Hello!
I am a thirteen-year-old girl applying for admittance to a private college prep boarding school next year. Here’s a little bit about me:
- I attend a public school, always have
- My best subject is English
- I take an accelerated math course (Algebra)
- My current GPA is 3.8/3.9, but these are just progress grades, and I’m aiming for a 4.0
- I am in AVID… an exclusive college readiness program where you work on leadership and organizational skills
- I take French
- I am a part of the 8th-grade dance club
- I am hoping to take cheer, tumbling, or gymnastics soon (if I can manage)
- I hold an occasional babysitting job for a local family
- I usually get high test scores, but I haven’t taken the SSAT yet
To continue, I will be applying for FA, and I won’t be able to go without it. If I don’t attend boarding school, I’m considering a private Catholic day school.
The schools I am interested in are Choate Rosemary Hall (top choice), Andover (second choice), and Hotchkiss (third choice). How exclusive are these schools?!? Do they look at reports from seventh grade, because my GPA isn’t great from then (like 3.5 or so)?
I hope to play volleyball and do cheer or dance at this school if that helps.
So, what do you think? If any other info is needed, just let me know!
I thought into Choate last year. I could not go because of financial reasons but it is a great school! You are a good candidate for boarding school but make sure you do good on your interview. If you need any help you can message me.
I know that Choate will accept students but tell them they don’t have enough aid which can be heartbreaking. Have you visited these schools yet? That may change your list considerably. If you need financial aid you should plan to apply to several more schools.
If by “exclusive” you mean “selective”, here are the percentage of applicants offered admission as currently reported on boarding school review:
Choate 18%, Andover 14%, Hotchkiss 21%. I agree with @MAandMEmom that you should consider additional schools.
To complete your application your current school will need to submit an official transcript which includes all of your middle school grades and grades from the first marking period of 8th grade.
My 2 students graduated from Choate. It was on the top of their lists too. Think about what makes you awesome and how you might contribute to the community. What makes you different? What do you want to do with your life? What matters to you? There are lots of great students, so you need to turn it around and look at it from their standpoint. What is it about you that Admissions would like to have to add to their school community? Good Luck! Choate is a great place. “To our school upon the hillside, come and sing a rousing song.” Forever true to gold and blue!
Those are all highly selective schools. If you need FA, and really have your hopes set on boarding school, you should apply to more schools, including a few that have higher acceptance rates. What are your interests? If you can tell us a little bit more about yourself and/or why you are interested in those schools specifically, people here can suggest some others. Also, I don’t think that “Cheer” is offered in many (any?) northeastern boarding schools.
Good to know @preppedparent !
Thanks for the info! I haven’t visited these schools because I live in the Midwest. From pictures, Choate Rosemary Hall looks to have a nice campus, and I believe that there are a lot of opportunities for me there. I am also fascinated in Andover because it is one of the best schools in the country. I’m drawn to Hotchkiss as well because of its rigor academics and opportunities. The biggest issue for me is that I can’t really apply to a lot of boarding schools because that adds up to thousands of dollars in application fees and I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars applying and then thousand more dollars on tuition. I would appreciate if you could suggest other schools with higher acceptance rates and better FA.
Would you mind sharing more specifics about your academic and extracurricular interests? It would also be helpful to know your athletic background, not just what you would like to do at BS. How many years experience, any awards/rankings etc.? If you have a solid background in gymnastics and are willing to dive you might be really attractive to schools with swim/dive teams.
Hi @pointedneedle , you will get a nice campus & academic rigor at many, many schools. Try to narrow down your priorities by thinking of it this way: Answer the question “What specifically makes you a good fit for Andover/Hotchkiss/Choate and why exactly do you want to attend?”. Think about your answer for each school, one at a time. Imagine that you will need to provide specific details about what makes that particular school special to you, as well as what makes YOU special for them. Why should they admit you? What will you bring to the community? If you can let us know a little bit more about your specific interests and what you’re looking for, the parents on this board can be a great resource.
Maybe consider the following factors: size, location, co-ed or all-girls, sports offered, courses offered in your areas of interest (most schools publish a link to their course catalog), clubs & other organizations, % of students receiving FA, dress code, chapel requirements, Saturday classes, airport proximity & ease of travel home, dorm configuration, etc etc etc. Maybe some of these will matter to you more than others, but thinking about them will help you narrow down your list.
You can check out Boarding School Review for average SSAT scores by school. Because you need FA, you may want to apply to a broader range of schools. I totally get not wanting to apply to too many, it IS costly, but you also want to have some options at the end of all this.
Applying to a wide range of schools will not cost you “thousands of dollars”. Application fees are in the $60-$75 range I believe. My daughter applied to 9 schools and the total cost was around $600. (If you need FA, ask the admissions offices about application fee waivers, too.) If you look at the Application Results thread from this past March, you will see how many kids with stellar grades, top (even perfect) test scores and exceptional ECs were not admitted to the super- selective schools. There are just way more qualified applicants than there are spots for them. Casting a wide net is easy to do – there are many, many more schools than you have heard of yet which offer a great education and have everything you are looking for. The more you can be a standout applicant, the more likely it is that you will receive the FA you need. So apply to some schools where your stats put you above the typical student. Do some more research, and you will find a lot of appealing schools.Good luck!