For those reading these posts for 2027 insights, we received USPS packages today from two schools that never appeared on our USPS Informed Delivery. And I set up Informed Delivery years ago, and it still shows 3 more packages arriving on Friday from the schools where I did see a label created before March 10. So Informed Delivery can only provide good news, but no news means nothing as clearly some schools use tracking and some do not use tracking.
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Will someone start a descisioon thread.
new jersey
between Andover and Deerfield, which one are u leaning more towards too right now?
Andover but its like 30 mins further so idk
If accepted to your top 1 school and you are 100% sure u want to enroll in that school - do you recommend revisit days?
yes, to see what the classes would look at and how the classes are
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Yep.
In our household, it changed our student’s mind completely about which school was the best fit.
And even if it doesn’t change your mind, revisit days are still really fun.
(Exception: If you can’t afford to revisit (and the school won’t provide financial support for your family to attend) and/or the school is insanely far from your home, then it’s obviously a different calculus.)
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I heard that in Boarding schools there are fall/spring family weekends - do most families visit the school in these weekends?
Thank you so much for the tip ! I know that I’m going to commit to the one school (especially since it is better than the other in most ways) so I was unsure about revisit days. However, I am enrolling as a sophomore - will revisit days be beneficial also bc im not going as a freshman?
I highly recommend going to revist days
Still beneficial, yes. There will be general programming for all students and families regardless your grade, and there should also be an opportunity to shadow a current student in the year that you’ll be entering. You’ll be able to sit in on some classes, and probably eat lunch with them and maybe see their dorm. It’s illuminating and fun (or should be). You can probably also pick up some free swag (like T-shirts, magnets or whatever).
This is good advice. We signed up for alerts from FedEx, USPS, UPS and got no notifications at all before M10, while others did from the same schools we applied to. That didn’t feel good. The next morning we had two acceptances from those schools!
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Just to list a data point from a parent.
(I apologize for the blob of text)
My DS: White, 13yo, Texas, speaks English, Chinese and Russian, middle-class
99% SSAT, 99% PSAT, 96% SAT (at 12yo), straight As (with honors classes and through Algebra2 in math), Mensa member, in a film on Prime, cast in a TV show on Netflix, UIL and other competition acting awards, current lead in honor’s musical program, won 1st place in state Chinese speech competition (in non-heritage category), medals in state math competition, going to state for “math and science” competition this month, created and ran a couple of small company concepts, has played lacrosse for 3 years, competes in swim during the summer for 4 years, plays piano, solves Rubik’s cubes in less than 30s, extremely social - always a team leader. VP of NJHS, President of Baylor summer class, on the Baylor TIP student advisory council. There are probably 20 more things. He goes to a public school in a program that only accepts top 2% IQ (He has been tested 3 times in the past 5 years to maintain), but they don’t really support the massive EC drive that a lot of the private schools do - everything is just on us. And no student from his school district has ever applied to these schools (per counselor, and that his school didn’t exist in the application database until I added it).
He had amazing interviews at all of the schools, amazing LoRs, and he kept in touch over the past couple of months. I think his essays were excellent. Applying to 11 schools (because we were totally new to this process, and coming from a different world in Texas), was a ton of work. It was months of spending hours and hours at the library, to write and refine essays, to prepare for testing, etc.
Waitlisted: Andover, Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, Hotchkiss, NMH, St Paul’s, Taft
Rejected: Hill, Lawrenceville, Loomis Chaffee
Pretty disappointed, but we will stay in touch with the schools.
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Hello, I am new to this forum. I applied to a couple of boarding schools but have been accepted only into 1 (Andover). The other schools were mainly waitlists. I was wondering if this meant anything, as I believed that I put almost equal effort and stories into all of my apps. Also I wanted to congratulate to everyone, regardless of an acceptance, waitlist, or redirection!
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Don’t know about most, but many do. Usually in the fall. Don’t know of any Spring ones, but that doesn’t mean anything.
Definitely go to revisit day(s). It changed my kid’s idea of where she was “sure” she wanted to go.
Geez! Your son’s stats are incredible.
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no, this doesn’t mean anything its js boarding school admissions in a nutshell. Don’t worry abt the schools that u didn’t get into, and instead you got into one of the best if not the best school on you list in andover. As more kids are getting to know abt boarding school, many schools are recieving way more applications as a result, leading to qualified applicants getting waitlisted or even rejected. I got waitlisted from most of my schools but got into deerfield, showing that it only takes one
That’s a really disappointing outcome, especially for someone with such stellar stats. Would your son attend any of the schools listed if accepted?