ISEE Tutor Santa Monica, CA
The Ladder Method tutors Santa Monica students for the ISEE 1-on-1, in your home or online. Santa Monica is part of our Los Angeles West area, along with Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Venice, West LA and South Malibu.
Check which schools on your list read the score before you pay for prep. For fall 2027 entry, 5 of the 40 schools on the Los Angeles Independent Schools (LAIS) testing sheet require testing: Crossroads (for 9th grade only), Windward, Harvard-Westlake, St. Matthew's Parish and Calvary Christian. 14 won't accept a score, including Archer, New Roads and Marlborough. The other 21 take a score if you choose to send one.
Which Schools near Santa Monica require the ISEE for Fall
Testing is required at 5 schools on the LAIS sheet for fall 2027:
• Crossroads, in Santa Monica: required for 9th grade, where it enrolls about 30-40 new students, and optional for 6th to 8th. The school's FAQ, written for the 2025-26 cycle, strongly encourages a score if your child is testing elsewhere and lists scores as optional for 10th to 12th. ISEE or SSAT, with no minimum score.
• Windward, on Palms Boulevard: requires the ISEE for 7th grade and grades 8-11. Apply by December 15, 2026. Testing must be done by January 19, 2027, and Windward prefers grades 8-11 to finish by December 19.
• Harvard-Westlake: requires the ISEE at its main entry points, 7th and 9th grade, from 1 test taken between August 1, 2026 and the January 15, 2027 deadline. Apply by November 13 to guarantee an interview. The school code is 052135.
• Calvary Christian and St. Matthew's Parish, both in Pacific Palisades and both running through 8th grade: listed as testing required. Calvary has 6th to 8th grade applicants take the ISEE at home, with applications due December 11, 2026 and scores by January 8, 2027. Ask St. Matthew's which test it wants.
21 schools accept a score if you send it, including Brentwood (school code 051555, deadline January 8, 2027), Wildwood, Westside Neighborhood School, Willows, Vistamar and Marymount. You can add score recipients after you see the report, so leave optional schools off the list until the scores are in. A school on the list can't be removed once the test starts.
14 schools won't accept an ISEE for fall 2027, among them Archer, New Roads, Marlborough, Turning Point and Westside Waldorf. Archer hands families a sealed 30-minute writing prompt and a 30-minute math worksheet at the interview, done at home with a parent proctoring, and says no advance preparation is needed.
14 Schools Changed their Testing Rules since fall 2024
For fall 2024 entry, the LAIS sheet had no "testing required" list at all, and 23 schools wouldn't consider a score. For fall 2027, 5 schools require testing and 14 won't take a score.
• Harvard-Westlake, Windward, St. Matthew's Parish and Calvary Christian went from test-optional to required.
• Crossroads went from not considering scores to requiring one for 9th grade.
• Brentwood, Wildwood, Westside Neighborhood School and Marymount went from not considering scores to accepting them. So did Buckley, Campbell Hall, Kadima, Pilgrim and Pressman.
Check the date on any advice you read. Tutoring pages written before 2025 still call Harvard-Westlake test-optional, and a parent who heard "Crossroads doesn't look at scores" heard the fall 2024 rule.
The publisher changed too. ERB merged with EMA, the SSAT's publisher, and the combined nonprofit, E3n, became official on March 2, 2026. The 2026-27 ISEE guide keeps the 760-940 scale and the once-per-season rule from ERB's earlier guides. Families start at admission.org and register in the ISEE account at iseeonline.erblearn.org, so Harvard-Westlake's instruction to register on the "ERB website" still works.
Your Child's Grade decides the Test Level and the Schools
The ISEE level follows the grade your child is applying to: Lower Level for 5th or 6th grade entry, Middle Level for 7th or 8th, Upper Level for 9th through 12th. Each level is shared across grades, so an 8th grader sits the same Upper Level test as an 11th grader and will meet content they haven't been taught yet. Scores compare your child only with students in the same grade.
Santa Monica students reach 3 common entry points:
• 6th grade, after 5th grade at a Santa Monica-Malibu Unified (SMMUSD) elementary school: Lower Level. Only 2 LAIS schools require testing at this grade, St. Matthew's Parish and Calvary Christian. Archer and New Roads won't read a score, and Crossroads, which takes about 30-40 new 6th graders, and Brentwood make it optional.
• 7th grade, after Carlthorp (K-6) or PS1 (TK-6), both in Santa Monica: Middle Level. Harvard-Westlake and Windward start at 7th grade, and both require the ISEE.
• 9th grade, after John Adams or Lincoln Middle School (both 6th to 8th): Upper Level. Crossroads, which takes about 30-40 new 9th graders, Harvard-Westlake and Windward all require a score.
So for an SMMUSD family, the ISEE is mostly optional at 6th grade and required at Crossroads, Harvard-Westlake and Windward for 9th.
What SMMUSD families should ask about recommendations
Archer's application page says SMMUSD and Beverly Hills Unified teachers don't write recommendations for independent school applicants, as district policy, so Archer waives them for students in both districts. Windward lists LAIS forms for an administrator and math and English teachers, Brentwood has families send requests to the current school, and Crossroads wants recommendations by January 8. None of those 3 pages mentions SMMUSD. Ask each admissions office how it handles an SMMUSD applicant without a teacher recommendation before you apply.
How to Read an ISEE Score Report
Each of the 4 scored sections gets a scaled score from 760 to 940, a percentile and a stanine from 1 to 9. The percentile compares your child with every student in the same grade who took the ISEE in the past 3 years, a group E3n describes as higher-achieving than the general student population. So a stanine 5 is average for independent school applicants, not for every 8th grader. The essay isn't scored; schools get a copy, and families don't.
| Stanine | Percentile Range |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1–3 |
| 2 | 4–10 |
| 3 | 11–22 |
| 4 | 23–39 |
| 5 | 40–59 |
| 6 | 60–76 |
| 7 | 77–88 |
| 8 | 89–95 |
| 9 | 96–99 |
Stanines 7-9 cover the top 23 percentile points. The report also shades a band around each score because scores move on a retake, so read a 1-stanine change between 2 sittings with that band in mind.
Use an outside benchmark when anyone quotes gains, us included. In a 2023 study of 31,926 students, Test Innovators, the official ISEE practice provider, linked dedicated study on its platform to an average gain of 13 percentile points. Mid-scale, that's about 1 stanine: the 50th percentile is a 5, and the 63rd is a 6. A Los Angeles tutoring site advertises an average gain of 2.5 stanines without saying for how many students or which years. Ask any provider how the gain was measured, on which sections and for how many students.
How our ISEE Tutoring Works: the 5-Rung ISEE Ladder
The 5-Rung ISEE Ladder runs in this order because the ISEE checks what your child knows before it checks how they take tests.
1. Diagnose. A full-length, timed practice test at your child's level, scored by section. We proctor it in person at our Los Angeles office, 6060 Center Drive, or online.
2. Refresh. The math and vocabulary the diagnostic shows are missing, from our own curriculum and books and our ISEE and ERB vocabulary flashcards.
3. Practice. Full-length timed sections. At the Middle and Upper Levels, Verbal Reasoning gives 40 questions in 20 minutes, 30 seconds each, and Quantitative Reasoning gives 37 in 35 minutes.
4. Mindset. Test-day pressure routines built on founder Candice Lapin's book, Parenting in the Age of Perfection.
5. Strategy. Last, once the content holds: pacing, skipping and coming back within a section, and answering every question, since the ISEE doesn't take points off for wrong answers.
A typical fall program runs 16 to 24 hours, weekly or twice a week. Sessions are 1-on-1, in your Santa Monica home or online. We quote the rate on the consultation call, before you commit to anything.
Who tutors the ISEE: Rachel B., a Senior Study Skills Coach who graduated summa cum laude from Pace University and attended its Honors College. She worked at Kaplan International and specializes in the ISEE, HSPT and ACT reading and grammar. Sarah A. is a Cornell graduate who tutors online and has worked with students from Harvard-Westlake, Marlborough and John Thomas Dye. More on our ISEE test preparation page.
ISEE Prep for Students with ADHD or Executive Function Challenges
About 70% of our clients have ADHD, autism or executive function challenges, based on our own intake.
Extended time starts with an accommodations application, and E3n tells families not to register until the decision comes back. Any student with a documented disability is eligible. An approval lasts 24 months, and accommodations aren't flagged on the score report.
3 parts of the ISEE lean on executive function. Verbal Reasoning at the Middle and Upper Levels allows 30 seconds a question. The essay gives 30 minutes from a blank prompt. And each section is timed on its own, so a student can go back to skipped questions only inside that section, and a stalled question costs minutes that don't carry over.
ADHD Coaching in Santa Monica: Questions Families Ask
Does my child need the ISEE for Crossroads?
For 9th grade, yes, as an ISEE or SSAT score. It's optional for 6th to 8th grade, and Crossroads' FAQ lists it as optional for 10th to 12th.
Do Archer and New Roads accept ISEE scores?
No. Both are listed as not accepting scores on the LAIS 2027-28 sheet.
Is the ISEE required at Harvard-Westlake and Windward?
Yes. Harvard-Westlake requires scores from 1 ISEE taken between August 1, 2026 and January 15, 2027, and its main entry points are 7th and 9th grade. Windward requires it for 7th through 11th grade, with testing finished by January 19, 2027.
How many times can my child take the ISEE?
Once per testing season, up to 3 times a year. For fall 2027 applications, that leaves 2 useful sittings: 1 in November and 1 in December or early January.
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