After a long wait, you finally receive your SSAT scores, but you are disheartened because they are low scores. Even if you make a passing grade, you may still be dissatisfied by the score that is lower than you had hoped. Now you have to make an important decision — should you retake the SSAT to try for a higher score? Many students want to enter to private/independent schools they have personally chosen, so a higher score will definitely increase the chances being able to do so.

You’ll be glad to know it is okay to take the SSAT multiple times. It may not sound important, as most students never even want to take the test once, so what about taking it more than once? Taking the test more than once may enable you to send your best scores to several schools if you’re really serious about it.

After retaking the test, then you can send your best scores. A reminder, though: just send your scores to all schools you may be interested in. Instead, for the section of the test that asks you to list your choice schools where you want to send your scores, list only the top schools you would like to attend.

Retaking the SSAT test doesn’t require extra preparation. All you have to do is to take a couple of full-length timed practice tests if you’re really serious on your aim for a higher score. If you’re at it, why not take a real SSAT test and see how you’d fare? The ISEE can be taken more than once, but you have to wait for six months to take it again. It would be extremely uncommon (not to mention unwise) to re-take your SSAT every month. Even other standardized tests like the SAT and ACT do not allow students to take the tests three straight months. Many colleges and universities require students to submit all of their scores, and if you take the tests three times in a row it may not look good to these schools.

However, with SSAT you may re-take the test whenever you want, as far as the SSAT is concerned. You won’t have to wait six months before taking the test again. If you achieve a score from your first test that meets your target score, then you’re good to go. But if you don’t do well, you may take the SSAT test again.

Most top schools do not dissuade students from re-taking the SSAT so it seems they don’t have a problem with it at all. But what if you discover that your target schools have their own policies? Perhaps the best thing you can do is to contact the school and discuss this with them directly. Ask what their current policies are just to make sure that you are really confident in retaking the SSAT.