<p>My daughter is applying to a private school for 8th grade. She is a honors/high honors student and her middle/upper SSAT test scores do not reflect this. This is the breakdown we received online: total: 1875 V: 620 (38%), Q:611 (34%), R: 644 (52%).</p>
<p>Do we have her take it again Feb. 1 to compare the two or do we cross our fingers and hope the school accepts her for what her transcripts/recommendations show?</p>
<p>Thanks,
Lara</p>
<p>to be eligible for this admissions cycle you can not take the February ssat the schools will not accept that. Also what schools is she applying to? Just remember that you daughter according to her score is average among the ssat test takers which is made up of really smart kids all like your daughter. Also may I ask what the overall score was?</p>
<p>Check with the school, because some schools will take the Feb ssat results as long as everything else is turned in on time. Also, you have to release the scores before they are posted so they get them in a timely manner. I don’t know where your daughter goes to middle school but I can say in general, high honor in a public middle school is not necessarily high honor in a private school, the standards are very different. I have seen this over and over when “talented and gifted” students transfer from public to a good private school all of a sudden they are not so talented and gifted. This is where the ssat test will show a discrepancy between school grades and results of a test. In our county 40% of the students are taking “advanced math”. When you talk to the high school math teachers they will tell you the kids a rushed through and the basic skills are never solidified. Parents who are willing to accept these labels that the school system uses without any benchmark to compare are part of the contingency that believe “my child is so smart” not because they necessarily are but they have been labeled by theirr school system. When they are put into a pool of really talent youth they just don’t measure up.</p>
<p>Her total was 1875. I do understand she would probably be average at a private school and not the high honors/honors student she has been in public. That is honestly partly why we are looking at private. We want a solid education that is more rigorous.</p>
<p>Also the school will take the Feb. scores - I’ve communicated with the director of admissions.</p>
<p>Going off of what some other posters have said, I would say take it again and have your DC study very hard (I am saying 80s range). If you don’t retake, it will look like your DC was just put in honors for handing in homework on time.</p>
<p>While I’m not usually one to say to keep retaking the SSAT, I would say retake IF your daughter feels like it would make a difference. For instance, if she’s never taken it before Jan. and hadn’t seen those types of questions before, getting an SSAT book and doing a few practice tests, understanding the types of questions on it, and trying to get it done in real time can really help. If she already did that kind of studying, then I’m not so sure-- she doesn’t have a ton of time to learn lots of math or vocabulary she hasn’t had before. But if she didn’t study much the first time and wasn’t used to the types of questions, then go for it-- especially since the school told you they’d take the new scores.</p>
<p>Getting in and staying in is the goal, and low scores on the SSAT (if prep is adequate and it was not a “bad day”) raise significant questions about whether she will be able to handle the work. It is not the best idea to be at the bottom of the class, both from a self-esteem point of view and from a college placement point of view.In many schools, over 50% of the class scores over 90th percentile on SSAT. An educational consultant may really be able to help put her scores into perspective.</p>
<p>You are on the right track but you want to make sure that the schools you are considering are reasonable. The first year will be a big adjustment. You need to make sure that she understands this going in and the adjustment will be much smoother. These schools have all kinds of support mechanisms in place to get kids where they need to be. She will work really hard and she may complain at times but when she gets to college she will she the fruit of all of her hard work. 8th grade is a great year to transition into a new school. I am assuming the school continues into high school, eighth grade is the prep year for high school. If there is a temporary drop in grades, it will not be part of her high school transcript.</p>