Cate and Thacher are so different from the NE boarding schools on so many axes (size, accessibility, Californians’ desire for boarding schools, athletic recruiting and competition guidelines, PG policy, culture, vibe, weather, etc), it is impossible to compare admissions rates. California supply and demand for boarding schools are just not in the same ball park as the East Coast schools. California kids going East is a more likely scenario than vice versa, or even than California boarders staying in California. Cate and Thacher combined have around only 200-250 California boarders total – in contrast I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more California boarders at Andover/Exeter alone.
I agree with @ThacherParent that yield is mainly about how well the admissions teams determine fit, especially in California. California schools are just such a different beast. How does an AO suss out that a kid is going to be happy when the choice to go to a California boarding school is so much more uncommon? @CaliMex is right – boarding school is just not something people do here.
FWIW, I have no idea what the yield rate is at Cate. I don’t think I have ever heard the admissions team or the headmaster mention Cate admissions/yield rates. The closest they got is saying there were more applications this year and that they had shut down the waiting list. I haven’t seen the stats on legacy admits, but there are lots of siblings and faculty kids. There is also a surprising number of boarding families that move to the Santa Barbara area and become locals. That is definitely a weather/beach inspired thing, and a conversation for another thread.
He’s the info I got talking to an AO when I asked about admission rates. (This was not a school we were applying to, and it was a pretty frank discussion).
Acceptance rates don’t take into account what grade students applied for or the number of international students. The most well-known schools will attract a slew of international candidates. It might be prestige, but it also might be the only schools they’ve heard of in their country. Many of these candidates will not be qualified, but are still considered an “application”. Many will be qualified, but they are only going to take so many students from one country. Schools that start before 9th grade will also have a lower admit rate as a portion of the class will not be “applying”. Rates will also be skewed depending on how many 10th, 11th and 12 th years are accepted. Some schools will double the size of their freshman class for 10th grade and some will admit fewer students. International students often apply after 9th grade as well.
And it’s no wonder that schools are getting “record numbers of applicants”. They make it quite easy to apply with the common application (or even just being able to submit an application online). My guess is the average number of applications submitted per applicant has gone up as well.
Meanwhile, there is a shift happening and fewer families are interested in boarding schools. Many schools are needing to sell themselves more than in the past.
@doschicos my spouse worked for a boarding school for 20 years. Also, membership organizations for boarding schools are highly focused on this issue. They have done research on this, not available to the public, that shows a shift away from boarding schools. Schools are not in trouble, but many will have to adapt
Agree with @CaliMex. In fact I would be interested in seeing stats on how international applicants and admissions have increased over the past 30 years. When I went to BS we only had a handful of international students, now there seems to be an average of about 20% at most schools. Those schools who cannot attract enough domestic boarders hover around the 40-50% range of international boarding students.
@CalieMex A lot of the schools (including very ‘prestigious’ ones) cater to the helicopter lifestyle by having a sizable day student population and rather significant local boarder population. Every school we looked at talked about parent involvement and how they encourage parents to visit campus and become involved etc. And people do go to the games and other events every week (sometimes mid-week as well). Plus, most schools have ditched Saturday classes so the kids can go home for a weekend as well if they want to.
Depends on where you are located. While the demographics are certainly changing, schools in NE have received a recird number of applicants year over year. And I’m sure that there have always been “those” parents. We have lovely friends whose daughter is a very good but not great athlete. Attend a game with this guy and you would think he was the biggest jerk on earth. Daughter is a boarder at a prestigious school. We know other families who barely check in. Heli copter parenting is rampant everywhere. So is alpha parenting where the parent pushes the average kid into a high pressure school/sports situation. You can meet the parents at revisits and basically read what’s up.
Personally, I’m surprised at the similarities across regions, nationalities and even income. Parents all want the best fir their kids. And some are willing to do so openly and agressively.
The number of applicants is increasing because each student is applying to more schools. Overall, boarding school applications are down and some really wonderful schools struggle to attract applicants because they lack a robust marketing budget and because parents have a false/inflated notions of the value of attending a school that is a well known “brand”.
Thought this might be relevant to this thread: Loomis overenrolled about 40 girls this year (I don’t think they overenrolled a lot for boys), so they had at least like a 10% unexpected rise in yield for girls. Also that means no single dorms for me
They all have a tough job not only figuring out whom to admit, but also what their yield rate will be. Just a few kids short or long and dorm space is tough and this can affect 10th grade admits the following year. The acceptance rate really only tells one part of the story.
@sparkatzz Did Loomis send out an email they overenrolled 40 girls? Since they have incoming spots for around 200 kids in all grades per year, or 100 for girls, but now they will have 140 incoming girls and perhaps need about 28 extra beds (30% day students) is crazy. This implies their yield for girls went up 20%, which would be very surprising.
Something doesn’t quite add up - yield for girls doesn’t jump that much while staying the same for boys, unless LC went crazy with financial aid, which they can’t do only for girls and not boys.
@Boarding2019 No, I actually got this information from a teacher there that I know of. I don’t exactly know how much they overenrolled for boys, but it was not as high as girls (though I think they overenrolled too). It might be just that LC Admission did a really good job marketing this year and I don’t think the girls overenrollment is that much higher than boys as it might seemed in my last post.
I believe I stated in an earlier thread that an alum/interviewer told me that LC had a pretty crazy admissions cycle this year because they had a drastic increase in apps and and acceptance rate that was down from 28% to the low 20s. They said this was partly due to good press and increased involvement in TSAO meetings and outreach. Additionally, they performed a lot better on rankings this year (niche, boarding school review, etc) which, while I take with a grain of salt, does mean a lot to many applying families. This ultimately led to a much higher yield overall for all the grades, but specifically in regards to 9th grade.
@boarding2019@sparkatzz I can confirm that the Loomis yield for 9th grade boarding girls did go through the roof this year in an unprecedented way they could not have predicted in advance. They are overenrolled in general, but most highly in 9th grade boarding girls. They are implementing a range of solutions to accommodate the increased numbers.
