunch of standardized tests. For example, my friends that went to private school their whole lives generally got lower SSAT scores because they hadn’t taken as many standardized tests. I’ve been taking them since third grade (MCAS), and all this practice makes it easier for me to anticipate and guess the answers even if I don’t know them.</p>