Trying to understand how difficult it is to get into the top boarding schools. Have application numbers gone up or down this year? Does anyone have any intel? The application process is so opaque - they don’t give you any feedback or info so it feels like you have zero idea about your chances. For people who have done this in the past, did you feel that the outcomes made sense to you? Thank you! The wait is tough!
Common sense says schools with sub-20% admit rates are going to have low chances of admittance foralmost all applicants. Schools can’t be very specific since each year their institutional priorities shift, and there certainly isn’t a formula for the academic piece that means certain admittance or denial.
That’s why, just like with college, it is critical to apply to schools with a range of selectivity, or to have a good Plan B in a local school.
The waiting IS tough! I find soothing distraction (Great British Baking Show anyone?) is my go-to coping method. Good luck!
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Agreed! You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what “makes sense.” You just have no way of knowing how schools are building a class. Having had kids go through the BS, college and LPS process, I can say from experience that the only way to do it is apply to a broad range of schools and do your best.
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At this point, nobody knows what schools are reporting in terms of applications for this year.
At a macro level, I believe that the total number of students who want to attend BS may be softening AND those who are applying are following the college model and applying to more schools in a small universe of very selective schools. This makes them all hard to get into.
But none of that really matters because ultimately, it depends on the school, your pay status, how you fill a number of demographics, and what you bring to the school. That’s a long way of saying “who knows?”
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Why do you think the kids wanting to apply to boarding school may be softening? Do you mean relative to pandemic times?
There was a bump at the pandemic that’s disappeared… But it’s mostly demographics. This was never a huge segment of the market, and it’s getting smaller. Colleges are also impacted.
Cost doesn’t help, either! Nor do some of the trends around parenting. And there are better online resources for kids who might have been forced into it by distance. Many reasons…
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“…trends in parenting…”
Lol. 
You ARE a diplomat @gardenstategal
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This may be an easier year for American applicants as overall applications will be down due to fewer foreign students applying. I would expect that the trend would trickle down from universities to boarding schools. (What Trump’s migration crackdown could mean for foreign students)
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Do you think Trump’s new policies might impact the acceptance rates of international students, particularly those from countries like China and India in the case of boarding schools?
My (non-insider) guess is that it won’t affect admissions decisions - things are too much in flux for schools to be able to reliably pivot, I suspect. Whether international families are as comfortable committing to four years of having their child in this country under Trump’s leadership…well that’s another thing altogether.
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Plenty of high-ability international applicants are still applying to “top” American boarding schools. If there’s a decrease in numbers, it’s in full-pay domestic applicants.
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Well, they all applied before the current regime took over. Not saying there will definitely be a change in international yield, but … if I were a foreign family, no way in hell Im sending my foreign-born kid to the US at this moment.
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Most of the international applicants to top boarding schools are kids of wealthy families from East Asia, including S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. I don’t think they care so much who is the president, etc.
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We are an international family (dual citizens via our marriage and we live in my husband’s country). Yes, we are watching carefully and want to better understand the impact before we commit. And yes people are discussing why anyone would head there. All of our friends in the US are trying to figure out how to come here.
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Makes sense to me - it’s a fraught time in this country for many, and it can’t be as attractive a notion to ship one’s child here now as it was last year. And four years of Trump will presumably largely coincide with the four years of high school.
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Yes this is true.
Many international students in my son’s school attended junior boarding schools in the US and their families own homes here. They have already established connections in the US even though they are being put in the international student bucket.
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It may be that we don’t see the impact in terms of number of applicants this year as most families had likely already made the decision about whether or not DD/DS would apply. We might see a lower yield this year however as international families reassess whether they want their children to be in the U.S. under this administration. I would expect that the 2025-26 year will have fewer international applicants given the tension between Europe and the U.S. Some Asian countries may also want to send fewer students if tensions between the U.S. and China increase.
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Is there any evidence of this? My experience has been that there are more applications every year in the last six years. There will be plenty of qualified foreign students that will apply. I expect very little change.
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You were right. Those A-list Asian families are unlikely to alter the course of their children’s (in some cases grandchildren’s) education simply because Trump is our president. Trump’s character, or the lack thereof, has little impact on the quality of education at top boarding schools.
To reach high-potential international families, advancement officers have also been developing (pun intended) new territories in the past few years –– mainly because these families are all full pay and come with development potential. While Hong Kong (old $) and Korea (chaebols) remain strong pipelines, Taiwan (tech) and Vietnam (exporters/banking) have become new bright spots, followed by the Philippines. Russia also shows a lot of potential, but the parents have to pass the vetting process.
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I can share that applications for at least one BS have continued to increase this year. I suspect this will be a continuing trend for most (if not all) boarding schools. Best of luck to everyone waiting for M10!
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