HSPT - likely low scores?

[Anonymous]

DD will have to take the HSPT to apply at Ireton. She has dyslexia which makes her a very very poor test taker even with extra time. She has A’s and B’s in MS Honors @ FCPS.
How much will likely very poor scores impact her likelihood of being accepted at Ireton?

[Anonymous]

You'll need to address it somewhere so they understand, but it's common so it won't be a red flag. Her strong grades and some interesting outside interests would overcome it. The acceptance rate is very high. They'll use HSPT for placement, though. So it will be hard to impossible to get into honors classes freshman year.

[Anonymous]

My DD who has executive function issues got extremely low scores and was offered admissions to BI and O’ Connell. Her scores were so low (like 10-20%) we ended up getting her neuro educational tested after that which is how we discovered the executive functioning concerns. She now has an education plan at her high school and qualified for extra time for tests and the SATs.

Low scores I believe will affect financial aid but they weren’t prohibitive for admissions, at least for us. My DD had a very good application outside of her test scores.

[Anonymous]

My dc had low scores (57%tile) and average grades. DC came from a parochial and had great recs + essays. We never explicitly stated dc had adhd in any application materials. Dc was accepted to all schools they applied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'll need to address it somewhere so they understand, but it's common so it won't be a red flag. Her strong grades and some interesting outside interests would overcome it. The acceptance rate is very high. They'll use HSPT for placement, though. So it will be hard to impossible to get into honors classes freshman year.

This was DS. His HSPT was not great. He has dyslexia and it was a big part of his application essay. He got in everywhere he applied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'll need to address it somewhere so they understand, but it's common so it won't be a red flag. Her strong grades and some interesting outside interests would overcome it. The acceptance rate is very high. They'll use HSPT for placement, though. So it will be hard to impossible to get into honors classes freshman year.

This is an important part that I didn't understand when applying. I wish I had my DS at least take a course or do some practice tests or study for the test because his Catholic HS used the HSPT test scores for placements in 9th grade science (bio) and English. The school used separate placement tests at the beginning of the summer before 9th grade for incoming students for foreign language and math only. I really felt that my kid could have taken honors biology based on his excellent science grades and overall intelligence but based on his English scores on the HSPT they wouldn't budge. I even offered recommendations from his MS science teachers but they were not interested.

I think there is still time to take an online course before the December test. I highly recommend doing one.

[Anonymous]

HSPT won't really matter for admission, that's used more for class placement. The bigger issue is whether they have space in the De Sales or academic support programs, if you need to apply for one of those. Also whether you're applying as a Catholic family or not since she's coming from public.

The admissions person is VERY nice and approachable, just FYI.