Are teacher recommendations, grades, or test scores more important for your overall application? In this clip from our CEO’s chat with placement expert Neal Kamsler, Neal talks about the different ways that schools might look at your ISEE & SSAT scores, and how those scores fit into the final decision.
For 21 years, Neal Kamsler was Head of Upper School at Allen-Stevenson School in New York City. He now serves as Senior Director of Placement at Oliver Scholars, a non-profit educational access organization. Listen to the full school admissions conversation here.
Did you make it through the ISEE’s four multiple-choice sections? You’re not quite done yet!
The fifth and final section on the ISEE is an essay section.
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...
While every student is different, the number one cause of test anxiety is not knowing what to expect. High-stakes exams like the ISEE, SSAT, SAT, and ACT are significantly different than in-school assessment tests that students regularly take, so the strategies for taking these tests are different too. This might...
In a study at Tufts University, 120 student participants learned a series of 30 words and images. They studied either by taking practice tests or by using the traditional study method of reading over the material to memorize it. They were then asked to recall what they had learned in...
The Harker School (Harker) is a top college prep school in the Bay Area for students in grades K-12. Harker has an established history of academic achievement, and opportunities for student growth in and out of the classroom.
Applying to Harker is a big undertaking, so we have created this...
The last section of the ISEE is the Essay. Students are given 30 minutes to write an essay in response to a prompt. The Essay section is not scored. Instead, a copy of the essay is sent to schools along with the ISEE score report. As you prepare for the...
We get a lot of questions about the essay section of the ISEE. In truth, the essay is a bit of an enigma. First off, it is not graded, but instead is sent to the schools to which your student is applying. For that reason, the criteria for a good...
The Upper Level ISEE is taken by students applying to grades 9-12. The test is administered both on the computer and on paper. It consists of five sections: Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Mathematics Achievement, and the Essay.
