parent recommendations for junior boarding school application

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>I am foreigner, a father of year 7 student and am not so familiar about application process in US. So please give me some advice.</p>

<p>We are applying to some junior boarding for our son.</p>

<p>I find that some school has questionnaire for student/parent so that we can input about ourselves.</p>

<p>However, some school does not require any essay and it say that parent recommendation is optional. They don’t suggest any form for it.</p>

<p>In this case, I do not how to parent recommendation. I would like to see any sample parent recommendation so that I can explain about the achievement of my son so far.</p>

2

<p>Ahhhh . . . the parent essay! My (least) favorite part of the application!</p>

<p>The questions most commonly asked in the sr. boarding school applications are the following:</p>

<p>(1) What is your child’s greatest strength?
(2) What is your child’s greatest weakness?
(3) What delights you most about your child?
(4) How do you think your child will adapt to the challenges of living away from home in a dormitory?
(5) What do you think your child will contribute to the school community?
(6) Is there anything else we should know about your child?</p>

<p>You can answer some or all of these questions, as you choose. None of them is “necessary.”</p>

<p>It deserves to be emphasized that the point of these essays is not to repeat information that is already available elsewhere in the student’s application. In other words, the school should already know what courses your child is taking this year, what extracurriculars he or she is involved in, and what grades/results he or she has achieved.</p>

<p>The parent essay is your one opportunity to mention things that are not readily apparent from the other parts of the child’s application. So, use the space well. Be as brief as possible, but use your essay to tell the school things about your child that will give the admissions officers a more complete picture of who your child is.</p>

<p>If there were any particular hurdles your child had to overcome (significant illness, family hardship, learning disability), this is the place to mention them.</p>

<p>If your child is used to spending time away from home because he or she usually spends entire summers in foreign countries, and thus probably will not suffer from homesickness at boarding school, mention that!</p>

<p>If your child used to have a problem with [xxx], but is now working successfully to overcome that problem, here’s the place to say that! (If you do this, place the emphasis on how successful your child is learning to be today - not on how awful the problem was yesterday.)</p>

<p>The parent essay is not just your chance to brag about how wonderful your child is, but also your chance to explain why your child is different from all the other applicants and will bring something special to the school he or she is applying to.</p>

3

<p>Nice answer, dodgersmom. carl737, good luck to you & your son. Our son is at a junior boarding school & it has been a wonderful experience for him. There are a lot of international students in his dorm. If you could see how well they are taken care of and how well they get along as a group, you would be pleased to have your child in such an environment.</p>

4

<p>Good luck to you. Keep in mind that schools understand that foreign parents may not have the command of language that their children may have, so dont worry. An easy thing for you to do would be to add all the information that you think is missing from the schools that are “optional” that you put in the application of the other schools. Optional on an application is rarely so. It should be done.</p>

5

<p>Thank you dodgersmom.
I will try my best to write parent essay according to your suggestion.</p>

6

<p>Thank you 2kidsnoanswers.</p>

<p>I would like to follow you to see a BIG smile in the face of my son once he passes to junior boarding school.</p>

<p>Thank you mhmm.</p>

<p>I feel comfortable to see your message. I will try not to use better English, but to simply add information which I feel missing in other part of application.</p>

7

<p>Carl737 - I have two sons at JBS and it is a wonderful experience for them and for us.
The only thing I might add to dodgersmom’s excellent answer is that often the schools are interested in WHY you want to go to boarding school - and especially in the Junior Boarding school environment. You might speak to your educational goals for your son and why you’ve made the decision to send him to a different country for JBS.</p>

<p>An echo of 2kids, the international students at my sons’ school are very well adjusted and happy. They do break the curve a lot, much to the domestic kids dismay!</p>

8

<p>I see the parent essay as a wonderful opportunity to highlight personality and strengths that are not easily listed on an application form. Tell the admissions staff about your child’s attributes that make others take notice. A strong sense of justice, a born diplomat, or a great sense of humor will help to make the student appear as a real person and not just a set of statistics.</p>

9

<p>Thank you mamakiwi.</p>

<p>I will include your points in my recommendation. I would like my son to go to JBS as well from this Sep.</p>

<p>Than you Rellielou.</p>

<p>Your suggestion also help me a lot.</p>