If you've ever looked at an ISEE score report and felt confused, you're not alone. There are multiple scores for each section, and it's not always obvious what they mean or which ones matter most. Here's a breakdown of how the ISEE is scored so you know exactly what you're looking at.
Your Score Report at a Glance
The ISEE has five sections, but only four are scored. The essay is not scored, but an unscored copy is sent to each school that receives your student's score report. For each of the four scored sections, your student will receive three different scores: a scaled score, a percentile, and a stanine. Here's what each one means.
Scaled Score
Scaled scores range from 760 to 940 for each section. The scaled score is based on your student's raw score — the number of questions they answered correctly — but it also accounts for small differences in difficulty between the various versions of the test administered each year. This means that regardless of which version of the test your student takes, their scaled score reflects the same level of performance.
Percentile
The percentile score shows how your student performed compared to other students in the same grade who have taken the ISEE over the past three years. A percentile rank of 75 means your student scored as well as or better than 75% of students in that group. The highest possible percentile is 99.
It's worth noting that percentiles are not the same as the percentage of questions answered correctly — they're a relative measure, not an absolute one. That distinction matters a lot when interpreting results.
Stanine
Stanines simplify scores by grouping them into a scale of 1 to 9, with 5 as the midpoint. Each stanine corresponds to a percentile range, shown in the table below. One important thing to keep in mind: the percentiles are not evenly distributed across the stanines, and the majority of students score in the 4 to 6 stanine range. Keep in mind that a stanine of 5 is an average score, and given that the ISEE is taken by a competitive pool of students, there is no reason to be discouraged by it.
