Ask any Boston exam school student or parent and they will expand on the hours of intense preparation and studying for the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE).

The Boston Public School system has three exam schools – Boston Latin Academy, Boston Latin School, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science. All three accept new students for grades 7 and 9. The O’Bryant School also accepts a few new students for grade 10.

The 2015 ISEE will be administered on Sat., Nov. 7 at various locations. Registration began on Sept. 14 and the deadline to register is Sept. 30. Test registration materials will be mailed to all Boston area schools and are available at the BPS Welcome Centers and at all branches of the Boston Public Libraries.

In Dorchester, Project DEEP (The Dorchester Educational Enrichment Program) is an excellent after-school resource for students preparing to take the ISEE.

“On average each year, 89 percent of the students enrolled in our Exam Prep course see an increase in score from pre test to post test for our program,” explained Beth Connell, Project DEEP’s executive director. In 2014, 78 percent of students who took Project DEEP’s exam prep courses were admitted to an exam school.

Connell’s advice to prospective exam-takers is straightforward: “Read directions carefully, manage your time wisely, get a good night’s sleep, eat breakfast, read all answer choices before you answer, carefully consider the answer choices one at a time and don’t forget your ID and #2 pencils!”

The exam consists of four parts: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension, and mathematics achievement. Acceptance to one of the exam schools is entirely based on the ISEE score and GPA. The GPA is based on marks in English and Mathematics from the previous school year (grade 5 or 7) and from the first two marking periods of the current year. The student’s GPA accounts for 50 percent of the application.

In 2014, 1,909 Boston students took the ISEE; 210 of them were invited to attend the O’Bryant, 350 students to Boston Latin Academy, and 470 to Boston Latin School. Of the 470 students invited to the Latin School, 410 accepted for this year.

Students taking the test come from all over Boston, although students do not have to be residents of Boston at the time of the exam. Sixty-nine percent of the students who took the exam last year hailed from the neighborhoods of Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan. A total of 1,272 students taking the exam were enrolled in a Boston public school, 376 attended private or parochial schools, and 243 went to a charter school. Only 18 students from the METCO program took the ISEE last year.

Maddie Kilgannon is a 2015 graduate of Boston Latin School. She is now a freshman at Suffolk University.