My current eighth grader is likely applying to various household name boarding schools for next school year. Of course we know he may not be accepted anywhere he applies. Nevertheless, I have the following question: With an eye toward maintaining high matriculation rates, do boarding schools of similar admission selectivity confer about applicants such that only one or two tend to accept any one applicant, or does each admissions office make its admission decisions independently, which could result in a high number of acceptances for one applicant and, therefore, worse matriculation stats for the schools not attended?
One of my kids applied to 5 schools considered among the more selective/prestigious and got into all 5. And this was the 2nd kid who had the older sibling’s school among the ones applied to. I don’t think they collude.
A sizable percentage of applications don’t qualify for FA, so…
gardenstategal:
There is one caveat – if you are applying through a program (like ABC), it’s not unusual for the program coordinator to convey to the schools how your choices are ranked. In those cases, you may not be admitted to your lower ranked choices if you are likely to be successful at your higher choices. Iow, you don’t lose out because you are accepted to your top choices and the schools you aren’t wild about can admit students who want to be there. (This works well for the programs too because they get more students placed.) For most applicants here who are applying on their own, this scenario won’t apply to them.
Many of the feeder private middle schools do this as well with an aim to getting better matriculation for their whole class of graduates.