Reply to I'd love to be a fly on the wall during admissions decision meetings

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[quote=Anonymous]Hello, 12:02 again.  Thanks for the kind responses to my posts -- I hope they help somewhat, anyway.  13:55's overall description of the process is accurate (and eloquent!).

Some responses to follow-up questions (and then I've got to go walk the dog!):

To 14:00, it was surprising to me how many applicants fell into a "middle pile" where there was at least something to talk about.  A lot of the time it wasn't so much that these were applications with flaws or "substantial weaknesses", but rather that there were a few truly outstanding applicants and then lots of good ones that could be hard to distinguish from each other, but had to be because there were more qualified applicants than slots.  It is also complicated by the fact that pre-K/K admissions is definitely trickier than for the higher grades, because there isn't as much of a track record and the predicting tools are of limited utility!  When I first came to DC as a faculty member at one of these DC independent schools, I remember being surprised that there was such a wide range of ability among the students (I naively had thought they'd all be geniuses; it was actually refreshing when it wasn't the case).  When I asked a colleague about it (yes, over a drink!), my colleague basically said that it's tough to predict later performance at the pre-K/K stage, and that kids who looked similar intellectually at age 4 often developed down different paths in the next 14 years.

To 14:05, I think it is literally true that there are no cut-offs, BUT that schools have found SSAT scores to be pretty good predictors so they pay close attention to them.  (The same reason that, despite criticism of the SAT, most colleges still look at them.)  I think the 80th percentile or higher may be a pretty good rule of thumb, but it would depend on the school (maybe try to gently ask around with current parents) and on the other attributes of the child.  For example, a child coming out of a good independent feeder school with straight As and great recommendations but more modest test scores has the advantage of a track record that can overcome the test scores.  There may also be reasons to explain the test scores.  I can remember a school I worked at admitting a youngster with very low test scores in the recognition that English was the child's third language and the child had not had the advantage of attending a strong school as a younger child.  The recommenders, and the impression given by the child in person, was that the child was bright and hungry to learn and had a limitless work ethic.  The committee held its collective breath but the youngster ended up a student of distinction and paved the way for others in similar circumstances later.  [/quote]

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