Most families meet the SSAT a few months before an application is due, and most students have never seen a test quite like it. Mackler Associates prepares St. Louis students for the SSAT one-on-one and in person, at an office on North Mason Road in Creve Coeur.
Every session is taught by Jason Marks personally. There is no roster and no handoff to an associate.
He was a National Merit Scholar, attended the Honors College at the University of Missouri, graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and holds a J.D. from Washington University School of Law. He has prepared St. Louis students for admissions tests since 2000.
Families who have been through ACT or SAT preparation with an older child often expect the SSAT to work the same way. Two things make it different, and both change how a student should approach the test.
Wrong answers cost you. On the Middle and Upper Level SSAT, every incorrect answer deducts a quarter of a point, while a question left blank costs nothing. That is the reverse of the ACT and SAT, where there is no penalty and the right move is always to guess. On the SSAT, knowing when to leave a question alone is a scoring skill in its own right.
The percentile is not what parents expect. SSAT percentiles compare a student only against other SSAT takers from the past three years — a self-selected group of children applying to private schools. A score that would look strong against a general population can come back as a middling percentile. Knowing that before the score report arrives saves a great deal of unnecessary alarm.
The Verbal section is unfamiliar ground as well: sixty questions in thirty minutes, built on synonyms and analogies. Analogies disappeared from the SAT in 2005, so most students — and most parents — have never worked through one.
The SSAT comes in three levels, set by a student’s current grade:
The Middle and Upper Level tests run about two hours and fifty minutes and cover quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension and verbal reasoning, plus a writing sample. The writing sample is not scored, but it is provided to the schools a student applies to.
Programs run twenty hours for a fixed fee, payable in full at the start, and are scheduled around a student’s existing commitments. All sessions are in person at the Creve Coeur office.
There is no separate diagnostic session. Instruction starts in the first hour, section by section, and what a student needs becomes clear from watching them work through real material. That is a faster use of twenty hours than spending one of them on a test.
Students at all three levels work with Jason directly, from Elementary through Upper.
To talk through whether SSAT preparation makes sense for your student’s timeline, schedule a consultation or call the office. Families across Creve Coeur, Ladue, Clayton, Chesterfield and west St. Louis County work with Mackler Associates in person.
Most families begin eight to twelve weeks before the test date they are targeting. Starting earlier helps if a student needs work on reading speed or vocabulary, since neither of those improves quickly.
Yes, on the Middle and Upper Level tests. Each wrong answer deducts a quarter of a point, and a blank deducts nothing. The Elementary Level has no penalty. This is the reverse of the ACT and SAT, which means answering every question is not the right strategy on the SSAT.
It depends on the schools a student is applying to, and percentiles matter more than scaled scores. Because SSAT percentiles compare students only against other private school applicants, a percentile that looks modest can still be competitive. The schools themselves are the only reliable guide to what they expect.
No. Instruction begins in the first session and continues section by section, with evaluation built into the teaching rather than run as a separate exercise. Twenty hours is not a lot of time, and spending one of them on a diagnostic test usually confirms what the first hour of instruction would have shown anyway.
No. All SSAT preparation is in person at the Creve Coeur office.