Full Pay doesn’t matter “a ton” it gives you a slight edge.
I’ve never seen stats put out by schools of # of full pay vs financial aid applicants.
Please remember that some of the posters on CC are 15 year olds and some are people whose kids went to BS 15 years ago. You need to take everything with a grain of salt and maybe find something else to focus on until M10.
9th graders (but not new 10th or 11th graders) are graded P/F only in English and History and only for the Fall term.
@one1ofeach If you dig into fundraising documents, especially for larger, endowment-building campaigns, you might learn things that aren’t otherwise published or publicized.
That’s how we learned that Thacher’s acceptance rate for full pay students is 16%, but only 9% for those requiring financial aid.
At Andover, full pay means nothing. They have the luxury of being able to pick need-blind. No other BS can say that. The particular advantage of full pay is not as big as you probably think. I would estimate that between 20-30% of each class requires financial aid to attend (or at least a portion). It may even be higher. I know that for most elite colleges, the financial aid rate is about 50%.
There are some categories where having needs for financial aid is almost like a death sentence. Especially in over subscribed buckets like ORM, geographic location, etc.
I think you are being too harsh on your dad. He asked a perfectly acceptable question. If I were the admissions officer, I would find it refreshing. It shows that your Dad cares about you and is worried about your well being. Don’t be too hard on him. Whatever decision you receive on M10, it is almost certainly not due to a single comment from your dad.
@sgopal2
Thanks for the insight. Now I just have to sit back and relax and let things take their course. Wish me, good luck guys! I just finished watching Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer’s town halls, so inspiring. I hope I can be like them someday! 
Here’s my take (I’m a current Indian, male, NJ student at Lawrenceville). It’s very competitive to get into L’ville as a Indian/Asian day student simply because of the extremely high number of people that apply from the Princeton, WW-P, and Montgomery regions (among other schools). Your grades and SSAT scores aren’t going to get you in our take you out of any school. I would say your essays matter a lot more than most people think, and grades especially have very little impact. You applied to various schools, which is great, you’ll have a higher chance of getting into at least one of them. If you get into multiple schools, don’t let prestige dictate the one you go to, rather go to the one that you feel most comfortable at.
Whatever happened with Pingry? According to your earlier post, you would receive a decision by Feb 7?
@sgopal2
Long story short my decision letter is now coming on the normal day (March 6).
@sdtkd03
Thanks, I’ll make sure to keep that in mind, right now Exeter is top of my list, but if I’m lucky enough to get into more than one of the schools I think I’ll just generally research all of them a bit more.
Not a long time left guys (only 9 days)! I’m really worried about my essays for Exeter as I didn’t explain how the events I described affected my life overall besides that moment, and I had one missing word at the end of one of my essays. I’m feeling worried my essays will be the reason I get rejected. 
One word missing out of an essay is not going to be a deal breaker.
After my son’s M10, I went back to review the parent essay that I wrote for Andover. Imagine my horror when I saw the words “…would love for him to attend Exeter” in the essay. Was a cut-n-paste error, done in a hurry. Despite this dumb mistake on my part, he was accepted.
I’m sure the admissions people see this sort of stuff all the time, so don’t dwell on it.
@AKmath: Maybe I didn’t read it right, but did you say in the other thread that you currently attend Pingry?
Here is the beginning of your lengthy post:
"
(I go to Pingry, but know MANY people/friends who go to NA)
"
Here is the link
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22539936#Comment_22539936
Not sure what the long story is, but Pingry has never ever made admission decision available in February.
I mean I think you have a good chance. I’m a current student (asian lol) at Andover who applied from NJ and got in with B’s, though by SSAT was 99. Of course, some of my friends who told me their SSATs are lower than yours. My main concern is the lack of awards or achievements I guess it’s too late now but contacting the tennis coaches should be helpful, especially if you can get on varsity. Sports helped me a bunch.
Hope this helps but I mean you’ll get your responses in a week anyway. Don’t stress.
Well the Pingry Decision came out today and I got waitlisted, so yeah…
@sqopal2
My mother wrote a parent essay and submitted it without talking to me about it. She showed it to me a few days later; it was about four sentences long and completely incoherent. It seemed like she didn’t fully understand how to speak english (which would be fine if she weren’t a native speaker, but she is). It described an event from when I was three, when I drew a cactus (not sure why she chose to write about this??) even though my preschool teacher told me to draw a tree
Lmao not sure what was going through her mind at that moment (??)
I asked her to fix it but she brushed me off…
Am I screwed?
Trolling possibilities are so high on a board like this, it’s tempting to set up an account for that purpose…but I’m increasingly sure that’s already been done. But how well done it is! This was the piece de la resistance. Simon Rich on steroids. Nice work…I want my kid to be in the same satire class. Where do you go to school?
As a parent, I think it’s kind of cute what she wrote. She’s trying to show that from a very early age you have displayed a unique way of thinking.
I also used a story about my child at that age, for simliar reasons, but to illustrate a different trait.
Us parents are trying. Some of us (okay, me) may be a little bit lost, but those of us here seem to genuinely care about our children. If your mom’s parent essay comes across poorly, it’s more a reflection of her than you.
It’d be more concerning if she wrote something like, “Iusedtobesmart was genuinely smart as a 3 year old, but lost 100 IQ points when she became a tween. The insolent brat is driving me batty with her fresh mouth and violent outbursts and I need him out of the house before it kills me. Maybe your school can knock some sense into her. I had her get an inpatient psych eval when she was 10, but that only made him more creative in hiding things, so at this point it’s your school or juvie.”
@iusedtobesmart : don’t mean to hijack this thread, but I doubt your parents essay has any influence on admissions decision. Incoherent or not, they are admitting the student, not the parent. I wouldn’t worry too much. Obviously my own screw up didn’t impact my child’s outcome.
@akmath: don’t worry. Keep your head up high. You’ve still got more decisions coming. Good news is that Pingry moves kids off the waitlist, I know of several of my kids friends who’ve gotten in this way.
@iusedtobesmart
It’s probably okay. The school is deciding whether or not to accept YOU, not your parents, they really won’t have an effect at all on your chances (unless they’re billionaires).