Good luck!!
If you aren’t already, I highly recommend working with a tutor ahead of time who really knows the SSAT/SAT format.
There is a real test strategy to scoring well on those exams; I’d say that’s more important to master than general knowledge.
Feel free to PM me if you’ve got further q’s on finding a tutor.
Wow, that’s excellent news! There are practice tests online–study hard (or, as others have noted, “test prep” hard, since doing well at standardized tests isn’t the same as general knowledge). 60% sounds quite doable, and it sounds like they are trying to make the education more affordable for your family and they want you, which is a good sign.
Definitely do practice tests don’t go in cold.
As a Canadian my first exposure to these tests was applying to American grad school doing the GSAT which I understand is similar to SAT in structure. I don’t know what the SSAT is like. I’ve also looked at LSAT practice tests.
The GSAT I did had a language section logic section and math section. Logic included a bunch of those puzzles where you need to seat people around a table but John and Jane can’t sit beside Ted and Alice etc. On my practice tests I figured out the shortcuts to solving it for 4 variables but on the actual test they had upgraded to 5 variables. I also went to the undergrad math help.center to brush up on high school math (I was in a Canadian MA at the time). I was able to solve all the practice math at home but in the exam I wasn’t able to.finish all the questions on time. Anyhow in percentiles (not raw score, can’t remember that) I was 99% in language 85% in logic and 65% in math. This last shocked me because I didn’t even finish. I couldn’t believe I was above average in math compared to all.grad students, especially as Id assume the top spots were likely all.to STEM field candidates. If you figure STEM students likely filled the top 30% of math scores. So I was probably top tier for humanities and arts students. That is so wrong
Anyhow my point is these tests will have puzzles and testing comp and stuff that are different from regular subject matter tests and you should familiarize yourself with them.
People drop a lot of cash on coaching for these things, no.one walks into them.cold.
When I was 17, I thought a gap year was the best. idea. ever. and I explored several opportunities, which, in retrospect, I’m glad didn’t pan out… Sometimes leaving the academic bubble for a taste of the real world makes it much harder than you’d realize to go back in and apply yourself in school. I saw that happen a lot while I was in college. People who had more connections in town, friends who weren’t “school friends,” and even off-campus jobs just seemed to have a harder time buying into the whole high-stakes academic rat race — at the expense of their GPAs and academic achievement. I guess you could say, on balance, they were more well-rounded and realistic, but I’m actually glad I maintained the single-minded academic headspace I had while I was in college, because it’s so easy to lose motivation otherwise. I was just thinking the other day about how seriously I took my senior thesis and all the work and research I poured into it… and how, today, I could never summon the motivation to care about something that no one (besides the professor paid to grade it [and maybe not even him 
]) was going to read.
My friends who went the part-time student/community college route had a much harder time finishing school. Many didn’t. Gap years can be a slippery slope to gap decades and an on-again/off-again relationship with college that takes you many years to ever get a degree out of.
My parents gave me the option of a gap year (to work for a BNT). I knew that if I didn’t go straight to college I never would go to college. I ended up going to a very good college, and I hated it, but graduated without debt. I’m not using my degree, but use many ‘soft skills’ that I attribute to higher education.
possibly so, though I went from a middle of the curve HS student to a Deans List all honors all years college. Being inspired and sparked can make a world of difference
I saw this on FB and it’s really good advice:
I always tell my working students , you don’t need to be on a team or go advanced to be a pro you just need to learn to ride the horses that others can’t . Sometimes those horses will be the ones that give you an opportunity you could not have had unless you spent the time getting those skills learning to ride anything .
I read a final paper from one of my students the other day, and the last paragraph both upset me, frustrated me, and also made me think.
She had to write a synopsis of her internship at a competition barn, and although her experience with the trainers and the facility was good, she left the internship feeling jaded at her prospects of a career in this business.
Why? Because she wasn’t wealthy.
I hear this a lot from students, and I also try to warn the cocky ones of the same.
Without financial backing - things are very hard. You won’t be handed 6 figure horses, you won’t have thousands for training fees, and you certainly won’t be gifted a 12 stall barn with an attached indoor.
So - young folk who have the desire, drive, and talent but not inheritance - what do you do?
You learn to train.
Young stock. Rough stock. Broke stock. Broken stock.
The ones who were sold for $1. No pedigree, no name. The ones that won’t get you a ribbon, but they sure as heck will get you forward.
To the young riders, the high schoolers, and even the college aged - take a break from the race towards ribbons and start focusing on the abundance of horses that will teach you essential (and lucrative) skills.
Like breaking yearlings.
Retraining thoroughbreds.
Gentling mustangs.
Putting a change on,
Or taking a buck off.
And - find barns that are doing THOSE things.
They might not be at the Maryland 5*, or Road to the Horse, but I guarantee they exist. Offer to sit and learn. Tack up. Lunge. Set fences. Hack. Keep your head down, and say yes.
Ribbons will come later, but the ability to train will be the enabler to those ribbons. It will provide you with credibility, and credibility will provide you with income.
No one cares that you are not riding Grand Prix, nor do they care that you’re not on some esteemed list.
But they do care that you have desirable skills that this country is so drastically lacking, and with that, you have the financial means to lease that farm, produce that horse, and potentially even hunt those ribbons.
So, re-aim those goals, plan for the long term, and send a message to that colt starter, that retrainer, or that sales barn.
I guarantee you they’ll say yes, and I guarantee you you’ll prosper from that time.
Credit to Carleigh Fedorka!
I originally thought that the OP was talking about Foxcroft.
They still have the solid riding program a robust academics. My daughter really wants to go, and the family has a friend on the Board, but the expenses are soooooooo expensive. Maybe one year but it is hard to even think of right now.
From everything I’ve heard, it’s still a fantastic school.
Private schools in Virginia in general seem insanely expensive to me.
Some of the online reviews of The Grier School are a little concerning. Several references to drug use. Who knows though - there are drug issues at many schools, including elite boarding schools like The Hill School and Lawrenceville.
Still… if OP hasn’t made a decision yet… she and her parents might want to check out Foxcroft just for the sake of a comparison point.
Drug and alcohol use is quite prevalent at all private boarding schools. Admissions may tell you otherwise, but anyone on the inside will know the truth.
Yea… It is basically everywhere.
It is, but the concentration of kids with money, little adult supervision, and the culture of abuse at private boarding schools make it even worse than many day schools.
And see, I had the opposite experience. I took a gap between college and law school, and it made me truly appreciate being back in school. I felt more motivated because I was in school for something I wanted - not because it was expected of me. I think I would be have benefitted from a gap year before college for the same reason. I did far, far better in grad school and I did in undergrad (and grad school was a lot harder). And I saw that pattern a lot, where people with real world experiences seemed to be more invested in their education and value it more.
I am curious as to what Grier’s admission/FA process is since decisions have come out at most independent schools at this time. It is unusual to me to hear of a school that will offer additional scholarship money for the upcoming year after already admitting a student on scholarship. It is especially unusual since those financial aid dollars determine how many students the school can admit - so offering more after the acceptances seems different to me.
OP, are you an 8th grader looking for 9-12? This is a big process to undertake and I am impressed with how you have handled it!
Is financial aid in play for private secondary schools?
Always! Schools only make about 50-60% of what they need yearly from tuition, the rest they need to raise from donors. So offering more financial aid means they have to raise more money. The more full pay students they can accept, the better. Unless you had an endowment of over $100M or multi million dollar donors to unrestricted funds every year, it is in the school’s best interest to accept a majority of full-pay students. Therefore, if you match up to another student but they are full pay and you are not, the chances of you getting accepted are much less.
Additionally, secondary schools that offer riding don’t often allow students to pay to board a horse if they are on scholarship (that’s a loss of over $10,000+ that the school could have had in tuition that the barn then got) so I find that unusual as well.
Very much so - tuition was about $28k/year at my school when I was there (over a decade ago now, yikes lol) and the school covered something like 90% of mine every year because of my parents’ income. A classmate of mine from a rough part of town ended up with full tuition coverage plus coverage of room and board halfway through the year after he got himself beaten up trying to get a woman’s stolen purse back when we were freshmen. He only lived about 20 minutes from campus and ended up as a day student again when we were seniors but he boarded for a while after that happened.
(I only know this because we sat next to each other in history every day as freshmen. Our school’s endowment was also about $50M at the time so they could afford to pull another $10k-ish out of thin air on short notice.)
As for drug use, sadly super common at prep schools. I wish I could say it was as unremarkable as weed and nothing else but my brother came in to talk to our head of school about heroin use amongst certain parts of the student body when I was a senior because he heard so much about it from his friends’ younger siblings. Things happen with kids whose parents have a lot of money and aren’t around much to actually know what’s going on in their children’s lives.
Oh ok this is financial aid doled out by the school not federal student loans & grants.
As far as drugs. Rich kids can certainly run wild as much as anyone, but often with fewer immediate consequences and more support than less privileged kids.
I’m returning to this thread not to throw cold water on anyone’s dreams, but to say that even if you have all the elements of a career as a professional, it doesn’t always work out for a variety of reasons.
This rider had money, parental support, experience riding at an Olympic level, her own facility in Europe, you name it, all the advantages.
Then gave it all up for an education followed by life of public interest work.
So interesting that this is where she ended up.
That was unexpected. Thanks for posting the link.
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