When you’re doing your deep dive and investigating sports at schools on your short list, note that SPS does have a swim team but the ‘24-‘25 season was the first in about 20 years and the results reflect that. As the years progress and SPS is able to recruit stronger swimmers, they should improve, but if your daughter is already a strong swimmer then the peer competition might not be there yet at SPS.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on with Hotchkiss swimming. They have a program but it doesn’t seem to have a high profile and they barely show up to NEPSAC champs even when they’re hosting (like this year). It warrants further investigation.
As a former BS student and a private school parent for over a decade now I strongly disagree. The road to hell is often paved with the best intentions.
We went back and forth on Peddie last time due to the high percentage of day and local students. It may be worth a visit. It’s very important to my daughter that a school doesn’t empty on weekends and there’s a concern of some of that where a large number of students have that option.
But we can look into it again.
We have made our list purposely very tight and in the end will apply to only two schools with acceptances below 20%. If Hotchkiss goes on, a comparable school would need to drop and I’m not sure she’ll want to drop any of the three we have listed in that group now.
I’d even go further to say that a “good” school should be able to successfully educate any student. Even more so for selective schools that already pick from above average to incredibly above average kids. Beyond a certain range, which all these schools exceed, “fit” is not a valid excuse….they should be able to reach all their carefully selected students where they are and lead them to success without creating an environment that leaves those same students feeling battered and drained.
If a critical mass of their students feel that way about their experience, a deep dive into the school’s pedagogy and their approach to achievement is in order vs heaping even more blame on the students. And that doesn’t have to mean watering down the challenge either.
It bears remembering that we are talking about adolescents here, not college aged adults. Many who are already struggling mentally in lots of ways.
One other interesting point to consider when weighing a school’s level of competition is how difficult it is to earn an “A”. Each school reports the grading curve when they send transcripts to colleges, so I’m including the percentage of grades that are “As” for each school. (These stats are from each school’s college profile, which is public.)
DA: 15%
Hotchkiss: 50%
SPS: 10%
How would you all interpret these figures? One reading of these stats would imply that there is less pressure at Hotchkiss than the other schools so may be a good fit for those seeking a less “cut throat” atmosphere. It also could be that students at Hotchkiss are smarter than their peers at other schools or that the teachers are significantly better. Thoughts?
I believe Peddie is 70% borders, not sure how many are “local” borders but my DD has plenty of friends who are from distant places. I asked her if campus “empties out” on the weekends and she said she didn’t feel like it does. She said she sometimes uses the weekend to “recoup” tho, so doesn’t pay much attention. There are a few weekends every term that the kids are required to stay on campus (usually with lots of events going on). There are also every other Saturday classes which keep kids on campus. She has gone to a few “local” kid’s homes for birthday parties on weekends. She has also taken the school shuttles to Target, Princeton (a small town with a nice main street), and has gone to the movies and done an escape room with friends.
Anyhoo, I fully understand needing to limit the number of schools you apply to. Peddie does have a great swim program, but there is only so much time in an application cycle! We only seriously looked at and applied to 3 schools and it felt like a full time job on top of my full time job. It also seems that your DD might really like her day school, despite it’s flaws, and there’s nothing wrong with that either! If she isn’t fully committed to boarding school and is happy where she is, then so be it! I would hate for you/her to go through another application cycle only to hear that once again, she would rather stay home.
Chiming in to add a note on the idea of toxicity. I do think that schools (rather than kids) can and do inadvertently foster conditions which may be toxic for some kids.
For example, the BS my kids attended (not on OP’s list) is known for giving +/- 4 hours of homework per day. A full day of classes, followed by mandatory athletics/arts, followed by dinner, leaves only* those evening hours for homework. Then to bed. It can be a real grind. I would not debate the notion of calling that “toxic” even if not in the sense originally broached above, i.e. that the kids competing with one another somehow creates toxicity, or that the kids are toxic somehow (I mean there will be AHs everywhere despite AOs best efforts!)
I also concur that the degree to which a BS really, really, full throated pushes the idea that “it’s totally ok to not get into [A] and instead go to [B]” matters in a similar sort of way.
*not technically “only” bc kids have a free period during the day here and there and can do HW then as well
Hi..I have skimmed most of the post but did want to contest your point about Kent Crew. The women’s program is extremely strong and trains at a very high level. Every year many seniors are recruited out of the program.
They are significantly less active on instagram, if that at all gave the indication that the boys team is more active.
The women’s coach at Kent has coached at Ivy League programs, olympics, etc.
I agree with you on this. I also think parents, and parental pressure on their kids, can cause “pressure cooker” conditions on campus, especially, but not exclusively, at the super-selective BSs.
This leads to competitiveness, mental stress, tons of tutors being used, disingenuous resume building - among the many negative side effects.
To a certain degree I also think these schools respond to the desires of many parents for exceptionally high workload and rigor, not just to satisfy the intellectual appetites of the students, but to assure parents they are doing their utmost to maximize college matriculation results.
It sounds like you’re doing lots of research, which is helpful, but I have to wonder if maybe you’re over thinking it? Data can be helpful but it can also seem to mean more than it does if you let it. For instance, you say Hotchkiss has too low an acceptance rate (which I assume you mean it’s too competitive), but yet you are considering Loomis, so I don’t follow the logic.
This year’s Loomis acceptance rate was 16% whereas a few years ago it was 18% and this year Hotchkiss was 19%, and a few years ago it was 21%. In the grand scheme of things those are very comparable acceptance rates. The important things are culture, curriculum, in your case sports, and how your student would feel going to school there.
I wouldn’t get hung up on a 2 or 3% difference in acceptance rates or eliminate one school over another based on that data. It’s just not that big of a factor and really tells you nothing about what the school will be like in practice. My $.02.
Hello there, yes, my logic is not linear.
This hearkens back to my comment about no school we are considering being perfect based on our criteria. Loomis’ flaw will be that it is quite competitive. But as I mentioned, having certain sports at a certain competitive level is important for us and that, plus a school culture my daughter has strongly connected with, is the the thing keeping Loomis on the list over comparable schools. It is also why we have since dropped SPS because while it is a great school, it is also quite competitive and is not a good fit for our athlete’s sports interests. We have since replaced SPS with Peddie. Despite it having a slightly lower percentage of boarders than we’d prefer, it has strong pluses in sports performance, a collaborative/supportive school culture and great accessibility/logistics.
I’m definitely overthinking it, but have no idea how else to approach this without spending entirely too much time. I realize the data is not perfect, but I have to set a cutoff somewhere unless there is a factor that makes that data point worth less consideration.
This is our second time around so I’m hoping to apply some lessons, but also force us to think more deeply about her choices to avoid a repeat of this year’s outcome(having some options and committing to none). She’s going to drive this more, I’m playing more of a veto power. I have the final say on the list and on things like when we can visit etc., but the original list was compiled by her. She just didn’t connect with Hotchkiss though I suggested it, not sure why. I also limited the number of reach schools she can apply to, so given that limitation Loomis and SPS won out. After some more research, SPS is now out too.
I am not sure where this comment is in the thread of your process but you are making arbitrary cut offs that do not make sense. I am a 3x BS mom and now considering for kid 4. Are the day students faculty kids? Are they there until 10pm? One of my kids has a day student as a “roommate” he is around just as much as any of the boarders and all weekend. I agree that you do not want a day school with some boarders but I do not think you can determine this just based on the cutoff you have.
Yes, I think most people on this board have a good understanding of the relative level of competition of these schools. Hopefully the posts from the rest of the group have helped to level set these expectations around levels of competition.
