hades sibling admit rate?

GemmaV
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:14:44 +0000

I believe I responded to the same topic in another thread. Let’s recap:

1) Private DAY schools, especially K-12 ones, care much more about siblings than traditional boarding schools.

2) The most competitive boarding schools can fill their ENTIRE entering class with JUST younger siblings. But they don’t. Why not? Because that would be (a) very boring and (b) very unfair to those applicants who are OLDEST children and ONLY children. Every once in a while, a parent will call me to ask, “Why didn’t Jack get admitted? His sister Jill is there!” And I want to say to that parent (but I don’t), “If we gave siblings preferential treatment, Jill wouldn’t have been admitted.”

3) Schools know that every child–even in the same family–is different. What’s right for one child is not necessarily right for the other child. I think every parent of multiple children can understand this. You can see the differences even when they are very young. My nephew is very methodical and deliberate. He walked late (17 mos.) and is very cautious around new people and in new places. He can entertain himself for hours, just doing his own thing. My niece, on the other hand, is a WILD CHILD. She walked at 10 mos. old and started running (FAST!) at a year. She dove into a pool when she was a year and a half–the kid is positively fearless. Their father (my brother) and I have a lot in common–we like the same kind of music, the same movies, the same types of foods. We were both very good students in high school. But he went to a large state university (and loved it!) and I went to a medium-sized, highly selective, private college. We both loved our very different college experiences.

4) Legacy=being the child or grandchild of an alumnus/alumna. Legacy applicants are given every consideration but still need to be qualified to be admitted.

Being a sibling of a current or former student gives you NO additional leg up at the most competitive boarding schools when they are deciding whether to admit you or not. However, if you are admitted, those schools will predict (and rightfully so) that you are easier to YIELD given your family’s established connection with the school.