We decided to send our daughter to a private school in Princeton area for Middle school with a long term goal of making it to Lawrenceville for high school. She was with us when we randomly drove through Lawrenceville campus and was super impressed. Any tips from alumni parents on how to prepare for the same. We have an early start as she will be in 5th grade come fall. Plus point is it’s her goal and not ours. I really hope to get in with financial aid as affording FP will be a stretch. Thanks in advance! ( Bare with me as this is my first week in this forum and looking forward to an eventful next decade on this forum)
This may gain more traction in the prep school forum. I will tag a moderator to move it forward you @skieurope
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Moved
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Thanks!
The best advice I have for you is to make sure your child pursues something they really care about. For my kids it was sports. They were both good enough to be “recruited” which is a large boost for most of the top prep schools. Secondly, have your child become involved with some meaningful community service that shows they care about giving back to their community. I see this missing in MANY applications and I think kids don’t even understand what I mean by community service.
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May I ask which school? (You can private message me). I actually took a similar route: private day school in the Princeton area for K-8, then applied to Lawrenceville as a day student; I am now a sophomore there.
Anyways, I barely knew the school existed (or that you had to take the SSAT, write an application, etc.) until late in my seventh grade year, so if you start preparing this early, you’ll really be ahead of the curve. Good luck!
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Thanks! Yes , she is an active member with couple of non-profit organizations in our town. Started her early with it. Will be encouraging her to come up with something of her own this year.
Thanks!!! My first week here in on forum and PM is not enabled yet. Moderators mentioned that it should be enabled soon. Looking forward to chatting with you soon.
Agree with @one1ofeach great advice to lean into the things she loves. Also, would suggest that if she loved Lville, she may actually just be loving prep school! So maybe just gently keep an open mind that other schools might fit the bill too. And finally: know that a LOT of people aren’t “prepping” several years in advance in order to get into prep school. There is a part of me that would hesitate to fixate too much on any single “only great outcome” because gosh – what a crazy amount of pressure (especially for a 13 year old) that would be going into that app cycle after 3 years of this being THE BIG DREAM. Dreams that have only one acceptable outcome might benefit from becoming a little more robust in scope. (And feel free to ignore that if it doesn’t feel right for you and your family. You know yourselves.)
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I can second the importance of community service. My L’ville interviewer made of point to bring up a few times that my community sericive involvement was an asset to my application. She even said I’d be suprised at how many kids haven’t really been involved with any volunteer work.
Make sure your D can explain why she enjoys doing volunteer work and what impact she hopes to make. Doing something for the sole purpose of writing it on an application is rarely helpful and can often be easily seen through.
You definitely have a huge head start, which can be very helpful. I recommend that you encourage your D to explore things she is passionate about. Not only will that help with the application and interviews/essays, it will ensure that no matter where she ends up for HS she will have skills and experiences that she truly enjoyed.
I didn’t decide I wanted to attend BS until November of 9th grade. Planning this far in advance may work great, but it’s certainly not a prerequisite for good application results. I agree with @Calliemomofgirls and caution you to aproach BS admissions as a “potential future opertunity” rather than a goal you and your D must be in active pursuit of for the next four years. As I’m sure you know, kids’ opinions can change drastically. I wouldn’t assume that what your D wants today will align exactly with what she wants 3-4 years down the line.
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Just a couple of thoughts here.
It is true that there is a lot of financial aid available and many students receive it. But you should assume that at most schools, it does have an impact on your application and a big one. In short there are two buckets and the buckets are not equal in size. 65% of admissions come out of the smaller bucket. 35% of admissions come out of big bucket. I got the impression that you are choosing to pay tuition currently with f the hopes of getting in, and receiving aid in BS. I’m not sure this is the best strategy, certainly not the one I would pursue.
Our experience with full day and financial aid admissions with the same school and same kid were very different.
Day students are different. But if she wants a boarding school experience and you need financial aid, encourage her to expand her search to include several schools with a higher admit rate.
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100% this.
It is also important to understand that Female Day is the single most competitive spot at Lawrenceville. Also, a very large number of her classmates will apply as well, many will more than meet the stats bar and most will be FP.
All the things mentioned are valid, but the surest thing to tip the scale (assuming all the other boxes are checked, and as I mentioned they will be for most) is being a solid athlete. (For your specific scenario).
You don’t have to get too deep in this sub-forum to see the repeated advice that BS is not a ticket to Ivy, nor should it be approached that way. The same can be said about middle school to Lville (or Exeter, or Andover…) but I think we could be misinterpreting your OP.
I sent you a DM.
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Since she is still in 4th grade, there is plenty of time for this advice. Read. Read. Read.
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Once covid restrictions let up, I would be sure to spend some time on Lville’s campus over the next few years. Attend the sports games/competitions that your daughter participates in or would like to participate in. Walk around the campus and see how kids interact with each other. Get a true feel for the school. That way, when she does interview, she will be able to clearly demonstrate the things she loves about Lville and in what way she wants to contribute to Lville’s community.
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This is such good advice. I am grateful that my kids, oddly even the second, didn’t decide on BS until 8th grade. Seeing how stressful the college planning was, that kind of starts the moment you step foot on a BS campus. Well maybe the moment a 10th grader does so. I am glad my kids were spared that stress in middle school.
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The OP’s daughter is in fourth grade. In my opinion, this child has no clue as to what boarding school really entails. And that’s good. My advice to the OP is to casually and gradually educate yourself about boarding school, but don’t involve your daughter until much, much later in the process. Let her be a 9 year old! (Or 10).
Also learn about the many, many excellent schools besides Lawrenceville.
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I thought this as well, but wonder if OP is looking at Lville as a day school, not a boarding school. If boarding school is the goal, without a doubt, look at many other schools. And even as a day student, there are incredible schools in the area in addition to Lville that should be explored.
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