transferring between boarding schools

ExieMITAlum
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:36:59 +0000

It happens - occasionally. But as one parent on CC can attest, attending the “back-up” school and immediately reapplying to the desired school resulted in a second rejection from the desired school and strained relationship at the current school. The family had absolutely NO leverage after that and had to repair that “burned bridge.”

If you didn’t love the “back-up” school why apply to it? I know, I know - we were in the same boat - lousy school district that was dragging the one successful school down with it.

Still - many people have “safeties” but the options are:


you go and love it
you pay a deposit and then send notes to the desired school expressing your continued interest and if you get off the waitlist you lose the deposit and switch.
stay home and try hard for the next year with no guarantees of admittance anywhere (including the back-up school which is no longer going to consider you an option.)


But the least attractive option is to attend a school knowing you’re going to try to switch again immediately (you’ll need fall references). It takes a place from a child who really wanted the opportunity at the “back-up school” and it sends a message to both schools that you don’t “commit.” It also tells the Adcoms who spent a lot of time pouring over the application and reading essays that they wasted their time.

Again - a few have transferred - but in those cases there were extenuating circumstances (bad fit, or a lot of connections that made it happen). Almost everyone I know who switched was a connected full-pay child.

Which is why we say “love the school that loves your child.”