SSAT scores as a method of BS selection

blackbeard
Fri, 27 Mar 2015 19:38:21 +0000

This topic is not unique to boarding school selection, and is chock full of obvious complicated trade offs one can over worry. Is it better to be surrounded by highly intelligent peers who are far from representative of the general population than it is to find ways to be challenged in a slightly more representative world? Clearly there is no correct answer. It’s another version of the big fish small pond problem. Seems that whatever path one chooses, there is a necessary augmentation to deliver a complete experience set. Go to a small elite school with mostly super geniuses? Better throw in some life experiences dealing with folks who don’t fit that profile. Head to a school with more diversity and a lower average future Nobel prize winner per capita number? Better find ways to stretch the mind outside of school.

In these forums I often feel there is too much focus on how to gain admission to the hardest to enter schools rather than how to gain admission to the right schools for the given student. Having spent many moons running companies with a wide variety of employees, I can tell you that executives with all brains and no ability to relate across demographics and intelligence levels are not that great. By definition, leaders lead very few people who score over 95%…I am not implying that going to a high scoring school implies the student will miss these skills, but rather meaning they should be valued as much as anything else.