My daughter is applying to very competitive day schools on the West coast. She is a top candidate (4.0, superb recs, great extracurriculars). The high school admissions director is also the coach of the sport she plays. We have indicated that this is her first choice school. Results are due in about 3 weeks. The upper school director who is the coach in her sport reached out Tuesday with a personal email saying (aprox. gist) “hope you are well and hanging in there as the admissions season comes to a close. hope your current classes are going well. I’m writing to see if you have any further questions about our school or the sports team”
Is this a good sign? Have you heard of this type of thing being sent to all applicants? Any thoughts at all?
Sorry, posted a reply in error
They are being friendly. Read nothing else into it. Also read nithing into it if other schools have not contacted her.
The response from AD seems a bit generic. Probably better to keep it cautious.
Happened to one of my kids who was later rejected. Also happened where kid was accepted. It doesn’t mean anything. IF kids are accepted they want to ensure you go to their school.
Also, every candidate is tops for BS. Nearly all have mostly A’s and top scores, a sport, music/art/theater, some community volunteering, a sport at club level (or two or three) etc. This is typical.
I take it as a good sign. The admissions director probably already knows the decision. Why would he waste his time reaching out to ask if you had questions?
I agree with the others that boarding schools often have vague reach out emails. This is often done to gauge interest and to estimate yield, but often has no impact on admission decisions. But for a west coast day school, I doubt this is the case. While you can never be sure, I would take this as a good sign.
Did you reply back with any new questions?
Original poster here.
Thanks for all your replies. I know from talking to parents at this school and others in the area (and applying another kid several years ago to similar day schools) that this is not a customary thing for day school ADs to do. However, I’m torn if there is positive significance or no significance at all. I’m very hesitant to get my hopes up that it is because I know how many qualified applicants there are!
Hi @dcmom12, I would take it as a positive sign. As someone has posted upthread, the school is likely quite interested in your child and trying to keep the pot warm.
Actually, I would even venture a guess that your child is already in the admit pool. Incidentally, my good friend received a fairly serious inquiry from an AD a few days ago, asking very politely whether the child would enroll if the school was to offer them a spot.
The conversation went something like this - “Every year, we only accept XX students out of XXX applicants. We would like to admit students who place our school atop their list, or else it will be a waste of time on both ends. It would be very helpful if you could indicate your interest to us as soon as possible…” They (AD and AOs) always do it over the phone and never leave any paper trail. They want to ensure a high yield, yet do not want to get quoted for having such conversations. (Now, with colleges, there would be a more direct channel for discussion - college AOs may ask such questions via the student’s counselor to achieve same results.)
Again, I would definitely keep it warm with the AD and express a strong interest in attending the school. Good luck!
OP here again.
Two weeks prior to getting this email we had sent a first choice letter and the admissions associate forwarded it on to the AD and upper school AD. It is in the file and was seen by all parties.
Then two weeks later I received the email in my OP—checking in to see how my child is doing and seeing if she had any thoughts or questions about the school as the admissions season winds down. So we replied and thanked them and said that we did not.
It was very strange. I have not heard of a school doing this before but I have no idea what is being done this year. I have no way of knowing if they checked in with all applicants or only a few. I also know that many things can happen in the last few weeks. It would seem unlikely that they checked in with everyone as it would give a lot of mixed signals (if there are kids they are not interested in at all) and these schools are not in the business of giving any signals that damage their reputation or result in more emails on their plate. However, even if this means that my kid was at the top of the pile a few weeks ago, she can get bumped down and/or off. I have been through this process before and I don’t count my chickens until they are fully hatched!
@dcmom12 I know how stressful it is, having been in your shoes before. You have done the best you could, including the email indicating your first choice.
Years ago, our kiddo1 applied to 6 competitive schools and ended up with 3 acceptances, 1 WL and 2 rejections. FWIW, 2 out of those 3 schools kept a dialogue with us throughout, while the 3 ones that did not accept us never bothered to maintain contact. I hope this relieves your stress somewhat.
Again, I wish you the best of luck!
OP here and my kid got in! So in this case, the AD reaching out “to check in” between the application due date and the decision date was a very positive sign.
I just wanted to update this in case someone in the future has the same question and sees this post.
thanks for sharing your story. Congrats!
One school (of which I’m an alum) did the same. I did not bother to answer-- because I forgot. I figured it went to everyone.
Congrats! That is awesome news. With BS apps up 30% on the average this year, you have every reason to be proud of yourself and your child.
Yup same here. AD wrote a letter to me saying, “I hope you are doing well”, and I ended up getting in. It’s a good sign!