In September 2024, The Enrollment Management Association (EMA) and Educational Records Bureau (ERB) announced their intent to merge. EMA is the purveyor of the SSAT and ERB administers the ISEE. Both organizations are non-profit membership associations providing services to independent schools, including these admission tests.
EMA and ERB have been the two major competitors in the independent school admissions and assessment landscape.
In 1927, the Educational Records Bureau (ERB) was established to create standardized educational assessments to assist independent schools. They created the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE) along with many tests designed to evaluate the enrolled student experience. The ISEE was the dominant test for private day schools. The ERB CTP (Comprehensive Testing Program) is a rigorous achievement test program used by schools to track student progress year-over-year.
Founded in 1957, EMA was originally named the Secondary School Admission Test Board (SSATB). It was established by independent school admission officers who wanted to create a standardized application process. They created the Secondary School Admissions Test (SSAT) for private school admission. The SSAT has often been the test more associated with boarding schools. In 2016, SSATB rebranded to the Enrollment Management Association, focusing on the testing into enrollment management support for schools with marketing, data analysis and the Standard Application Online (SAO). They also created the Character Skills Snapshot, an assessment designed to measure non-cognitive traits, such as resilience and open-mindedness.
As of March 2026, the legal merger has proceeded and the new combined organization has been named E3N standing for Enroll. Educate. Excel. The new organization is still focused on providing the same suite of services to independent schools including the ISEE, SSAT, assessments, enrollment tools and professional development resources.
We will continue to monitor any changes that E3N makes to the SSAT and ISEE, whether that be discontinuing one of the tests or making content or structural changes to the individual exams. E3N has said that in the short-term, their plan is to keep both tests available and as they are.
