placido240

You don't know the current reality of college admissions and the common app. The absolute worst advice I can imagine. There is simply way too much variability and nuance among readers, much less the schools themselves, to limit oneself in this fashion. 12 apps is a good number for colleges, frankly. And for boarding schools, I would suggest at least 8.

A positive piece of advice: although each boarding school says that it will take the form of recommendation of another boarding school, you can imagine what it feels like at Exeter to get recommendations written on Andover forms. That's a killer, whatever they say. Better to use the SSAT automatic website or the Gateway to Prep Schools web sites, where your teachers (in the former case) fill in just one SSAT form and mail it in to SSAT and they then distribute it to all the schools on your list, or (in the latter case) provide Gateway with the emails of your teachers so that they can upload. I do get the sense that the HADES school are very sensitive to seeing other schools' forms showing up in their in-baskets, even though they say they are indifferent to them.

Very hard to ask the teachers and the school to fill out all of these forms for each of the various schools and send them in when a simple one-click email at Gateway or a simple one letter one form to SSAT will do the trick. Again, however, if you are only applying to a couple of schools, then maybe the burden isn't too onerous, but I presume that the HADES schools are on these electronic web sites for a reason and don't feel compelled to reject people who choose to use them.

alooknac

A student and/or their family will have to be very organized and motivated to deal with more than 5 applications. I am only personally familiar with the Gateway to Prep Schools common app because that was the only common app that included all four schools D wished to apply to. There was still a LOT of stuff specific to each school so it's not like you fill out an application and then just check off ten schools to send it to. Plus with four schools we had three different deadlines or was it two deadlines and three deadlines for financial aid? You get the idea.

With teacher references, we had one teacher get right on it, another who needed to be walked through the electronic submission process, and another who kept saying she would get right on it but never did. We had to do an eleventh hour teacher reference switch and the NEW teacher reference, contrary to all prior behavior, submitted everything the very last day possible. Even with the staggered deadlines, once she had submitted her first (glowing) reference, she wanted to tweak it for each subsequent school and I had to send several emails pleading with her not to wait till the last minute, the reference was great as is, etc. Extremely nerve-wracking.

D was very motivated to go to boarding school but not very much into the process of applying. Four schools was plenty. That was as many campus visits and interviews she could deal with on a single trip cross-country, two a day. She was fading by the fourth visit. How do you think you would hold up if you had important job interviews twice a day for a week?!

For those who want to apply to numerous schools, if you can pull it off, go for it. I just want to let newbies have an idea of what they're in for.

2prepMom

Make files for each school; copy everything.

Ask for recs in November, get them in by December and call the schools to verify they got them. Several got lost. In January no one at the school answers the phone anymore. In early December they are happy to speak with you.

Automated on-line tracking does not work reliably. Call.

Watch the word limits/character limits. Your essays may get randomly cut if you go over by a character or two and it is hard to find and fix. Formatting can be a nightmare. Give each app a whole day once done to check the formatting and proof one last time.

Get everything complete before the December holidays. After that it is just crazy to try to make sure anything got there.

GMTplus7

The number of schools you should apply to is dependent on how urgently you need to go to BS.

Applicants that have an acceptable fall-back option (i.e. good current school), often have a GO BIG OR GO HOME approach. They will apply to a few “dream ” schools and nothing else.

Applicants that do not have an acceptable fall-back option (i.e. poor current school, family move), should be more pragmatic in their approach. In addition to a few “dream” schools they should also apply to a number of schools that they will have a reasonable chance of being admitted to.

If FA is a necessity, then the number of schools you should apply to should increase even more.

alooknac

For what it's worth, our experience was almost identical for two children 20 years apart. There are extenuating circumstances why our financial situation required almost full FA for both children.

Son, 20 years ago, applied to 5 schools. Accepted at 3; one offered no FA, one offered about half, and one offered almost 100% FA.

Daughter, now a new freshman at her first choice school, applied to 4 schools. Accepted at 2; one put her on FA wait list, the other offered 85% FA.

Neither child had a decision to make as to what school to attend but it appears they both ended up in the right place.

A "safety" school should just mean that it has a higher acceptance rate than say Andover. You should feel confident about enrolling there if you are accepted. If you are looking down on it because it's not so exclusive as some schools, it will come through in your interview.

There are lots of really smart creative students at almost all boarding schools, as well as great faculty and challenging courses. At a school where the SSAT/SAT stats are a little lower and the admission rate higher, you may well have an even higher than average chance of being accepted. You will have more opportunities to shine and take on leadership roles. I encourage everyone to do random searches on boardingschoolreview and such sites and investigate the wide array of schools.

Check out this thread for some unusual offerings at various schools:
List of Exceptional & Unique Offerings at some BS

redbluegoldgreen

If you are applying to highly selective and competitive schools, keep in mind the acceptance rate is about 15%. Daughter's friend applied to 10 and got on 10 WL's. DD applied to 11 (all highly selective) and was accepted at 3, WL's at 6.

Like college apps, once an applicant meets threshhold standardized test scores, GPA's and EC's, if candidate doesn't have a hook, it's really a crapshoot.

DD said she thought the interview made a huge difference.

girlgeekmom

And to add to alooknac and rbgg's comments, in addition to widely variable admissions rates, we experienced quite a lot of variation in FA awards. Of the 8 (also highly selective) schools dd applied to, she was accepted at 4, WL 2, not accepted to 2. Of the 4 acceptances, the financial aid packages varied considerably. In the end, after lengthy consideration, she revisited only 2 of the 4 schools to which she was accepted (and of course chose only one to attend!).

NYPrep

Im personally applying to 8-9 and I think that is a reasonable number for applying to highly competitive schools because I think it gives you a greater chance of getting accepted.

UKgirl23

Did anyone really find 6+ schools that they would really like to attend? I guess some people are less picky, but my specficic criteria 2 years ago left me with a list of 3, and if I lowered my academic standards there would have been one or two more. Obviously it is a bit different if you can't stay where you are, but it's still a huge amount of money for a school that isn't a good fit.

Axelrod

@lisakay: Not sure if your post was serious or sarcastic. If serious, then I agree with other posters that applying to 10 collegs is not too many. Recommending a 5 college maximum may help refine one's list, but is not necessary.

SevenDad

We are about to start ramping things up with SevenDaughter2 and I think our visit list will be shorter this time around, but the apply to list (3 schools) much the same.

I'm cool with a relatively low number again because we have a great back-up in our local day school...which for various reasons may be a better option for our younger daughter than her sister.

UKgirl23

I've applied to 4 schools here in the UK, with admissions rates (for girls) of around 8%, 12%, 15%, 20%. So looking at it like that, my chances aren't high. I know it's hard to judge, but for me I would say my chances are over 50% for two of the schools, and maybe 20-25% for the others. Between them, I'm pretty sure I'll get one acceptance next week.
And really, these were the only schools we felt would fit me that boarded or weren't ridiculous commutes (except one which we were to late for, and another which we somehow forgot to apply for...)

SharingGift

For my D, it's 6. It wasn't about inability to find a fit (if you'd argue it's too many), nor about being careless for not having "safety" schools (if you thought the opposite).

The bottleneck for her is writing essays. She has used up almost the entire week of Thanksgiving break to finish up on her first drafts that addressed individual essay questions ... well, individually. Five or six seemed just about right for her. Hopefully this works out.

Axelrod

With respect to the optimal number of applications to boarding schools, it really depends upon the individual circumstances prompting one to apply. For children of diplomats & other parents stationed abroad in dangerous areas, the number should be high enough to ensure multiple options. For others, it depends upon the reasons for wanting to attend boarding school. In one case with which I was familiar, the number was 3 (in addition to 2 local private/religious day schools) but almost rose to 4 due to encouragement from one of the HADES schools. Often the number is just 1 or 2 if a suitable private day school or schools is also being considered.

Axelrod

I know a few families who applied to 6 to 8 boarding schools before visiting any. They had to travel long distances & only wanted to visit schools after being accepted during the accepted students days. Makes sense for those living outside of the Northeast US & applying to New England & Middle Atlantic area boarding schools.
I cannot recall anyone applying to more than 8 boarding schools.