This varies, as not all schools have the same administrative structure.
However, if you (or your parent/guardian) ask at the main office, they should be able to direct you to the correct person. Caveat: if they have little experience with US boarding school applications, it may take some extra explaining. At least, they seemed confused at my kid’s (US, public) school. Irony: my kid’s English class was reading “A Separate Peace” at the time. (Why that book is still popular in public school curriculums is beyond me. It is the literary equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard for me. Actually, worse.)
Thx for all the replies, the forms and letters of recs have been requested! Going back the SSAT, when I got my SSAT scores back, I also paid to be able to read the written essay as well. My SSAT scores were good enough but my essay was lower mediocre at best. I literally cringed as I perused the cliche thesis and stumbled upon rushed sentences without any sort of eloquence. I feel like the essay didn’t capture the extent of my writing ability- should I have to worry about this being detrimental to my application?
From what I have heard from staff and experts in admissions, they are looking for ideas and quality of writing in the limited time that SSAT gives. Some vocabulary words there will embellish it. They do understand that 25 minutes is too short to show the full repertoire of your writing skills.
No. The AOs know that you had 25 minutes. They are looking for some clarity of thought and reasonable grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. They may compare this to your application to see if the latter sounds like you (or your parent, consultant, chatgpt, etc…)
It’s pretty rare that sometimes will whip off a real masterpiece in that time, and that’s not the expectation.
Hi! I finished writing maybe half of all my essays (I plan to write all of them during my winter break, I procrastinate but plan to recycle most essays) but I have no idea if they’re good enough for BS applications. I like my essays, they are extremely personal, but idk I’m doubting myself and overthinking everything. Could people please share advice on things to include, their experience with essays, and anything pertaining to essay writing will be very appreciated! Thanks to everyone.
I think for boarding school application essays you can think of the essay kinda like a college essay. If you search up like “Essay that got me into Andover/Exeter/etc” there will definitely essay videos that show up, and if you can you can just search up college essay examples since IMO the essays for boarding school and college essays are basically the same writing style.
I have too! This was how I found college confidential (thank you Gloria). Her essay is amazingly written and tbh I had to google some words. I haven’t watched the video in a while though.
Hi everyone. I have another question. We need financial aid but apparently we have to reach out to schools and tell them the amount we need?? My parents are saying to say that we need less than what we need so the need-aware schools will accept me but I’m worried about the financial burden on my family especially bc I still have 2 younger siblings who may want to go to bs as well. This sounds dumb and so selfish of me but I was thinking we should say a little more than what we need because boarding schools can always provide less but they’ll rarely provide more (heard it in a webinar, I was saddened). Idk the PARANOIA of how this will be viewed is skyrocketing. Will this take money away from others? The last thing I want is to cost anyone for my comfort. I’m really confused on how we should go about this and I need some help. Thank you for reading my frazzled post and TIA for those who respond.
(Edit: I just reread my post because I’m just the kind of person that rereads emails after sending them but will just saying what we need work fine even with need aware schools? It sounds so counterintuitive of me to say this, like why wouldn’t it be fine, its what they are literally asking of us, but I feel like there is more to it. It feels too easy…I’m just scared our income will fluctuate or something horrible will happen and the aid won’t be enough, or maybe they decide our income is too high for aid and determine we only need 5k in aid or something. I just wish for financial aid equity for all for new years. I’m sure schools want this too, but it’s late over here on the west coast and I’m tired so maybe I’ll edit my post tomorrow after I calm down. Goodbye for now!)
Hey! I think schools adapt financial aid if any extenuating circumstances happen while you’re enrolled! I would advise you to ask for what you need, but this is just my opinion.
I don’t know where I got this ‘we have to tell them what we need’ stuff, my family and I have been stressing about it for a while so I’m glad I took to cc to make sense of it. Thank you!
Hi y’all, thx for all the replies, my parents were shocked. Going back to recommendations, my Andover interviewer told me a was a strong applicant (to my understanding I should read nothing into it) but to make my app stronger they suggested getting recommendations from the leader of the sustainability organization and one of the leaders of a association I’m in. I actually filled all the recommendation slots possible in gateway so I emailed each school and the AO’s told me I can just have my recommenders email the recommendation to the admission email. Now for my question: for these recommendation letters, I know that gateway has a sort of form they have to fill but how would that work when emailing the school? Or are these recommendations just going to be just a letter that is emailed without any format? Also, since I had my interview late, asking for these recommendations a month before the deadline is a tight, especially bc of winter break. I understand that we have to have all REQUIRED materials turned in by the deadline but for optional/additional recommendations, can they be sent in later (for the sake of my recommenders’ well-being)? Thank you!
