I emailed the admissions director and let him know that we absolutely want to stay on the waitlist. We applied to Greenwich Country Day and Rye Country Day as well. Yes, Hackley is SUPER competitive. They only accept like 7% of kindergarten applicants.
@happydance22 hang in there. Last year, D1 was waitlisted at Hackley and RCDS initially. RCDS reached out a week after notifications with an acceptance from the wait list. D1 ultimately chose another school.
We are close with a family who applied to Hackley, RCDS and GCDS. I’ll keep fingers crossed for your family along with theirs.
My advice for “working the wait list”:
Send the AD a note stating you are so excited to know of H’s interest in your child and understand that seats are limited. Further, the family would jump at an opportunity as soon as it opens up.
It really comes down to does anyone decline and then how likely they think you are to actually accept if offered a spot. So open communication is essential.
And yes, FA does have an impact. Some schools will offer an admission acceptance but wait list for FA. Some schools will wait list a child if FA is unavailable. It really depends on the school.
We’ve been through this two cycles in a row and have great advisors. PM me if you have any more specific questions. I can share more privately.
ps - we are waiting for decisions from two Fairfield county schools also. We’re in this together! ?
@bancqsy thank you so much! This is all very helpful. I greatly appreciate you sharing everything you wrote. Best of luck to you as well!!
@bancqsy Is it impossible to get off a waitlist if you need aid, then?
In our experience, and in those of several families we are connected to, yes. I can’t say how probable it is but it is not impossible.
Please note: my experience is limited to applying to day schools.
Decisions come out in exactly a month!!!
@CavsFan2003 – yes, it is possible to come off a WL is you need FA. Is it harder, probably.
It will require that they have open seats, which happens at most schools after the commitment date. (These schools don’t have overflow housing so want to enroll as close to the class size as possible without going over, and to do the latter, they use the WL.) AND it will require that FA budget remains, which means that # of kids offered FA who declined exceeded expectations.
Remember that there are lots of kids like you who are excellent candidates and need FA who will likely have options and can pick only one, so while the schools can model yield til the cows come home, there will always be some variability/surprises around the edges. Those can open up WL spots for FA candidates.
To be clear, each school anticipates a yield - the number of students enrolled / the number of students accepted. The yield is factored into the admissions decision process, so every school will accept more students than it plans to enroll. Be aware that in the last several cycles, many top schools do not go to the wait list.
^ True. While the goal is to hit the nail on the head, the secondary goal is to miss and come up a few short, not a few long. And often if it is just 2 or 3 they need, they will deal with it quietly rather than saying the WL is open.
Whew! I just had my last interview today, so I am finally done with the application process!
Congrats @willmo :bz
I just bought the wifi services on my flight on M9. With no distractions whatsoever on a plane, my M9 will probably feel like forever.
(also a side question, how do I post emojis on cc?)
Just do it like you normally would ?
27 days!
These days are crawling by…
Isn’t there built-in emojis on cc other than the ios ones? I only knew how to get this one by typing in smiley face 
Am I the only one that sometimes randomly thinks “I wonder what the admissions officers are doing right now”?
@YoungThriver Omg same
I also think about if my application has been read and like AOs sitting in the room where it happens and talking about my app… so nervous
At least from a computer, there’s a smiley face on in the upper right corner of the text box into which you type your posts. The face is a drop-down list of emojis.
Watching the Grammys. 
Sitting with a friend for lunch a couple of days ago… out of the blue she asks “Don’t you find it weird that right now there’s a team of people reading your life story and deciding whether or not you deserve to be at their school?” and “I replied " Well, I do now 
!” lol.