This is my daughter’s middle school exactly. Pre-Algebra right now as an 8th grader. She is not applying to any of the tippy top schools as those aren’t a good fit for a lot of reasons (she is looking for a good balance between academic and social for instance).
However, it means that she is currently self-studying Geometry, equations of lines, how to find the slope, what the notation f(x) means, etc.
Hopefully it’s enough to get a good score on the SSAT, but if not, she will just apply test optional and move on. Only one of her schools requires a graded math test when applying test optional, so it seems like that one in particular may want students to have a strong mathematical background.