ISEE Insights and NextGen Admission
ISEE Insights, being released today, is a new tool to help interpret and quantify the benefits and risks of different score profiles. For decades, ERB has provided scores, percentiles, and stanines. Our new ISEE Insights metrics go beyond norm-referenced interpretations to predict future independent school success and analyze discrepancies in applicants’ reasoning and achievement profiles. Both kinds of interpretative information can help admission teams decide whether to take a chance on admitting a student or not.
Last fall, we launched NextGen Admission, ERB’s equity-driven initiative, providing measures, data insights, and resources for admission professionals and administrators. NextGen informs mission-aligned enrollment and retention decisions amid a changing admission landscape, focusing on equitable Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE) test development, administration, and use of scores. ISEE Insights is a key component of NextGen Admission.
The ISEE Insights Concept
Admission directors are often looking for tools to broaden their pool of admissible students. The ISEE Insights analyses bring to the forefront data highlighting student characteristics that are inherently indicated — but are otherwise not made explicit — in an ISEE Individual Score Report. Each of these analyses showcases student strengths to flesh out score profiles that may otherwise appear unremarkable to admission committees. There are two distinct components of ISEE Insights: Achievement Potential and Reasoning Profile.
Achievement Potential
This measure gives the probability that a student with a given ISEE score profile will go on to perform at or above the ERB’s independent school norm once enrolled in a member school. It works by utilizing the strong predictive relationships that exist between ISEE scores and subsequent CTP scores. Not all independent schools administer CTP, but there are enough who do for ERB to establish a strong statistical relationship between the two measures that can apply to any test taker.
One aim of this tool is to emphasize that many students with middle-of-the-road ISEE scores actually have high potential to achieve academic success in an independent school. Since ISEE test-takers are a competitive group, even those who score around the ISEE norm tend to be strong enough to achieve ERB norms post-enrollment.
Reasoning Profile
This measure identifies students who may have a higher capacity to learn academic skills than what they have achieved so far. It does this by highlighting when reasoning scores are significantly higher than achievement scores.
Most students who take the ISEE have consistent scores on reasoning and achievement sections within the verbal and quantitative areas. By analyzing the entire population of ISEE takers, ERB has been able to determine when score differences are meaningfully different, either because reasoning scores are higher or achievement scores are higher.
For admission teams, these highlights provide nuances to score profiles that may appear weak because of low Achievement section scores. Comparatively high Reasoning section scores may indicate that students will be successful academically if given the opportunity to enroll. The Reasoning Profile results directly support admission directors’ goals to broaden the pool of applicants their committees see as admissible.
ISEE Insights Data Is Available in 3 Places
1. The ISEE Insights Tab in 360 Access
These data appear on the ISEE Insights tab in 360 Access, in each student’s row in the roster.
- Appears on the toolbar with other tabs that cover major 360 Access score reporting functions
- Displays a roster for all students
- Includes values on four ISEE Insights metrics
- Includes filter and sort capabilities
- Includes the ability to create groups, providing a convenient means of comparison
2. The Individual Student Report PDF
These data appear on a single PDF page appended to an ISR, appearing after the student’s section scores and before their essay.
- ISEE Insights data appear on a new page included on all score reports
- The new PDF page/digital section includes infographics and text interpreting ISEE Insights data calculated from that student’s ISEE score profile
- The new PDF page/digital section also includes text explaining ISEE Insights methodology
3. The CSV File
These data appear in the last four columns of the CSV file download.
- CSV downloads will include four new columns: data for two content areas for each ISEE Insights tool
- Description of values provided to users
How ISEE Insights Supports Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The ISEE is an indicator of readiness to learn in the rigorous academic environment of an independent school. ISEE score profiles are highly correlated with independent school grades and test scores, and can even predict college entrance exam scores.
ISEE scores also reflect the quality of education a student has had up to the point of submitting their application. As a result, scores can also reflect inequity in access to high-quality education. This is why the Reasoning Profile of the new ISEE Insights feature is so important. By highlighting students whose capacity to learn is greater than what they have achieved so far, ERB identifies students with a unique form of academic potential. Independent schools can mold this potential to create stronger learners and, ultimately, higher educational achievement.
Recent ERB research examining score trends among students testing over the past four years found that:
- Overall, more fee-waiver students had higher Verbal Reasoning scores than Reading Comprehension scores.
- In all grades except for those entering Grade 9, more fee-waiver students had higher Quantitative Reasoning scores than Math Achievement scores.
- Fewer fee-waiver students were in the “consistent” category, meaning they had a greater tendency to have either higher reasoning skills or higher achievement skills.
Learn more about NextGen Admission, an ERB initiative for admission teams that informs mission-aligned enrollment and retention decisions amid a changing admission landscape, or log in to ERB 360 Access to use the ISEE Insights tool.
