What, if anything, have you learned from the application process that you would do differently?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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@stargirl3‌ I think I might know what school you may be referring to - starts with the letter “E” ends in the letter “R” and has “XETE” in the middle…right?

I think that Exeter is generous, even though only 13% come from lower income families (defined as <75K).

  1. They gave $7.9 million in aid. - when doing the rough math, that means that they are giving the equivalent of full tuition to 168 kids spread out over 200 or so kids that enroll. So there is a lot of aid given to the >75K crowd averaging to about 85% aid. More math - when taking the 13% who get 100% aid, that works out to be about 80% for the remaining 34% getting FA yielding an Exeter education for 10K per year. not bad.

  2. If you are saying that there should be an equal representation of the sub 75K income families at Exeter as there is in the country, one must consider that many kids from sub 75K families have never heard of Exeter and are not exposed to the opportunity to begin with. In fact, the 13% figure (a little more than half) seems to be more than what I would expect given the fact that most of these kids are not exposed to boarding school fairs and word of mouth that kids in private schools have. What percentage the lower income families apply to Exeter vs. others? I think less apply and you need to apply to get in. A similar argument can be made about under represented states or ethnicities - If no one from Oregon applies to Exeter, then they will not be able to match the geographic diversity of the country.

  3. No matter how need blind a school is, the sub 75K kids are at a distinct disadvantage for admissions to a school like Exeter. These kids do not have SSAT prep courses, are not going away to science camps over the summer, and don’t have connected parents.

I wondered a similar question regarding their commitment to provide education to “youth from all quarters” - They have a $1.2 Billion endowment. It should be no problem to provide free tuition to everyone. This bold strategy would cost the school about an additional $10 million per year which is roughly 1 month of earnings from the endowment. The hit would be in consequential to their budget and would greatly increase middle class representation at the school.