A prep school student: Ask me any question!

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>Hey guys! </p>

<p>As a fairly recent graduate of a ISL boarding school, I'd also like to offer my help to those prospective students here on CC. Having lurked around CC obsessively for my college admission battle, I have always found it tremendously helpful to talk to the current students or recent alums to get a vicarious glimpse of the school life, and I come here in hoping that you could find my experience helpful as well. :)</p>

<p>Although there are always several perspectives and different opinions on issues and questions you may have(remember my experience is that of only one student at one boarding school), I am familiar with pretty much all of those well-known boarding schools you are probably considering; we compete against each other, so news frequently come and go; I did apply and research intensely about them when I was in your shoes; I also have at least a couple of friends at each of those places(you will be surprised how much prep school kids all hang around together). I graduated from MIDDLESEX two years ago, and I am also familiar with some of the day schools around Boston. So you could probably ask me about specific schools, and I'll chip in everything I know - rumors, stereotypes, etc. I've heard. </p>

<p>Admission, dorm life, AP courses selection, friends issues, drinking, college prep, etc... Fire away! I promise I'll do my best.</p>

2

<p>Andover!</p>

<p>Go.</p>

3

<p>Exeter Go!</p>

<p>Lol</p>

4

<p>Okay, I've got questions!</p>

<ol>
<li>Were you expecting an acceptance? If so, why? If not, why?</li>
<li>What were your 'paper' stats? GPA, SSAT etc.</li>
<li>Was the school you're attending your top choice? If it was, has it lived up to the expectations so far?</li>
<li>What was your interview experience like?</li>
<li>What other schools were you accepted to?</li>
<li>Lastly, how is it!? Are you enjoying yourself? Anything you would have done differently?</li>
</ol>

5

<p>What was the best/worse part of your bs education?
How was the food?
How much clothes did you need?
In what ways have you changed since you first arrived at Middlesex?</p>

6

<p>Oh, and Exeter and Andover!</p>

<p>GO!</p>

7

<p>My best question: After getting all these questions in about 30 seconds, still excited to enlighten us?</p>

8

<p>HA. Funny.</p>

9

<p>:D I think prephelp may be having second thoughts. :P</p>

10

<p>This is great!!</p>

<p>My first choice is Middlesex! Okay would you mind answering the following questions?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>How strict are the lights out at Middlesex?</p></li>
<li><p>How are the bathrooms? Are there individual showers for boys or just one big one?</p></li>
<li><p>How important are the SSAT's. How well did You do on them?</p></li>
<li><p>What is there to do in downtown Concord?</p></li>
</ol>

11

<ul>
<li>dear mmoynan: </li>
</ul>

<p>
[quote]
1. Were you expecting an acceptance? If so, why? If not, why?

[/quote]

  • Of course I was expecting an acceptance lol. At the time, everyone in my class was applying to boarding schools, and not attending one was simply not an option for our parents. Was I expecting to get accepted EVERYWHERE? Absolutely not. But that is where safety schools come in handy and reassure the arrivals of those big fat envelopes! </p>

<p>
[quote]
2. What were your 'paper' stats? GPA, SSAT etc.

[/quote]

  • My SSAT was 97% and GPA was around 90(A-/B+). I was also attending a rigorous private school that was well-connected to boarding schools, and this certainly gave me a leg-up. </p>

<p>
[quote]
3. Was the school you're attending your top choice? If it was, has it lived up to the expectations so far?

[/quote]

  • It was far, far down from my first choice!!!! It may even have been the last... I was extremely turned off by the unfriendly tour guide, my interview was a complete wreck, and the whole visit was just ugly. I was 100% sure they were going to reject me, so I decided to hate it before they could say "NO" to me lol... But funny how life turns out......:D It is now my "home" where I spent the best four years of my life at! My advice: FIRST IMPRESSION(aka tour, campus look, interviewer) IS NOT EVERYTHING. LOOK BEYOND THOSE. </p>

<p>
[quote]
4. What was your interview experience like?

[/quote]

  • I had visited about 20 schools, and I had interviews at all of them. I was a really shy, quiet, and anxious kid, so this was not my favorite moment. However, during the parents interviews, my parents said all those good things about me I forgot to say, and this was a biiiiggggg help. Parents interviews are just as important! </p>

<ul>
<li>The thing with interviews is that they are like marketing games, and you get only better with more experience you have. So practice A LOT. I had interview preps with parents and teachers at my school... Think ahead of questions they will be asking you(these are pretty much the same at any school) and the questions you will be asking them as well(at the end of interviews, they always ask, "do you have any question about Exeter?" YOU HAVE TO ASK SOMETHING to show your interest. The trick is to ask something unique and creative so that the interviewer can remember you). </li>
</ul>

<p>
[quote]
5. What other schools were you accepted to?

[/quote]

  • Accepted at Hotchkiss, Exeter, Deerfield, and bunch other safeties like Dana Hall and Portsmouth Abbey...
  • I was rejected from Andover(my first choice!)
  • and waitlisted at Middlesex and Groton. </p>

<p>
[quote]
6. Lastly, how is it!? Are you enjoying yourself? Anything you would have done differently?

[/quote]

  • Well, I have already graduated, so I will answer this in past tense. How DID I enjoy myself? I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!! It was the best four years of my life! No regrets.</p>
12

<ul>
<li>thingslost, </li>
</ul>

<p>Food sucked. I have not eaten anywhere else besides Middlesex, but listening to complaints of my friends at other boarding schools, it seems like it sucks pretty much EVERYWHERE. It was never much of a huge problem though; I guess we all learn to deal with it. You just order out a lot and beg day students to bring in food from restaurants. My personal experience was that boys will eat pretty much anything they can grab, and girls will hardly eat anything. My school had something like Food Committee that students could join, and I guess their job was coordinate with the kitchen so that they can cook food students enjoy more in the future, etc... We also had this thing that if you want something for upcoming dinner, you could ask the dining hall crew to make it or give them the recipe from your mom or whatever, and they would legit cook it for you. </p>

<p>Clothing issue REALLY depends. If you are a guy, who cares if you own like four pairs of khaki pants and some random polo shirts you can switch through. All those collared polo shirts look the same anyway, just in different colors. On the other hand, if you are a girl, my advice would be bring everything you wear. The important tip here is - the more clothing you have, less often you have to do your laundry. You will also share things a lot with friends/roommates and lose things(people steal. be aware) </p>

<p>I will comment on your other two questions once I have more time later. They're a little deeper/more abstract than the other straightforward ones hahahaha.</p>

13

<p>Alright, I have a new question then. </p>

<p>No offense to Middlesex, but Andover, Hotchkiss, and Deerfield are GENERALLY regarded as better/ more prestigious. What made you choose Middlesex over those 3 other schools?</p>

14

<ul>
<li>For benevolent4them: </li>
</ul>

<p>Strictness ultimately depends on which dorm you live in. Everything is up to whoever faculty is in charge of that very night. I've had teachers who flip out at shutting doors loudly and others who let us stay up in their apartments and watch TV until midnight(and they would make us food and whatnot:).</p>

<p>The general rules are:
Freshmen - lights out at 10:30pm
Sophomore - in your room at 10:30pm. No lights out.
Juniors/Seniors - pretty much whatever. Just gotta stay in the dorm.</p>

<p>Detailed little rules like these, however, always change from year to year.
Bathrooms also depend on dorms. Every floor is equipped with one or two bathrooms, of course. Individual showers. </p>

<p>I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer this question on significance of the SSATs.... since I'm not an admission officer! But my little input is that you can think of these scores as a basic start line. I'ts just to prove that you are equipped with minimum intelligence to be able to handle the workload at a prep school. By no means is it only deciding admission factor. There is no magic formula like if you have 99% you will be automatically accepted. Of course, it can't hurt to do amazing on these standardized tests, but... once it's beyond a certain line, it hardly makes a difference whether you have 93% or a 97%. At small schools like Middlesex, your ability to contribute to the community such as your extracurricular activities(sports, music, art) is just as significant as your academic prowess. </p>

<p>I have to go out now, so I will answer your other questions later. Meanwhile, if you can think of more, don't hesitate to ask them!</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
No offense to Middlesex, but Andover, Hotchkiss, and Deerfield are GENERALLY regarded as better/ more prestigious. What made you choose Middlesex over those 3 other schools?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm gonna have to seriously disagree that Hochkiss and Deerfield are regarded as more prestigious than Middlesex.
***I'm not sure if that's the general concensus on this CC forum, as I am fairly new here
but when I was applying, to my teachers and my friends (among those who are at Hotchkiss and Deerfield now), it wasn't so... I'll comment more later</p>

16

<p>Oh sorry, when I was asking my question I meant to say "exeter, Hotchkiss, and Deerfield" not "andover, hotchkiss, and deerfield."</p>

17

<p>This is so great!</p>

<p>Can you tell us how you got off the wait list and ended up attending MX? Did you send in a deposit to one of the others and then get called by MX later? When did they notify you that you were off the waitlist?</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
What was the best/wore part of your bs education?
In what ways have you changed since you first arrived at Middlesex?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The best part is all the cliche things you probably hear a lot... Obviously the superb education helped me transition smoothly into rigorous college academics. Work was hard but definitely worth it. I don't mean this in a cocky way, but compared to my other friends at college from regular public schools, I feel like I am more capable of handling the workload. I mean I bet they are just as smart as I am since we are at the same college, but I am more used to managing time on my own and balancing work/sleep/socializing more effectively. </p>

<p>Beyond the academics, boarding school also just taught me a lot about life... hahaha. I'm sorry that sounds very cliche, but you really are not there only to study. Yeah, it taught me things like how to be independent and autonomous. But it also taught me A LOT about how to deal with people in general. Say you have some issues at school - if you are at a day school, then all right you can kinda run away from the whole thing, because you can go home, talk to your parents, because school is only a fraction of your life. For boarding school kids, school is home. You are stuck there until vacation, and you can't just like leave, you know?. Because there are a bunch of kids living together, there are bound to be some epic drama and major clashes among friends. Living with other people IS HARD. And on top of that, there's mad drug and alcohol issues. I met some crazzzy psychotic kids being at Bs. If there's a problem, you have to learn to deal with it there instead of crying back to your parents or something. </p>

<p>Worst part... I guess I grew very spoiled. Actually consider this an important warning; boarding school is a bubble. It is a very insulated and sheltered world on its own, completely out of touch from the real world. The majority of the kids at BS are extremely wealthy, preppy, and privileged. After dealing with those people(and me one of them), I was shocked when I got out and came to college. There are like actually.... people who can't pay for college tuition? SHE IS LIKE POOR?!?!? Boys who don't wear polo shirts and khaki pants like all the time? Wait, you've NEVER played sports before? ...You get the idea. I'm not saying everyone at boarding school thinks like this. Some of us ARE very aware of how privileged we are to be in our position and etc. School tries hard to remind us of this often, but really, some kids at boarding school live entirely out of touch from the "real world" - like their everyday worries and stuff they think about are extremely shallow and simplistic. </p>

<p>Middlesex changed my life from the way I think and treat people to the way I look and dress. I'm at college now, so I think I'm changing again. So choose your school well!</p>

19

<p>I'm sorry, but I have NEVER heard this claim until I came here(CC) that those three schools are better than Middlesex. OKAY MAYBE Exeter.... the biggest boarding school with the oldest high school library... yeah, you could say that E is the most prestigious one out there. But I have friends at Hotchkiss who were flat out rejected from Middlesex, and I know kids who transferred out of Deerfield to come to Middlesex. Nor do I think they are any better than Milton Academy or SPS. I haven't read through past posts, so I don't know what you guys say and believe here on CC. Truth be honest, I'm a little confused with all these HADES and St. Grottlesex; they're acronyms that I've never heard until I came here, and believe me I have a ton of friends who go to boarding schools. In fact, it's all who I hang out with. I know that you guys must be like the most driven, competitive, and bright kids(because face it, you are at Colleg eConfidential even before you are thinking about colleges), a little different from the norm of some rich preppy kids who apply to boarding schools because parents make them. </p>

<p>From the perspective of someone who went through all this, I really wanna tell you something. If you dont wanna read it, then please don't. If you disagree in any way, it's cool. Other people may have had different experience from mine, and that's only natural. But since you asked me a question, I'll try my best to answer it honestly. </p>

<p>I was exactly like you guys when I was applying to BS. I wanted to go to the best, the most prestigious, no.1 school whatever it may be in the country. Thing is I hardly knew anything specific about these schools, but in my head I was always shouting "Exeter and Andover!" just because of their famous names. Well, I got flat out rejected from Andover which was BY FAR my first choice. That sucked big times, and it really made me think hard why exactly I wanted to go there. I'd looked at some boarding school ranking(which changes drastically from year to year, I learned later), and Andover was rated #1 at the time, and that was it. After crying for days and finally getting over it, I began to think really hard about other factors besides prestige... like the size of the school, the sports they excel, beauty of the campus, AP courses, surrounding town, etc.... </p>

<p>I suddenly realized Exeter scared the **** out of me with its humongous size. Thousand of kids with two hundred teachers, what is this like a college? Some people thrive in a large environment, some people feel lost in it. I wanted to try out all new things at boarding school, like sports and activities and clubs, and I was afraid there would so many people who were good at them, so it wouldbe rly competitive. I wanted to compete at Varsity level, and I was scared that I wouldn't make it, because there would be so many people trying out. I didn't wanna feel drowned in this mass population of people, and you knowwwww the primary appeal of a private school should be its smallness! Like the intimate attention of teachers.. I wanted to get to know everyone and have those close relationships with teachers and classmates. I wanted that intimacy of the close-knit community. MX had this feel of a warm family, because it's so small and everyone knows each other and everyone takes care of each other, you know? I really liked that, because this was gonna be my first time leaving home, and I was kinda nervous about it. I also wanted to be close to Boston. I didn't wanna go out to NH or western MA or CT. Middlesex has an isolated campus in Concord, MA which is basically like the most stereotypical preppy New England suburban town. But it is also like 30-40 min from Boston, and I liked that proximity to the city a lot. You can do fun things there on weekends. With all these reasons and many others, I came to choose Middlesex over Exeter, and I'm glad I did. I think, because I made a choice based on all these important factors BESIDES PRESTIGE, I was able to be truly happy at MX. </p>

<p>I had friends at MX who had got into all these great schools like SPS, Milton, Choate, Nobles, Andover... I also had friends who didn't get in anywhere else other than MX. But they all had come to mx for different reasons like the financial aid, the boys Lacrosse team, their family legacies, etc. </p>

<p>The thing with boarding school is that THEY ARE ALL AMAZING SCHOOLS. Doesn't matter if you go to SPS or St. George's - the difference between those two education in QUALITY is very minimum at best. They're both highly respected boarding schools in ISL, just one located in NH and the other in RI. Sure, you will meet different people, but do you think one will have FAR SUPERIOR teachers over the other ones? The quality of the education is the same.... If you wanna make out the education to be better than the other, everything is really up to YOU - how YOU perform and how YOU choose to spend those four years. I'm a sophomore at college now, and here is something that I learned. I know someone who went to St. Mark's and is now at Harvard. I also know a couple kids who went to Exeter and ended up at some random state universities. Just because you go to the best boarding school, you won't turn out better than the other kids. In fact, it's much easier to go to the Ivies from easier schools like Brooks and Dana Hall. Boarding school's college prep is a whole another paragraph to write, so I will stop here. Basically, the gist here is that you need to choose your school based on fit instead of prestige if you wanna turn out really well.</p>

20

<p>Hey PA-C, </p>

<p>I had sent my deposit to Exeter before I got off the waitlist. Because it was a while ago, I honestly don't remember the little details like when I got off the waitlist, but I think it may have been sometime in May... I remember trying REALLY HARD though. MX is such a small school that it's more unlikely for them to open a spot after admission decision has been reached. So I did everything I could like raise my grades, have my parents write letter to them, get extra recommendation from my headmaster, etc. Then one day, they called me! Asked me if I was interested in revisiting... I was like hell yes.</p>