Congratulations! What a great accomplishment and it’s a good feeling to have some choices. Do you have a favorite school from the acceptances? You may want to speak with the mid Atlantic rep and ask if you can speak to your top school about FA. Does the school have a multi month tuition payment plan so you could spread out your contribution? Hope it works out!
Many of us are still waiting for decisions on M10 so hoping this ABC thread gets active again with great news!
When my daughter was accepted to schools through
ABC I was able to show other financial aid letters to our favorite school – they matched the offer they had already made and my daughter has attended ever since. If you have a number you’re okay with, you can sometimes successfully use it as leverage at other schools. It won’t always work but it might! Good luck and congratulations!
Thanks for the congratulations and great advice. We were able to get our first choice to match the best offer and are now in the process of enrolling!
How is everyone else doing? How was M10 for you??
Did the FA stays the same every year?
No. Financial aid can change based on the previous year’s income.
Hooray! Congratulations again, that’s great news!
Thank you.
Hello A Better Chance parents,
In your experience, does ABC help to boost your kids chance to get into private school?
Please list you reason why you think it does or it doesn’t.
Will private school save some spots for kids in the ABC program?
Hello SkysTheLimit2007,
How did your application process through ABC different from regular? Did you fill out applications through ABC or through the school that you applying? Do you think ABC helps to boost your daughter’s chance to be accepted?
The application process is differs only in that the kids test earlier than everyone else in general so that their application packets can be received at schools early in the process. There are not multiple applications to fill out, just what ABC requires (unless the school requests something.) ABC forwards the application themselves. Truth be told, for the most part you don’t even realize the process has formally begun before you even know it. I did not apply independently to any schools, but you are free to.
I think ABC prepared my child in ways that I might not have through their workshops and I do believe that her chances were boosted as an ABC applicant — the AO’s enjoyed her as a person it seems, but I believe in the work that went into the process for her. My child is entering high school in the fall and we already have our eyes on colleges affiliated with ABC too.
Thank you SkysTheLimit2007 for you clearly details respond. If you don’t mind I ask, how many schools did your daughter apply to? How many essays did she write? Did she have to write different essay for each school she applied to? How many schools did she get accepted? Is your daughter at Milton now?
Thank you very much. After we failed, I am trying to find a way to improve his chances. Since the process is so competitive.
Thanks again.
Is your son still an ABC candidate? If so, they will guide you through everything. He will only be writing more essays if you apply to schools independently. ABC has it’s own requirements and the one application is sent to every school that’s applied to.
For what it’s worth, my daughter applied to five middle schools and was accepted at all but one, where she was waitlisted. It doesn’t mean anything at all though, except to us because I knew of a girl in the same cohort who was not accepted anywhere, or situations where financial aid didn’t work out. Every situation is different!
Thank you SkysTheLimit2007,
I will look into ABC and apply.
The best thing about ABC is that they advocate for your child. It is an over 50 + year-old network that helps with all aspects including prep school, college, career, and beyond. However, I also advise people to apply independently to schools that are not ABC affiliated. You will know the process from ABC and can use it to apply to those schools. Post-Covid competition has been fierce, and now more than ever you have to cast a wide net.
FYI We are not ABC but we have several friends who went to private schools through ABC. If you qualify for their program, your application is stronger. They do a lot of prep work with candidates and even with low test scores these kids they were accepted to local schools. Pretty much all the kids who got aid at the fancier schools come through ABC or other groups like it. If you qualify and need and need aid, I’d recommend it. They have a good sense of matching kids to the right schools and all of our matched friends fit well at their schools.
IMHO in our area the program seems to be less competitive than those in the northeast. Also my own observation is that the kids we knew were only what I would call tangentially minorities. In fact, I thought all three of the kids were not but managed to drudge up something to check a box. So I don’t know who qualifies or what but it definently helped their chances.
Hello
Generally, It does give a better chance as ABC has a member contract with the member schools. On the other hand, keep in mind that they are trying to improve your chances for getting an offer for the top ranked schools (e.g. top 3 choices) as a priority first.
Say for example, your number 1 ranked school expressed high interests in your child, then ABC will focus most of the advocating effort for that specific school improving the student’s chance for an offer.
Another example, if the ranked school 1 thru 5 have no interest in offering a spot to the child, but the 6th school expresses interest, then ABC will primarily advocate for that 6th school.
However, the financial aid portion is the tricky factor, as technically ABC does not advocate for financial aid because each family’s financial situation is very specific. During the advocacy call, the primary discussion is the qualification of the candidates (not the $).
And as some fellow members said above, it’s advised to apply outside of ABC schools to improve the chance as the admission during pandemic is tough for the financial aid. In fact, that is what ABC suggested as well.
Thank you everyone for your input. I’ve learned a lot from this forum.