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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We found the ISEE super difficult so those kids are lucky and pretty smart and definitely in the minority. By design a 7–9 is roughly the top 25% to top 5% nationally, so it’s statistically impossible for ‘most kids’ to reach that range no matter how much prep they do.[/quote]

I'm sorry to hear that - it sucks that we attach so much importance to standardized testing when it's such an inconsistent metric for some kids.

That being said, though, while I would disagree with PP that the baseline is "not difficult to achieve for any reasonably intelligent kid" - some kids just don't test well - I do think that enough kids hit that baseline that it's very hard to get into a TT school if you don't.

Part of the problem with looking at it in terms of percentiles is that the ISEE is very much *not* an aptitude test; obviously the verbal and math achievement sections are explicitly achievement tests, but even quantitative reasoning rests a fair amount on how much math you've learned (basic pre-algebra and mean/median/mode for 5th graders, e.g.) and of course reading comprehension also benefits a lot from vocabulary and domain knowledge. So it's really measuring "how prepared are you to enter our school" rather than "how smart are you," which is why kids who are well-prepared - and have some natural aptitude for standardized tests - tend to do better than the percent distribution might suggest. An entire class is unlikely to be in the top 25% nationally in raw intelligence, but at a good school, there's a pretty strong chance they'll all be in the top 25% in terms of how much they've learned.[/quote]

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