This is true for sure for those schools that don’t have gigantic endowments. But not true for a place like Exeter or Andover with huge endowments and true need-blind admissions. I know, based on experience, that another student athlete was only accepted at a certain excellent but smaller school in this cycle after being reassured about the family’s ability to pay more in tuition than originally indicated. It is rough.
I also have one kid who for sure, hella YES, truly no doubt, would have been admitted at my own alma-mater if we weren’t low-income. Hard pill to swallow.
It’s true that needing FA is a barrier. You need to fit into the bucket they need AND they need to have the FA $ in the budget for you.
I also think it’s often harder for the kids who need FA who fit the same profile as a lot of kids who don’t. Given the demographics of the FP kids, a white kid from the Northeast who plays lacrosse and is an excellent student and who needs FA is likely to have a FP doppelganger.
It may be far harder to fill some other buckets with FP kids.
With that said, many schools actively try to find middle class kids who need some FA in order to avoid a class that has barbell demographics.
With all of this, there’s also so much serendipity involved. It depends so much on who else is in the pool in your year, and that is just beyond your control.
I don’t know about “rich athletes” (it’s certainly an economically mixed bunch at my kid’s school on most of the sport teams), but the prep schools aren’t designed for the “best athletes,” either. Most top athletes would be better off at large public schools, where they go against good competition and can train in their sport year-round. Boarding schools accept based on their analysis of the complete picture of what the child and his family can contribute in every way to the school, and how the child will benefit. I’m sure there were many factors that influenced which applicants were accepted by the school in question.
As many have said this is a business. Schools must allocate the aid they have to best meet all their needs. While the coach may want an athlete, admissions may have wanted the other student for varying reasons. FA may have played a factor, but really to the degree you will never know. FA is a benefit, not a given. While there are some schools that are need blind or will meet all accepted students needs, most are not. 50% is still a large amount of FA. I appreciate how stressful and disappointing this is, but with so many amazing students and so few spots schools need to juggle the mix of students to produce a well rounded class. There are many students at all the schools on full FA, but the school needs to decide which students that they want to pay for. Some are not athletes as this is school. You could try again next year or at other schools as the needs change year to year.
Just to ask, is anyone here a parent of/is a waitlisted 10th grade Deerfield boarder? And for anyone who was put on the Deerfield waitlist, any responses or emails?
Also, is Deerfield notorious for not sending emails when they close their waitlists or no? My family hasn’t received any sort of notification or emails of any sorts towards the waitlist process.
Great comment on the push to bring in more middle class kids at certain schools to bridge the gap. Seems to be the schools with bigger endowments. I’ve heard at several schools it still hasn’t fixed the mean/out of touch girl scenario but it’s a start.
Nothing heard here on Andover WL. With at least 2 folks reporting on this forum getting off WL there last week, hoping they’re doing their main shuffling around still over the next few days.
Nothing for us yet on Lawrenceville WL but I spoke with admissions office late last week and they said they were still finalizing their enrollment numbers and that we could expect and update mid to end of this week
we are waiting on Milton WL. Got an email reply from admissions thanking us for our continued interest in Milton. Also called AO last week and they said they were still finalizing their enrollment numbers and would expect to see some movement and / or updates this week