<p>Hi,
This is my first experience with the boarding school application process. My daughter has looked at 4 boarding and 2 day schools. We're not interested in casting a wide net and looking for any school but looking for the right school. </p>
<p>So now we've decided to apply to NHM, Loomis and Miss Porter's as well as our local option, Bancroft.</p>
<p>I'm hoping you sage parents can provide some insight into my completion of the Parent Statement. I'm not confident I understand what the schools are expecting or what I should avoid "saying". I'm super proud of my daughter but I'm also not a braggart and am having a hard time conceiving what I might write that would differentiate her in the pile of applications being reviewed.</p>
<p>The fact that you’re not a braggart and are struggling with this will favor your response. 90% of what AO’s read is nearly interchangeable. IMO, the best approach is to describe your daughter’s role and personality in your family, among her friends and at school and then use some examples of things she’s done or said that support that opinion. There’s no way you’ll be able to avoid being heartfelt and loving, but sticking to the facts does help the AO get a picture of how she’d fit in at BS and makes the Parent Statement more believable.</p>
<p>It is the “Parent Statement”. No need to further discuss your daughter’s accomplishments, which is already done all over the application. Two really useful things that you can do via these essay :
Explain why your family is picking this school. Why you are choosing this school over other options - local PS etc. Why this specific school fulfills the unique needs of your daughter/family.
What your daughter can do for the school. Not a general gloat about her accomplishments, but specifically how her skills will benefit the school and are a perfect match.</p>
<p>Obviously after you write this heartfelt essay four times, you (& AOs) will see that it is not interchangeable!</p>
<p>My only concern with the VanOsch approach is that it infers to the AO’s that you know their school well enough to know what they want, how the school fulfills the needs of your daughter, and how your child can benefit the school. I run more to the philosophy of talking about your own situation: the reality of your daughter at home and in her middle school: her strengths, weaknesses, what differentiates her. This lets you be accurate and authentic with your reporting and confident that you’re going to get the facts right. The AO’s will do their own assessment of how/whether she fits in and whether the school is likely to be a good match in both directions. </p>
<p>I do agree with VanOsch to avoid gloating. Whether you take a TParent or VanOsch approach is less important than being perceived as authentic. Of course, in my jaded view, there are a host of other factors that come into play like the AO’s mood that day, the music playing in the background, even “an undigested bit of beef” wreaking havoc.</p>
<p>I took the approach of “here are a couple if anecdotes about my kid that really offer an insight into who they are”. I did NOT spell out the insight; I let the AOs make their own inferences. DC’s essays and interviews already demonstrated who DC was, I took my role as just adding a little seasoning, or one one perspective. Something about recent growth you’ve seen in DC–whatever context is genuine to your situation–might be revealing.</p>
<p>I’m a first timer too so don’t follow my lead until the experts weigh. But I took a duel approach to answering the questions in the parent statement. My responses were part “moms chatting in the sandbox about their preschoolers” in which I told a couple funny stories about odd interests my son had at a young age. For example, at a year old, he was obsessed with vacuum cleaners, he’d see one and he had to examine it, try to convince someone to turn it on, plug it in, he took attachments on and off, and this led to a strong interest in deconstructing and reconstructing items in our homes, which led to his passion for science. It truly has been there since he learned to walk, which is not a realization I came too until attempting these essays.</p>
<p>The other half of my approach was focused on what I wish most for my child (children), if I could wish anything. And to me, that’s for them to find happiness, and then I focused on what I believed would help develop my son into a happy teenager. What environment, what kinds of people, what kinds of activities and challenges will allow him to blossom into a thriving contributing adult in society. In my inexpert opinion, I don’t think we need to prove that our children have already blossomed with lists and lists of accomplishments because if that were true, why would we need to seek out a $50K a year school? There is nothing wrong with displaying that room for growth in your parent statement. And then allowing the AOs to tie that into what they believe the school can offer a student and decide if that’s inline with your child.</p>
<p>None of the parent statements I encountered gave me free rein. I just did my best to answer the questions that were asked. It remains to be seen how it all turns out. :-)</p>
<p>Unless somebody here is an AO, we’re all just guessing so I’ll throw in my two cents worth. My feeling is that the parent statement is the least important part of the application and parents should not stress over it.</p>
<p>I think the parent statement is primarily used to weed out students with extreme helicopter parents, parents with unrealistic expectations, to flesh out red flags (or maybe green flags) from the rest of the application–such as hints about a student’s maladjustment, or just in general shed more light on the student from a different angle.</p>
<p>As background, I’ve sent 2 kids to BS, 20 years apart, without any background or experience, in other words, just winging it through the application process. Both kids were admitted to 50% or better of the schools they applied to and received substantial FA at one school.</p>
<p>I agree with @alooknac. I do think it’s mostly about the kid. And the schools want to know that it’s the child who is truly driving the process, not mom or dad. Kids still get “sent” to BS these days and, in my experience, those are often the ones who are most vulnerable to faltering. I wouldn’t stress too much and I also wouldn’t go overboard and write five pages of flowery prose. I look back on a more open-ended parent statement I wrote for one highly selective school (where our child was wait listed) and, as a first-timer, I think I may well have overdone it on the praise and gushing and rapid-fire listing of her superfabulous qualities and accomplishments. I probably bored them to tears (if they even finished reading it) and came off as slightly nuts. </p>
<p>We all love our kids and likely hold them in high regard and want to convey that to the schools. But, in retrospect, I think my initial approach was a bit much. Perhaps because of the way the questions were specifically framed, I was more restrained in the parent statement for the school our child ultimately attended. Kind of hard not to wonder if I blew it for her at the other school now that I think on it, but who knows? All’s well that ends well! Best of luck to you, lrw…</p>
<p>I believe, that it is a very important part of the application. I have been working on mine for about a month now, on and off, totalling 3 hours per application. The AO, as I think, want to see and know the child through the parent’s eyes. It is ok to bring the best what your child has and to talk about him/her. I do tell about the qualities, that my kid has though, nothing is “glorified” there. The also want to see, that you are a supportive parent.
Also, very important to read the question and answer it. If they ask about academic strengths, be sure to talk about his/her achievements, when ask for the personal one, be sure to talk about his personal ones. I found, that Gateway site had just enough room to include most important information about my child.
And obviously, for the weaknesses, include something that can highlight his/hers strengths.</p>
<p>My parents will be doing this for the first time and they are foreign. English is not their first language and because of this , they do make occasional grammar mistakes. Would thid affect me? I’m just worried that the combination of a first timer and a foreigner will completely throw me out of the running for some of the higher level schools…</p>
<p>You wouldn’t want to attend a school that would hold that against you!</p>
<p>There is usually a spot for either you or your parents to add anything additional and I think a simple statement of what you mention above would be appropriate.</p>
<p>Again, the school is admitting you not your parents and they value diversity.</p>
<p>Thinking back many years now. When I was applying to boarding school almost a decade ago (!), my mother was incredibly honest about me: the good AND the bad. I had an unconventional background (large gaps in my educational record where I’d been pulled out of school and homeschooled for a few months – my family moved around quite a bit), was incredibly passionate but also a bit awkward, overly obsessed with “fairness” and “justice” to the point that it hindered the smoothness of preteen social interaction, and absolutely odd to the point of eccentricity. She sugarcoated none of this.</p>
<p>Of the three schools I applied to, I was accepted at one (my first choice by far), rejected at another, and waitlisted at a third. In a parent interview at one of the schools, the interviewer hinted at my mother that students with my particular personality makeup often tended to gravitate towards Exeter – the school I ultimately attended, and remember very fondly.</p>
<p>I don’t think for a second I would have been as happy at the other places I applied to. Which is to say – the parent interview/statement (and indeed the whole application process) – is about making sure that the school is a fit for the student, and not just vice versa. My mother’s honesty on the form helped ensure that the school that ultimately accepted me was the right one.</p>
<p>(And yes, for the record, any eccentric, kind-of-awkward, overly intellectual, bookish, obsessive, bad-at-real-life, insanely passionate, probably-slightly-overemotional teenagers reading this – Exeter is the school for you).</p>