Hi, my son (for 9th grade) got acceptance from Bush school and Seattle academy and got waitlisted for lakeside, uprep and EPS at the same time. He also got through the lottery for a well known choice school - public (Cambridge program at Juanita high School).
We are having trouble deciding if we should make the deposit for Bush School which would be our preference over SaaS. Or should we wait for an acceptance to come from lakeside or EPS with Cambridge program as the fall back option. His SSAT score was 98% with decent but not stellar extra curricular.
First question is do these 3 schools tend to go to their waitlist ? From the little I know, I don’t think they do. Do they waitlist a lot of applicants or only a select number?
What is the contract for Bush - if you accept, how much is the deposit and what/when are you committed for the entire year? Has you son toured the choice school and is the Cambridge program and the extracurriculars offered at the school a good match.
Is sending your child to an independent school a financial reach for your family - and do keep in mind that tuition will increase each year? Why the other 3 schools - do you somehow feel they offer something more for your son?
I would ask yourself where will he thrive, feel connected and be able to shine and not focus on the school name - but the program.
Great questions. Deposit is 10% so like $4.5k however after May 1st you will lose much greater portion of the annual fee. So I think at that point you are pretty much committing if he isn’t off wait-list at other schools.
My son was going to another private school already so financial aspect isn’t a concern.
He is also quite academic and STEM focused, so we were hoping to have gotten admitted to one school that was well known in that area. Bush is great too but others rank much higher in STEM looks like. Comparing the Cambridge school vs private isn’t straightforward but gives us a really good fallback in case we had decided to wait for the top choices.
Having said all of that, we did end up enrolling at Bush as per his choice even though my feeling was that a public option would have given him better overall exposure. Bush on the other hand has great extra curriculars which aligns well with his interests and that’s why he preferred it oer Cambridge.
With you son being at another independent school already, you could follow up with his current school and get their thoughts on your son’s chance of movement out of the wait pool. They should be well versed and have relationships with the other schools - unless they are not part of the same professional organization (ie: a private for-profit school would be one example). The least they should be able to do is gain understanding about the size of the wait pool and does the school wait pool almost everyone or is it just a handful of students - is the wait pool really a soft reject? You current school should also explain to you the historical percentages of yield for each of your preferred schools. This is information your current school should know or a local consultant would be in the know too.
It sounds like your son is happy with his choice and going into high school that is ideal! In my opinion, he is old enough to be the leader in the search with the exception of the financial piece, if affordability was an issue. If the school doesn’t have everything he wants then he may have an opportunity to bring one of more of these “extras” to the school or you can work with the school to increase key areas of focus too.
That’s a great suggestion, I will follow up with his current school. Also agree that extras where some are lacking, that’s his and our opportunity to bring focus to newer areas.