<p>We just got scores back. After reading this site, we are not too optimistic. Our daughter is a A/B student at a very competitive private junior high. Past experience has shown that standardized tests aren’t her strong suit, but her score of 1866 seems extremely low compared to the scores we see posted here. She is not considering top level schools as we are realistic, but we now wonder if she will get accepted anywhere. She is a three sport athlete; an engaging speaker and writer; well liked by adults and students; hard worker. </p>
<p>I would welcome some words of wisdom from parents who have been through the process. Thank you.</p>
<p>Don’t let the kids here get you down. If you aren’t trying for a,e,sps,da,etc, you will have a decent chance at any school. Don’t discount full pay either. Remember, they are admitting a child, not a test score.</p>
<p>Thanks, catg. We are full pay and I realize that is an asset to the school. She is a great, well rounded young lady, just not an academic superstar. She wants to apply to PE, but we have tried to gently tell her it will be very difficult for her to get in even as a full pay.</p>
<p>Also remember that there are two averages:
one is that of kids taking the exam for boarding school, the other is a national average where your child would fall of all kids in school. Assumption is that only top percentile want to go to boarding school.</p>
<p>prepschooler.
My second d is like yours and does poorly on these types of tests. I talked to several of the admission people whether she should retake and they all said that her grades, recommendations and essays matter more. I would not worry, although would apply to some “second tier” schools</p>
<p>My SS has dyslexia so he does all his work on the computer. For the first SSAT he received a laptop accomodation, but due to a 23% verbal score he is retaking. We just found out that he won’t be able to use a computer for his essay.</p>
<p>Should he skip the essay altogether or do it by hand (which will be bad) and send a letter to the schools saying he had to take it without the computer and to please consider his December essay more representative?</p>
<p>Not sure if this helps or not…I was talking to the Head of School at ny son’s school this week about his SSAT Scores. She said that she likes the students at our school to be in the 45th percentile and above in order to be competitive. </p>
<p>She also said that SSATs aren’t typically used as the deciding factor to not accept students. They are more often used as a tie breaker. Her example was…If a student has really good grades and lower SSAT Scores, the school won’t necessarily use those scores to decline acceptance. My interpretation of her comment is that the SSAT Scores are weighted less than grades, application content and interview.</p>