<p>Say you are a kid from Colorado applying to Xanadu BS, your SSAT scores are good and you can handle the academic workload but you have weak EC and public service record, a prime candidate to be waitlisted at Xanadu. That is until the AO notices you are from Rosebud Middle school in Colorado and your application now goes to a special pile. Come March 10 you are accepted with full FA. The family and applicant celebrate the good fortune and go on to live happy productive lives. Unknown to them when Charles Foster Kane gave $25 million to the Xanadu BS it came with the stipulation that if a local boy from Rosebud Middle school makes good and is an acceptable candidate for admission to Xanadu his portion of the endowment should be used to make it happen. Having heard the story it sounds plausible because you know Charles Foster Kane grew up in the town and was a prominent citizen. In talking to some other parents at soccer practice I have heard from more than one parent that believes kids from our town have this special relationship that helps with admission and FA at not one but two boarding schools. To me it seems like any good story just enough coincidental fact to make the absurdity of it possible. Of course no mention of it at Xanadu BS and there is no application for the Citizen Kane scholarship. Does this happen or is it delusions of grandeur? </p>
<p>Not to fan the flames, but I know that SPS has (or at least had) a few regional scholarships — for example, the Ross for students from NJ. I don’t know how important going to a specific middle school or even living in a specific town were…but IIRC, it was from residents of “Northern NJ” (I think intended to encourage inner-city kids to consider/apply/matric to SPS). I think other schools have regional scholarships as well…</p>
<p>To clarify, I think you have to be academically admissible AND show some merit (it’s a selective program: not all kids from the area will be named finalists, and not all finalists will be selected).</p>
<p>Thanks, Like they say if it sounds too good to be true. Must just be a local rumor people would like to believe. BS FA seems to be totally at the discretion of the schools. Then again in the 150 years it took to build that large endowment some donations had to come with strings attached. My only other reference would be college where you have specific scholarships for say tap dancers of Greek heritage. </p>
<p>ForkNotTaken, the schools try to enroll students from many states. (Elite colleges do too.) If you look for “school name” “student body” “states,” you’ll pull up many school websites bragging about student body geographic distribution. </p>
<p>A student with high SSAT scores from Colorado would probably be interesting to many schools, depending on the number of applications they receive from students in Colorado. There’s no need to speculate the students were admitted only due to a scholarship.</p>
<p>Many parents are hesitant to send their children far away for high school. I don’t know how many students from Colorado apply to East Coast boarding schools, but it’s likely a much smaller pool than the students from Connecticut.</p>
<p>If you search for “St Paul’s School” and “restrictive scholarship,” you should pull up a few endowed scholarships at St. Paul’s. Most of the scholarships I found list an order of preference for recipients, ending with, basically, admissions director’s choice, or rolling the funds over for another year. So even if there is a scholarship which covers your town’s in a wider geographic area, that doesn’t mean the school is required to accept a student who can’t handle the academics. </p>
<p>For example, there’s a scholarship at Harvard for descendants of the Class of 1902: <a href=“http://www.scholarships.harvard.edu/usstudents.html#other[/url]”>http://www.scholarships.harvard.edu/usstudents.html#other</a>. That doesn’t mean every such descendant will be admitted. </p>