Testing explained

Testing is one of the more confusing corners of this process, because different kinds of schools use entirely different tests, and fewer of them require a test every year. Here's who tests how.

Independent schools

In San Francisco, no independent school requires an entrance test as things stand: the city's independents have all gone test-free, so there's nothing to sit and no score to submit. The independents that still test are outside the city. Most accept the ISEE or the SSAT, though a few use a different assessment instead and won't take either (Menlo is one). Where a test is required, the two big exams are close cousins: a few hours of verbal, reading, and math, taken in the fall or winter of 8th grade, with a 9th-grade applicant sitting the "Upper Level" of whichever they pick. The differences are mostly in the weeds: the SSAT docks a fraction of a point for a wrong guess, while the ISEE doesn't penalize guessing at all. Pick one, prepare for that one, and don't agonize over the choice. Because these policies shift year to year, check each school's admissions page for its current rule rather than assume.

Faith-based schools

San Francisco's Archdiocesan Catholic high schools (St. Ignatius, Sacred Heart Cathedral, and Archbishop Riordan) share a single entrance test, the HSPT (High School Placement Test), usually taken on a Saturday in December of 8th grade. You sit for it once, at one of the schools, and have your scores sent to whichever others you're applying to, so where you take it doesn't change your odds. It covers five subtests in one sitting: verbal skills, quantitative skills, reading, mathematics, and language.

Lowell

Lowell uses a district assessment rather than any of the private-school tests. It pairs your student's middle-school grades with the Star reading-and-math benchmark the district already gives its students. Students at SFUSD district schools take it at their own school in late January. Everyone else (private, parochial, charter, and out-of-district applicants) takes it at Lowell. It isn't the state standardized test, and it isn't the ISEE or the HSPT. How the score and grades come together is in getting into Lowell.

Tests can feel enormous in the moment, and they do matter, but they're one input among several, and for a growing number of schools they aren't required at all. Prepare enough that your student walks in steady, then let it be what it is.