In a glimpse into the pressure of senior year, for some fifth graders, the last year of elementary school includes far more than learning times tables and vowels. The process of applying to Ransom Everglades Middle School is a competitive one that involves interviews, extracurriculars, teacher recommendations, and extensive studying for a standardized test. Which parts are the most difficult and time-consuming for applicants? We asked a few fifth graders to find out.
According to RE Admissions, the required items for a fifth grader’s application include a birth certificate, official test results from the SSAT or ISEE, official results from the Character Skills Snapshot, online recommendations, and transcripts and standardized test scores from the applicant’s current school. These elementary-school elders sometimes spend the entire first semester of their last year studying and beefing up their preadolescent resumes with all the things RE finds desirable.
“Before the SSAT, I had sports, playdates, and screen time… But by the end of fourth grade, I had to let go of travel teams and had my screen time cut back a lot, since I was studying fourteen hours a week,” explained a fifth grader at Lehrman Elementary school who has recently been accepted to RE, and who wished to remain anonymous.
The Character Skills Snapshot is a way of determining a student’s character by asking what they would do in different morally ambiguous scenarios. It is a multiple-choice questionnaire that asks how a student would respond in different situations, with their answers reflecting the applicant’s emotional intelligence and character. RE’s Director of Admissions and Enrollment Management, Amy Zichella, explained that his snapshot helps give us a better understanding of a student’s preferences, attitudes and beliefs toward the following intellectual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal character skills: Intellectual Engagement, Initiative, Social Awareness, Open-mindedness, and Resilience.”
The SSAT is a standardized exam used to evaluate a student’s academic capability who wants to attend a private school. According to SSAT.org, it can be retaken an unlimited number of times within year, and it has three levels: elementary (grades 4-5), middle (grades 6-8) and upper (grade 9 and postgraduate.) For elementary level students, the test consists of one math section, one verbal section, one reading comprehension section, one essay, and one experimental section.
For the lower level, the test consists of verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension, mathematics, and an essay.
Ella Cooper ’32, another fifth grader at Lehrman, has completed the admissions process and will be attending Ransom Everglades starting next year. For Cooper, the hardest part was the interview.
“My mom told me this story about this guy who was super smart, got a perfect SSAT score and everything, but he was super shy, and didn’t have a good interview—so he didn’t get in. That made me really nervous for the interview, but I realized the interview was the perfect way to show my personality,” Cooper said.
Another fifth-grader opened up about an aspect of the process that stressed her more than those on paper: parental pressure in the classroom. “Most of the kids in my grade have siblings that go to Ransom, Gulliver, and Carrollton, so their parents want them to all go to the same school. Those kids are the ones who study the most out of all of us, which makes it a little competitive,” she said.
For the fifth grader who lamented 14-hour weekly studying plan, however, the result made the process worth it. “I’m just happy this weight was lifted off of my shoulders… I can’t wait to go to Ransom and make new friends, play sports, and learn new things,” she said.
