Our oldest DS is likely applying to boarding schools this cycle for 9th grade admission. While both parents are 1st gen Ivy grads, we have had zero exposure to boarding schools and now live in a part of the country where it is virtually unheard of except for behavioral reasons.
DS began submitting inquiries last week to a few of the Ten Schools (and he may apply to up to half of them). He quickly received an invite (presumably automated) to ann upcoming Ten Schools Diversity Round Table tour stops from one of the schools. This was the first we heard of traveling admissions events, and while we don’t live particularly close to any of the stops, we could figure out how to make an overnight trip to 2-3 of the locations. The opportunity to meet with multiple of the schools at once and potentially even do an in-person interview closer to home is very valuable.
But I have to ask: are the DRT events genuinely meant for underrepresented minorities in the same sense that most D/DEI initiatives are? My son is most definitely not an URM, however he has been born and raised in a state that is not well represented at the highly competitive schools. We would try to make the trip for one of these but don’t want to take space from prospective applicants it is meant for if that does not include us. If that’s the case, we will try to make an on-campus visit to his top 1-2 then settle for virtual interviews at the rest.
Thanks for any guidance!
Consider asking the boarding prep school that invited your son the question that you asked in this thread.
Why are you and your son considering boarding school ?
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I have not heard of the DRT but from the Ten Schools site:
Founded in 2001, the Diversity Round Table (DRT) was established for admissions officers of color within the Ten Schools Admission Organization (TSAO). The primary role of DRT is to counsel, recruit and matriculate prospective students from a demographic range including, but not exclusively, racial, cultural, economic, and geographic.
The Diversity Round Table functions in the spirit of the TSAO, whose member schools strive “to cooperate, in their outreach to prospective students and their families.” Our mission is to:
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Enhance the educational experience of all students by creating a diverse school environment
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Implement strategies that create a diverse applicant pool.
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Counsel families and talent identification program administrators through the boarding school admission process.
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Act as an advisor to enrolled families once they arrive at our schools; over time, allow them to establish their own connections among our faculty over four years.
Because you say you are coming from an area where academic boarding schools are unknown, your son’s application might fit the “geographic” bucket.
We are in Arizona where, like you, no one in our sphere was familiar with boarding schools and, in fact, while our son attended Choate (2011-2015), he was the only student from AZ his last three years there (there was one young woman from AZ who graduated his freshman year). I feel strongly that geographic diversity was in his favor during his application cycle.
Because you received the invitation, I highly recommend you attend. When the TSAO conducted one of its annual road shows in Phoenix (not labeled as DRT then), we attended so our son could interview with two of the schools on his list which did not include Choate at the time. However, it was the Choate representative who spoke with him at length and encouraged him to apply and where he happily ended up. If we had not attended that session, he would not have applied. We learned a lot about those ten schools at that event as well as the application and admissions process, which we were totally unfamiliar with.
It costs nothing to attend but the payoff is high. Don’t miss it.
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First, Welcome! As you were invited and are from a poorly represented geographic area, you are part of the intended audience. It is very considerate of you to worry about taking space from someone else, but these events tend to be organized to have more than enough capacity. Their goal is to attract as many applicants as possible.
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What @gardenstategal said!
Our DC interviewed with Derek Johnson at St. Pauls. He has been there quite a number of years.
Reviewing the Ten Schools link, I would definitely recommend adding The Peddie School to your search.
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Agree with others, they are likely sending it to you for your zip code and geographic diversity, by design! If this is of interest to you, you have been in invited and can go:)
In universities (fyi) a huge push for attracting rural students - which is also confusing some white, wealthy (not saying you are!), rural parents being invited to things…
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Thanks for the clarity and encouragement everyone. Very helpful.
Are interviews a one shot affair per school ? DS wants to shoot for on-campus visits for his top 2-3 targets later this fall, which would afford more time to be well prepared. If he took an interview spot at a road show stop, would that preclude interviewing again on campus?
Our family had two kiddos (who don’t live geographically close to schools to which they were applying) go through the application cycle last year and they are attending boarding school this year. They scheduled some interviews in person at the Ten Schools event locally and they had positive interview experiences and outcomes from those interviews. The admissions representatives were easy to talk with and conversations flowed easily from what my spouse and kids shared after the event. Their feedback after the application cycle concluded was that they preferred a local in person interview to an in person interview after a campus visit where there was significant travel for them and tight visit schedules. Additional virtual interviews later in the fall/winter were scheduled and also went well for them, but they preferred the in person to virtual format.
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Is an interview required if you attend the DRT event? It wasn’t for the TSAO event our son attended so, if optional, your son could just attend the event for information gathering purposes and interview on campus later. Two interviews aren’t necessary and would strain the admissions staff if every applicant tried to do this. For Choate, the interview was definitely a one-and-done (though our son interviewed with an alum at our local Starbucks weeks after the TSAO event; he never met an admissions officer or saw the inside of the Choate admissions office).
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Typically, yes. Of course, you don’t have to interview when they come to you. Be aware, however, that interview slots can be hard to come by, so if you haven’t booked interviews for when you visit, try to do that before declining their interview on the road.
As for preparing, this is really a conversation. The label interview suggests something else, like “are you fit for this job?” A prospective student should be able to articulate why boarding school and based on the website, why that one. The folks who interview like kids and want to see them at their best - this isn’t a gotcha situation being used to weed out applicants. And if you plan to visit, it’s a great opportunity to say as much and ask for contact info if there are additional questions after the tour. This is a really nice way to develop a relationship with your AO.
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Also, having been through this twice with my kids, if I had to choose between either (a) an in-person interview a few weeks earlier in the cycle than I would have hoped, or (b) a Zoom interview during peak interview season when my kid was better prepared, knowing what I know now, I would definitely choose (a).
Interviewers are infinitely more engaged in-person than they are in video chats, based on what my family has heard over the years.
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I would check to see if the events are really designed for URM or for geographic diversity. It would be odd for you to show up to an event for URM if you don’t fall into one of the categories. The fact that you were invited doesn’t mean that the event is necessarily for you as the AOs don’t know your personal situation (yet). This would certainly be a conversation for the AOs.
Thanks for flagging that. It does sound like DRT has a broad focus, but I would still check-in with the AOs on the focus for these events. I applaud broader efforts towards diversity in general, but I haven’t seen schools commit resources to securing geographic diversity.
For example, there aren’t DRT events in areas where they would be able to attract more geographic diversity from under-represented states (e.g., Boise, Sioux Falls, Albuquerque, Anchorage). It looks like the DRT events are targeting primarily URM rather than geographic diversity. It just seems disingenuous to say that they’re focused on geographic diversity when the tour schedule doesn’t cover areas which haven’t sent as many students to BS.
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Again, see full post above. Geographic diversity is definitely a goal of most boarding schools and definitely factored positively in our son’s case. For three years, DH and I served on the Parent Advisory Council at Choate where this was clearly stated and specifically given as the reason we were asked to join the PAC.
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The schools can “talk the talk”, but I haven’t seen them “walk the walk”. As someone who grew up in an under-represented state, I still rarely see people from my state represented because Boarding Schools don’t do a great job advertising themselves to people from those communities.
Is there data on how geographic diversity has changed? My anecdotal sense is that over the past 20 years schools have gotten better on racial and socioeconomic diversity, meaningfully better on international mix, and only marginally better on geography.
Some time ago, I had tead some research indicating that one of the factors most likely to influence a family 's decision to attend BS was whether the family had a history of BS attendance. Second were knowing people who did.
It’s not surprising that there are fewer folks with that profile in certain parts of the country. The knock-on is that the schools can visit, talk up their value proposition, etc in those areas but the audience is unlikely to be swayed and willingto write the check. There are pockets where the BS familiar folks have moved and they’ll go there. Schools are going to go where they will be successful as none have unlimited for recruiting.
I suspect that most BS would be delighted with a truly national pool, but even most colleges don’t have that reach.
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I concur that most boarding schools would be delighted with a more geographically representative student body, but it will take time and effort on their part to attract these students who are unfamiliar with the system. These kinds of diversity tours are very helpful in terms of opening up applicants’ eyes to the possibility of boarding school, but schools need to offer them in more underrepresented geographies if they want a more diverse student body.
Interview spots are filling up at popular schools indeed - I strongly urge you to book them with your top 2-3 schools ASAP.
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