<p>Someone mentioned to me that I ought to include my daughters results from her WISC testing when she actually applies to boarding school. </p>
<p>The numbers are very high.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this. I think this would be bad form. Should this be included?</p>
<p>WISC may give data about the candidate, but I don’t think it measures the candidate’s current preparation for high school courses. Private elementary schools, if they require the WISC, provide a list of approved psychologists. If the boarding school doesn’t know and trust the tester, how useful could the information be?</p>
<p>My impression has been that elementary schools, up to perhaps 7th grade, may require the WISC for admission. Anyone applying from pre-preps, then, will have taken the test in the past. I don’t know if that data shows up in the records the pre-preps send with the application. I tend to think not, as I’ve never heard anyone worrying about it. At any rate, many of the applicants to boarding schools attend schools which require the WISC, thus they all performed well enough to gain admission to their elementary schools. The question isn’t whether the students are intelligent, it’s whether they’re prepared for a rigorous program of study while living away from home.</p>
<p>Then, there’s the SSAT/WISC contrast. If your daughter scored very highly on the WISC, and not so well on the SSAT, that could give a very mixed picture of her preparation.</p>
<p>Hey there. Nice to see you around the boards. Not sure what WISC testing is, is it some form of standardized testing? If so, I would only include it if the school asked for standardized test scores.</p>
<p>My daughter is currently applying to private middle schools through A Better Chance (ABC) and they do ask for standardized test scores, so I sent her Stanford Acheivement Test scores from 4th grade. That is the test her private Christian school administers once a year in March.</p>
<p>WISC is a kind of IQ test. It doesn’t hurt to include it in your application. It is of course not the substitute for SSAT.</p>
<p>Thanks Periwinkle for the response. It’s still too early for DD to take the SSAT test. I’m like MSHopeful and investigating early. I know she will go to a boarding school and I want to be informed when we have to make choices. But for now, she’s still at home.</p>
<p>Schools will certainly still want the SSAT’s, but I don’t think the additional information could hurt unless your daughter’s school performance is less impressive, indicating performance below her potential. </p>
<p>Other thought: schools may not be able to put results in context if they haven’t seen similar scores from many other students/applicants. SSAT percentiles are normalized for differences in grade/sex. I’m not sure if they could similarly adjust the WISC results for apples to apples comparison to other candidates. However, based on the comments above, sounds like a fairly well know test, at least for middle schools, so prep schools must have some idea what the results imply about the applicant’s abilities.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>WISC = Weschler(Sp?) Intellegence Scales for Children is an individually administered IQ test or “test of cognitive abilities” to be more politically correct.</p>
<p>I’ve got them on both of my older children and have no intention of either sending them in or even mentioning them. They were administered the tests to qualify for a talent institute similar to CTY. </p>
<p>I just don’t think they will add anything to my son’s application that they couldn’t glean from the interview, recs, essays, ssats, etc.</p>
<p>My impression is that showing IQ test results could be a red flag at some schools. Often, they do not appreciate parents who are very interested in IQ. A strong SSAT, top grades, and evidence of academic curiosity and achievement should demonstrate not only a high intelligence, but also the ability to use the intelligence to achieve in some areas. </p>
<p>IQ does not seem to hold the weight it did a generation ago. Adcoms will be much more impressed with high achievement.</p>
<p>Well, we turned in the WISC result with applications to 11 schools (including both boarding and day schools), and got 8 acceptances and 3 WL’s. I don’t know at all if it helped but apparently it didn’t hurt.</p>