@doschicos I always sucked at pop culture. Carlton BANKS!
@queenmother From the tenor of your post, you seem to think that there is a dearth of qualified african american candidates for the schools to choose from, such that they will all be competing with each other for the same few kids. Apparently, this isn’t the case if the qualified candidates you know are not getting offers of admission.
What’s the lesson to be learned? Its hard to get into boarding school.
If you are a top stat student with good ECs and a hook of some kind, and had no acceptances, especially if you applied to schools away from the top tier schools like Andover, Exeter, etc., I would take an honest look at the entire application. Could it be the interviews, the essays, overbearing parents that give the vibe they’d be difficult to deal with, less than stellar references (you’ll never know!), or some other piece of the puzzle that was off or missing? I posted before about some soft skills schools desire. Perhaps those aren’t being seen. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but there are reasons why some students are chosen over others…
ETA: I’m not implying that the student is lacking just that components of the application might not have presented the student as best it could or it didn’t easily highlight what the school was looking for.
@Korab1 I have no idea which set of schools he applied to because none of them are stating that they have achieved their diversity goals. So, I would assume that all schools are in the first set. I do know that my son applied to a very large number of schools. They all stated that his interview went well. At some schools he was placed on a financial aid wait list. Some wait listed him and some others just rejected him. He did get accepted to one school and we love the school that loved him. I am not sure what more he could do to be considered highly qualified. He was first chair in his instrument. He received recognition From Duke TiP for his high SAT score in 7th grade. He participated in the Duke summer program, living away from home for 3 weeks on the college campus. He scored well enough on the SSAT without any prep although he did take it several times. He comes from a school that offered very little in terms of extra curricular activities yet he had some because we sought them out outside of school. He had great grades and good teacher recommendations. He was proficient enough in his sport that he is a starter on his school’s varsity team even though he is a freshman. I am not sure what he was missing other than being able to be a full pay candidate.
My goal is to help other URM’s and their parents realize that even though you are bringing everything to the table that others are bringing you will not have different standards. Don’t let others here fool you into thinking that you will have some unidentified advantage. I think M10 was a bigger disappointment to me because as I stated earlier, I drank the kool- aid and believed that his URM status would give him an extra advantage. It did not. I want other URM parents to realize that. I think if I had not found this site before submitting applications, my expectations would have be correctly set. Instead I believed what I read here.
@doschicos said, “For a variety of reasons, boarding schools do see less applicants from qualified applicants to fit the URM buckets.” This is the reason we thought that my kid, who appear to be qualified, would have an easier time since he had a supposedly hook. Did not happen.
@Korab1, I don’t know the qualifications of other African Americans applying. I don’t know any that are applying. I only know what I read on this site, the messages I get in my inbox and my own personal experience. To your point, it is hard to get into boarding school for EVERYONE. There is no magic potion for URM’s. All URM parents need to hear that and not believe their child will get some advantage that others do not get.
Thank you, @queenmother. All hail the Queen!
@queenmother post 122 accomplishes your goal. I think we are in agreement that getting into boarding school is hard for everyone, and it is even harder when you are asking someone else to fund the tuition, as it makes that bucket you are in smaller and more competitive.
Wow, agreement. How satisfying 
@Korab1, Exactly! Getting into boarding school is hard and even harder when you need some financial aid. Your minority status does not magically increase your odds of admission from the odds of everyone else needing FA. If you are full pay and a minority, you odds are still the same as other full pay candidates.
I didn’t say it was a hook. It’s not useful to speculate with so limited information. I’m sure if I had the time I could find many examples on here of seemingly well qualified whites and ORMs, being rejected or waitlisted at their top BS choices. I’m not sure either set of anecdotes proves anything beyond the obvious: highly selective BS are highly selective.
@queenmother You truly believe there is ZERO benefit to being URM? Zero? I get the impression you thought it would be a big factor but that doesn’t make it a non-factor, either full pay of needing FA.
BTW, how do you know how strong your child’s recommendations were? Did you see them all?
I looked up the percent of color for the HADES schools. I assume that doesn’t include international students, but I could be wrong about that. Then, I calculated the percent of domestic students of color. The results are 51%, 36%, 46%, 48%, and 30% in no particular order. Those numbers don’t seem too far out of line from the population as a whole. Then, you have to consider the vast majority of people outside NE, except for BS legacies, don’t even consider sending their kids to BS. That has to skew the applicant pool.
Did you find any schools where 17.6% of the students are Hispanic? (That is the percentage of the overall population that was estimated to be Hispanic in 2015 according to the US Census.)
Does this include documented and illegals? What impact would being an illegal alien have on a child’s ability to apply for BS.
What percentage speak and write English at a level that would permit admission at a English language boarding school? What percentage view English as a second language? These are honest questions - I have no idea. If US pop is 350 million that would make approximately 50 million hispanics? Estimates of illegals are 10-15 million?
Also, what’s the breakdown by state of hispanics? Are they concentrated in non traditional boarding school areas?
All of this will likely have an impact on application rates and acceptance rates. I would be interested to see what the answers to these questions look like, if there are any stats available.
DC just took Andover’s state of the school survey and one of the questions was something along the lines of whether you support the admission of undocumented students.
One thing to keep in mind, regardless of which bucket you’re in, these schools are generally admitting less than 20% of applicants. If you are an URM, perhaps the admit rate is 18% vs. 12% for ORM. That still means that at least 80% of the kids are being waitlisted or rejected. Unfortunately, that 80% includes many of the same kids.
I learned a lot from @queenmother 's post. It tells me that the more boxes you check, the more attractive you’ll be. The URMs I can think of also had geodiversity, first gen, athletes and other hooks. For future candidates, try to check as many boxes as possible, and yes this includes either full pay or full FA.
I still think needing full FA can be something that helps an applicant if BS believes they can help student matriculate to a top college through Questbridge. Increasingly questbridge is playing a factor in elite college admits, esp to some colleges like Yale. You’d have to go back and look at the number of kids accepted into a class (trend) year to year from Questbridge to see how much of a hook it would be. But it seems to be.
This.You need to know what ORM means to understand how URM can help. Of course, race in itself is just one dimension. For applicant A, their URM status might tip the scale, but for applicant B, it may not. One’s ORM status, on the hand, in itself will almost never tip the scale to one’s favor.
“Illegal” is not a noun, @Korab1
So my students’ boarding school during College Information Weekend passes out vignettes of factitious students and their demographics and asks parents in a group format to discuss pros and cons of student applicants to elite colleges and decide if you were an ADCOM who would you give the opportunity to? This is in an attempt to help parents understand that colleges are putting together a diverse community.That is not unlike this situation where we are trying to figure out how big if any a factor is URM status.
Somewhat tongue in cheek: For argument sake, let’s say both students described below have 99% SSAT scores and all A’s. Both have decent teacher recs. Who would YOU give the opportunity to (East Coast elite BS)?
Student 1: Hispanic male from West Coast whose parents are undocumented. Student may be a dreamer or a US citizen but parents are undocumented. Identifies as LGBQA+. Student needs full FA. Student also is a Varsity athlete and is “nice.” Without BS will attend a local urban public high school without many resources.
Student 2: Asian female from Boston area whose parents are both doctors. Full pay. Plays no sports but is good violinist (not first chair). Wants to be a doctor and help people. Is nice too, but has been taught to be quiet and respectful of her elders. +Helicopter parents.
Does student #1 have more to offer? Does his URM status help? If Asian student does not get in with 99% and 4.0 and FP will her parents think its simply because she’s ORM?
I think when you apply to boarding school with much less resources, you may have a much larger gap to cross than other applicants. It may show a greater grit, resolution and determination to achieve your goals, which in the end is what boarding schools desire. When you’re a URM, it’s unlikely that your parents came from a background like this and it shows that you really are the one who wants to go. Please don’t be rude about my opinion if you disagree, but I’m open to feedback.
I am not sure if being an URM helped DD. I am inclined to think that it did. She ended up with 2 acceptances and 3 waitlists out of 10. Only one school offered any FA. It was pretty clear without FA she would not be going. From what I can tell (based on student handbook, online searches, etc) not many Native American students apply.
She was totally qualified on paper for ANY school she applied to (or we wouldn’t have bothered applying because the whole process was a bit of a pain and a financial drain). Did she get the FA because she is Native American? I have no idea. But I know she didn’t get accepted or waitlisted at half the schools she applied to with a mid 80’s superscore SSAT, good essays, good interviews, great recommendations, and almost straight A’s since kindergarten, volunteer hours in interesting areas, and an okay athlete at a few different sports. So being URM didn’t help there.