The Gateway to Prep Schools Candidate Profile includes an opportunity for applicants to submit multimedia links and additional information, specifically:
For the benefit of our CC colleagues who are currently going through the application process, are there any Gateway veterans out there who are willing to share thoughts/recommendations on this and perhaps specifics about what they/their child submitted?
I’ll start. AppleKid submitted 2 video links: athletic footage and footage of participation in an extracurricular activity. Neither of these videos had been filmed in anticipation of being submitted in support of BS applications, and in fact, had been filmed months before it even occurred to AppleKid to apply to BS. Additionally, AppleKid later submitted music performance footage via the method specified by each school.
GoatKid submitted four links through Gateway: athletic footage of her sport (both skills and game action, specifically made for BS applications), footage of select musical instrument performances in the past 2 years, footage of select choir performances in the past year, and footage form foreign language competitions. Each footage was no more than 5 minutes long. For some schools (Hotchkiss, SPS), these materials had to be submitted directly to the school as well. BTW, for Hotchkiss you pay a fee to upload such materials. All footage was posted on a private Vimeo website, and we could monitor the number of views each link received. The athletic footage had by far the most views, followed by the musical instrument performances and the foreign language footage. The choir footage got the fewest views.
GoatKid also made sure to send athletic footage directly to the coaches (in addition to uploading through Gateway). Throughout the season, she updated them with more footage from several tournaments. Most coaches responded to every update, and some elaborately and in detail that indicated they had watched the footage very carefully. Similarly, she sent her music footage directly to music program directors and language footage to foreign language teachers. The response was good, as from coaches.
Ultimately, no amount of coach/teacher enthusiasm was sufficient to offset the heavy FA needs at several schools, resulting in waitlists (Choate and Taft fell in that category, which was made clear to us post M10). FWIW, GoatKid still maintains contact with most coaches as they see each other at games/camps. It’s a small world!
Thanks for the great input @GoatMama! To us it seemed that this was a good opportunity for AppleKid to highlight different strengths. AppleKid didn’t send athletic footage to coaches, but did send them email updates throughout the season. I feel like videos help better convey an applicant’s personality beyond the glimpse a school gets from the interview.
I’m curious regarding the feedback you received after M10–was that unsolicited or did you contact the schools to ask about the specifics behind the decisions?
@AppleNotFar It was totally unsolicited. Basically, the coaches (and one music director), upon not seeing her on their lists, emailed to express their regret and provide some background. Everyone was very nice and offered to push for her with Admissions. We declined because she already had good acceptances and we had decided “to love the schools that loved her.”
One of those coaches emailed me recently, during the joint pre-season camp several BS had. “Boy, did we miss the boat on her!” the coach wrote. Besides stroking a mom’s ego, this communication showed that they actually remember and care. As someone on this board advised a few months ago, even if you decide not to attend a school, make sure that you are considerate of everyone there and treat them with respect. The BS world is small, word get around fast.
@CaliMex She only listed writing awards in the Candidate Profile. She didn’t find a good way to put together and share a writing portfolio, and decided not to bother. She thought that her essays (as well as the graded writing samples some schools ask for) are sufficient to show writing abilities.
Thanks for the great info on this thread! Did anyone use YouTube links? Question: Using Gateway to schools application but from my email as my 7th grader only has the current school email. Is this ok?
My kid submitted both. Some of the schools specified that they only wanted solos, but I can’t recall which school required what; for submission to 7 schools I think my kid created 4 different videos.
