When applying to BS, will poor attendance matter? I am quite lazy and bad at keeping track of things (also have ADHD) so I had ~40% tardies, ~20% absents, ~40% presents this year, although my previous two years were better. My grades are still decent though.
I know that colleges usually don’t look at these things but I am scared since it seems like attendance is submitting along with grades on SAO.
That won’t be seen as a positive when it’s included in the teacher recs
I see. I think my teacher recs will probably not talk about those things as I have been on task all the time&met deadlines, but will bad attendance by itself impact my application a lot?
I guess the question is…why are you absent a lot. School is every weekday, right! What is there to forget?
For the absents, I was travelling a lot and got sick pretty often this year, but what I’m concerned about the most is my lates since I have no excuse for that
Speaking as someone who works in admissions at a boarding school, yes. We look at attendance as part of the evaluation of a student’s academic record.
Sick I can understand. Traveling? Not so much so.
Late? No excuse at all.
I hope you have figured out how to be on time and in attendance all the time you are supposed to be. Start there.
I’ll let the prep school folks comment on whether this will affect your chance of admission.
Understand this 100%, but often parents book things without giving their kids a say, and make them miss school. If I were the school and concerned with OPs attendance, I would talk to the parents about this.
It could be an issue. It depends on what concerns it raises in the evaluation.
BS makes it hard to miss any time at all - the pace is fast, and living in the infirmary isn’t exactly optimal. So an AO is going to try to figure out why your past habits – which won’t work going forward – are going to change. If you’d missed a lot of school for health conditions that are now resolved, fine. But if you don’t take obligations seriously, that’s different.
Where do prior schools report attendance? My older son who applied to BS as a junior probably had a decent number of lates, but they weren’t on his transcripts, only internally recorded.
Here’s the thing: regardless of whether the attendance statistics are included in your transcript, this is an issue worth addressing.
The difference between boarding school and going to school from home, is that you (usually) don’t have a parent/guardian around to nag you.
You’re not about to get a personality transplant, so you are left with two choices:
Assume that you will maintain your current patterns and research schools to see if there are any boarding schools that will not penalize you for missing that many classes. It’s best to be subtle about this, rather than asking about this in an interview.
Seek schools that have the resources to work with your learning differences. Own your past and start addressing the problem before applying. You might also consider getting some help with your negative self talk.
Boarding school requires a lot of independence and the ability to “keep track of things”.
Also, remember that you will need letters of recommendations from teachers. While you may think that you’re on top of things and that your grades are decent, there are phrases that can slip into those letters that can hurt you. “In spite of jeqp’s frequent absences, they’re a good student.” “jeqp is always quick to catch on, even when they’re late to class.”
Depending on where you’re applying, the majority of the other applications could be containing more positive phrases. I’ll leave it to your imagination. Hopefully you are being realistic about where you are considering applying. Like, Concord Academy isn’t your safety.
S23 was shocked when some of his classmates were not aware that they would be expected to show up for class, on time, EVERY day. If that is something you struggle with, BS is not for you.
This made me laugh 
If applying through SAO the Principal/Guidance Counselor recommendation form often includes a question about attendance.
At our middle school, it was on the transcript.
Well… generally. At least, at the ones most regularly mentioned here. I’m willing to bet that OP is more interested in GLADCHEMMS than in therapeutic boarding schools, alternative schools, or military academies.
Hopefully your more direct message helps more than my heavily hinting one.