Neal Kamsler has worked in New York City independent schools for 35 years, including 21 years as Head of Upper School at Allen-Stevenson School. He also serves as Senior Director of Placement at Oliver Scholars, an educational access organization based in Manhattan. Test Innovators’ CEO, Edan Shahar, sits down with Neal to discuss independent school admissions: choosing the right school for your child, misconceptions about boarding school, and how admissions departments decide who to accept.
1. Small class sizes: Many public schools hire terrific teachers, but when the funding (or lack thereof) dictates class sizes of 30 students or more, your student may not be getting the personal attention he or she deserves. At most private schools, you get what you pay for: small class...
The Middle and Upper Level SSAT exams include two separate Quantitative Reasoning sections. Both are 25 questions long and take 30 minutes to complete. The Elementary Level SSAT only includes one Quantitative Reasoning section, which is the first section of the test, takes 30 minutes to complete, and is 30...
The SSAT is a very competitive test, and having a preparation plan is key to achieving the best scores that you are capable of. Here's our favorite strategy:
Throughout Pam’s 18 years as an admission professional, she has observed that standardized test scores do not always correlate to the actual talents of a student. Testing anxiety is one big reason for this – many students find it difficult to focus under the pressure of test day and don’t...
About the SSAT Writing Sample
The first section of the SSAT is a timed writing sample.
The prompts vary by test level, with Upper and Middle level students choosing between two differing prompts, and Elementary level students being asked to write a story based on a visual prompt. Upper and Middle level...
We are pleased to introduce Esther, one of our 2024 scholars. Through hard work and dedication, Esther increased her ISEE score by over 26 percentile points!
We are excited to introduce Mohammed, one of our 2020 scholars. Mohammed’s hard work and determination allowed him to increase his SSAT score by 67 percentile points.
Over the summer, we've been poring over the tens of thousands of data points we attained from our ISEE practice test system this year. We were interested to see how students performed by question type, especially when it came to geographic location
The results are in! Here are the top 5 most competitive ISEE schools, based on the number of students who stated their intention to apply.
1. Harvard-Westlake, Los Angeles, CA
Harvard-Westlake, home of famous alumni like Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Segel, and Tori Spelling, was founded in 1989 when the Harvard...
