<p>So what exactly do the acceptance and rejection letters say? I'm just wondering... :)</p>
<p>Its physical attributes tell all. Fat/thick large envelop is good. A thin letter size envelop says rejection.</p>
<p>Sometimes a thin envelope means waitlisted.</p>
<p>If I may be so bold--Jonathan, you are still looking at schools and have not begun the application process. You seem awfully obsessed with the prep application process.IMO at this point, you have a beginnning list which you need to narrow down. You need to plan for visits/interviews at schools this summer and fall. The visits are key because each prep has a very different culture or feel. You want to make sure the school has a good fit for you....you honestly can only tell that by visiting.
This should be your focus now.</p>
<p>Worry about acceptance/rejection letters in March, not now. Take a break from the computer, go to a movie with friends and relax!</p>
<p>MomofaKnight, you are right on! JK, we luvya, but MOMO's advice is right on target.</p>
<p>I agree with MomofaKnight and prepparent, you should just relax right now. You'll have plenty of time to worry about envelope size once your apps are done. BUT... rejects/waitlists usually come in the regular mail in small envelopes, and for me the acceptances came in large envelopes through Fedex.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks...</p>
<p>I understand that these parents think you're obsessive, but I know that you're just excited about the idea of going to boarding school. Keep asking questions. If you never ask the question, you might never know the answer...</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>one year the exeters acceptance letter was really cool. it basically put your hobbies into your letter making it seem really personalized, but the fact that they put the much attnetion to detail impressed me.</p>
<p>Thanks, saolcecseer. :)</p>
<p>Jonathan: May I echo the sugggestion of momofaknight and prepparent that you relax a bit. You started out the process looking for a school that fit and for arguments that would persuade your parents to let you go there for the right reasons. Much of this process you can consolidate by reviewing the threads started by esahopeful95 two years ago. ( Go to search and click in esahopeful95). Esa ( exeter/st. paul's/andover or bust) as we affectionately came to know him, worried about much the same things as you for much the same reasons and ultimately ended up at St. Paul's. On a personal note, I would be a bit careful draping all my personal anxieties about boarding school on what is after all a public site. There can only be so many applicants with a background like yours. Esa's thread was almost point perfect in this respect. It gave enough to allow people to imagine his situation but not so much that he could be readily identified at the schools he applied to.</p>
<p>paleozoic, that's what I was thinking, which is why I haven't made a thread on this board in a while. Please just let all my threads sink to the bottom of the page. I don't want my chances at boarding school to be ruined just because of my posts on this board.</p>
<p>It is also nice when you receive acceptance letters right away immediately after their due dates; that first one is always unforgettable. I think it is also a sign of how interested they might be in you by the way they send you the acceptance letters. Acceptance letters received throught Express mail might "feel" better than an acceptance letter received through regular mail. I think.</p>
<p>I got two waitlist letters...:(</p>
<p>Yeah, they hurt more specially if it is one of your favorites. Sorry GDF.</p>
<p>eh it was a year ago lol. plus i love the school i'm at.</p>
<p>the personalized acceptance letters are really amazing
it makes you feel.. wanted :]</p>
<p>and then of course, you run victoriously seven times around your house screaming.. or maybe that was just my initial reaction ? :]</p>
<p>It might perhaps be best to keep only the one thread "convincing the parents" alive. It would seem to me that the first order of the day is to convince your father that an American prep school would offer you a range of experience and possibilities that even a very fine Canadian school like Ashbury cannot. This was exactly the issue faced by my daughter--how do you convince parents who love you and want the best for you to let you go a thousand miles from home when to them the advantages of doing so seem at best marginal. I would suggest that if you followed esa's example and first explored say St. Paul's, Exeter you would get a sense of what is really important to you. Academically there is nothing to choose between any of these schools but to me at least St. Paul's 'feels' very different from Exeter. I would move heaven and earth to visit both schools sometime this summer. From Ottawa it is only a day's drive to Exeter/Concord and you will immediately get a feel for either campus. (You might also want to visit Groton and Middlesex which are quite close).</p>
<p>In the thread Exeter vs St. Paul's, I tried to articulate how this visit affected me and how it influenced my daughter's application process. My daughter was deleriously happy at St. Paul's. You may have different needs or different dreams. The first order of the day though is to convince your father that you belong in a boarding community and not a day school. Good luck!</p>
<p>paleozoic, dont forget Andover! Such a great school.</p>
<p>paleozoic, I'm leaving Ottawa tomorrow so unfortunately I can't visit those schools. Maybe I'll convince my mom to fly out this summer or fall.</p>
<p>GreenDayFan: I don't know anything about Andover. After our son graduated from St. Paul's ( where he also was very happy) we explored Groton, Exeter and Middlesex as alternatives for our daughter. While there was a clear preference for St.Paul's before we even started, we were somewhat cautious that she go there for her reasons, not our reasons.</p>
<p>My impressions for what it is worth is that these schools are academically equivalent but culturally and spiritually quite distinct. My point is that for Jonathan to get in or to convince his parents that he should be allowed to apply ( the surest way not to get in is not to apply), he has to be able to articulate why he wants to be at a specific school more than he wants to be at Ashbury College. This is quite hard to do, after all if he knew how to get an education he probably would not need it. From my perspective,there is nothing so far in all his posts that evinces any passion for the idea of education, for music, for literature, for science, for beauty. Kids who get good grades are a dime a dozen, kids with a passion and hunger for education are quite rare. This is what I, if I were admissions director at any of these places would be looking for. If you want to go to St. Paul's or Exeter, or Harvard or Columbia for that matter, you had better have some sense of how the place defines its educational mission and why you fit there.</p>