Here's an obsequiously sympathetic article about the students facing the hurdle of the Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE):
For students aspiring to the nation's elite private schools, January means one thing: admissions tests, most notably the Independent School Entrance Examination, or ISEE. Think of it as the SAT for middle-schoolers, and for many kids, it comes with all the pressure and anxiety associated with the college boards.
With competitive schools such as Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas and The Hockaday School receiving applications from nearly twice as many students as they will admit, parents and kids say the key to getting in is a great ISEE score. The pressure is enough to make them pop a vein.
"Four years of your life depends on it," said Maria Garnett, a sophomore at Ursuline Academy of Dallas who took the ISEE two years ago. "There's a lot riding on your scores."
Parents hire tutors with the hopes of boosting their kids' scores. Private elementary schools bring in test prep coaches to help give their students an edge over those from competing schools. All the while, admissions officers say too many families wrongly view the ISEE (pronounced "icy") as the first step toward an Ivy League university and a prosperous career.
On Jan. 10, Elena Doskey, a sophomore at Ursuline, escorted prospective students at her school, where about 175 kids took the ISEE. At times, she said, the students' anxiety was palpable. She tried to soothe their fears with banter and encouragement.
"One dad was there right up in his daughter's face, drilling her, telling her to focus," Elena said. "I felt so bad for her. How is it possible to handle that kind of pressure?"
Do we know for sure that the dad was harming his kid, rather than, you know, helping her to focus? If he was screaming, that's not good, but there's nothing wrong with helping kids prepare for exams. And "palpable anxiety" pretty much describes my entire high school experience, including tests, dances, and having to change into skimpy gym shorts every day (I wore mine over a pair of sweatpants). The fact that this test produces anxiety doesn't mean the test is necessarily a bad thing, if that's what we're supposed to conclude from this article.
Several Ursuline students described parents who were so nervous over the ISEE that they cried on test day. Others said they know of parents who danced around the mailbox when the scores arrived.
School officials say that reflects parents who don't really understand how admissions decisions are made. School officials play down the ISEE, calling it just one piece of the admissions puzzle. Just as important, they say, are good teacher recommendations, the interview and solid transcripts.
"The myth that the ISEE makes or breaks your application isn't true," said Jesuit admissions director Tim Host, who called parent fever over the ISEE "madness." Yet he conceded that "when it comes down to those final 10 spots and we have nothing else to differentiate kids with, then yes, a bad ISEE score could break them."
Yes, when all else is equal, the ISEE could be important. Some parents will cry, and some will dance. Sounds a lot like life to me.
The ISEE is a three-hour, multiple-choice test with a short essay, similar in format to the SAT. It covers verbal and quantitative reasoning that measures a child's capacity for learning. The reading comprehension and math portions of the test are designed to pinpoint a student's weaknesses in those subjects. And because the test is generally taken by high-achieving students, kids who ace other standardized tests are often surprised to see how they stack up against other bright kids.
"It is expected that children generally will score lower on the ISEE than other nationally normed tests," said Elizabeth Mangas, executive director of the ISEE.
That's one argument in favor of providing at least some test prep for your kid for the ISEE, even if it's just multiple pep talks that focus on the fact that this isn't an easy exam. It's meant to differentiate amongst the brighter kids, so it might seem intimidating.
The private school officials downplay the importance of test prep along with the importance of the ISEE, and that's not surprising. They're aware that testing fears are what generate $100-an-hour fees for coaches, when it sounds like a good ISEE may not balance out an otherwise-unimpressive transcript.
Posted by kswygert at January 20, 2004 08:28 PM