Grades 5-8 Admissions

APPLICANT PHOTO

Please upload a recent photo of your child through the Admissions Portal. This doesn’t need to be a formal portrait; an informal snapshot is perfectly fine. The photo simply helps us put a face to the application and begin to get to know your child as a person.

parent questionnaire

The parent questionnaire serves as a valuable tool for us to gain insights into your family and student's unique qualities and experiences. By completing this questionnaire, you provide us with a better understanding of your motivations for considering SCH, your student's potential contributions to our community, and their notable academic or extracurricular accomplishments.

PARENT CONVERSATION

After completing the questionnaire, parents of applicants are required to complete an informal, interview-style conversation. This conversation is an extension of the questionnaire, providing our admissions team further clarity on questionnaire responses while giving parents an opportunity to learn more about our curriculum and community, ask questions, and tell us more about your student directly. We are happy to chat in-person or virtually.

TRANSCRIPTS

We require the applicant’s previous year's final report card and a current report card/progress report. Parents will utilize the Transcript Release Request on the applicant checklist, so we can begin collecting prior academic records. Once your child’s first report card or progress report from the current school year is available, we will request a copy from you or their school. 

STANDARDIZED TESTING*

Middle School applicants may fulfill this requirement in one of two ways:

1) Register for either the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE) or the Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT). To ensure the authenticity of the results, we kindly request that the testing organization directly submits the test scores to SCH, so please select Springside Chestnut Hill Academy as a recipient of the applicant’s score report or utilize the codes below.

• Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE) - CODE: 393520
• Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) - CODE: 7450

It is important to note that the scheduling and associated costs of the test are the responsibility of the applicant's family.

2) Submit one of the following assessment score reports: Measure of Academic Progress (MAP), Educational Records Bureau (ERB), TerraNova, or Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). These assessments are administered by many schools as part of their curriculum. If available, you are welcome to submit the applicant’s most recent report. If your child’s school does not administer these assessments, please plan to register for either the ISEE or SSAT.

*If you are seeking academic support or accommodations, we will require a copy of your student's most recent psycho-educational evaluation (completed within the last three years).
 

TEACHER RECOMMENDATIONS

We require two teacher recommendations: one from the applicant’s current math teacher and another from their current English teacher. Families are able to request a third optional recommendation form. We prioritize the confidentiality of these recommendations, so we kindly ask the parent to utilize the Recommendation Requests available on the applicant checklist after October 15. By requesting these recommendations, you accept the confidentiality agreement.

FULL-DAY student visit*

We invite applicants to experience our school's academic and social culture by spending a full day in our Middle School. The day starts at 8:00 AM and ends at 2:45 PM. During their time on campus, applicants will also have a one-on-one conversation with a member of the SCH community. This informal interview provides an excellent platform for applicants to showcase their unique qualities, share more about themselves, and engage with our faculty to further personalize their application. Applicants will also complete internal assessments for academic benchmarking. To ensure a smooth visit, students will be assigned a friendly student "host" unless they express a preference to spend the day with a specific individual.

*We schedule full-day student visits with care to ensure each child has a positive and meaningful experience. This approach intends to help minimize emotional investment before the time is right, protects the comfort and safety of our current students, and stewards the time and attention of our Middle School faculty.