It’s the season for secondary school admissions so we continued our conversation about the SSAT, on The Education Doctor Radio show.
I met with some parents just today to discuss secondary school admissions. They are considering both day and boarding schools for their son. Given the number of college preparatory independent schools around the country, their son has a lot of opportunities to select from varied schools that could be a great fit for him. I visit independent schools around the country and in fact this week, I’m visiting some wonderful boarding schools in western CT. In all my campus visits, each school is different. However, the application process is a common denominator. All the schools require some form of standardized testing. For many of those schools, it’s the SSAT.
Last week, we had Aimee Gruber, Senior Director of Outreach for SSATB join us to talk about the SSAT, what it is, and how to take it. We covered some great tips and strategies, so I highly recommend that you listen to that SSAT podcast as well. Our show is only a half-hour each week and there was more that we didn’t get a chance to cover.
Today’s show is, therefore, part two of the SSAT! Aimee returned this week to discuss how the schools use the SSAT, interview questions that every student should ask about how the SSAT scores are used as admission criteria. Then finally, we discuss how to interpret the SSAT score report. As we discussed in last week’s show, the report to schools is different from the report to families and you will hear from Aimee just how different and what it means for the student applicant.
The first test administered this year will be coming up on October 15 (which happens to be the same day as the PSAT). The PSAT as we mentioned last week is offered by College Board, while the SSAT is offered by a totally separate organization. Interestingly, we found out in last week’s show that ETS who created the SAT also developed the SSAT. Later in the show, we talk about those similarities and what the SSAT score reports can tell you about the SAT.
