Applications, fees, and recommendation forms.

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>We've made a spreadsheet with a list of boarding schools and want to make sure we have all this correct. My child will be interviewing in January. My first question is, it appears it is necessary to fill out the applications and PAY the application fee NOW for each school she wants to apply to, correct? We were kind of thinking it would be great to tour and interview all the schools (write essays for the ones she is fairly certain she thinks will be a "fit" before visiting and putting off the essays and paying for a handful of them until "After" the interviews in January. It appears that is not an option, correct?</p>

<p>Next, I want to make sure I have this correct regarding applications. Some will take Gateway Applications, some will take SSAT's SAO application, and some require their own applications. What this means is if a child is applying to schools on both the Gateway and SSAT list as well as some that require their own applications, my child will need to give her current English and Math teacher a good 5-6 reccomendation forms to fill out etc, correct? I do recognize that many schools have supplements on top of the Gateway or SSAT's application. </p>

<p>My main questions in this email are to confirm that 1) Yes, we need to go ahead and pay the application fee in order to trigger the recommendation forms from Gateway, SSAT, etc, 2) Yes, there will need to give English and Math (and some other teachers, coaches, arts, etc) the recommendation from from Gateway, SSAT, and each school she is going to apply to that has their own forms.</p>

<p>I have the list below...</p>

<p>Gateway Forms ok- Hotchkiss, St. Paul's School, Andover, and Deerfield
SSAT Forms ok- Loomis, Taft School, and Middlesex
Require their own forms- Choate, Exeter, and Milton</p>

<p>Thus if she decides she wants to apply to all of the above, her English and Math teachers will need to fill out 5 different recommendation forms (not to mention the other teachers that will need to fill out forms as well). Not sure how well this is going to go over. Plus, I assume we do need to pay the fee to each one of these schools NOW, correct? Ie. We can't simply wait until after interviews and tours to narrow it down, correct? </p>

<p>Someone please correct me if I am wrong.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>Sorry URM, you’re not wrong. </p>

<p>You CAN visit and interview without paying the application fees. However, if you want to give your recommenders enough time to fill out forms, you do need to pay in order to “release” the rec forms (via the various systems). If it’s any comfort, we had to ask teachers to fill out SEVEN forms - there were only two schools we applied to that used a common rec form via Gateway, iirc.</p>

<p>The teachers we asked were used to filling out college rec’s, but if your child’s teachers are not used to the process, you might share what these teachers did, which was to open up a word-processing document and use it as a master form, adjusting to the various schools’ specific questions as needed. Most are fairly similar. Choate’s online form was beastly and many folks had a hard time cutting and pasting text (two years running, from what I’d been told by someone who had the same problem in the 2011-12 app cycle). I hear they’ve fixed it by now. At least one might hope so. Oh, also, Middlesex, if memory serves me, was also the only school to REQUIRE a foreign language teacher rec, if the student took a language (not all middle schoolers do).</p>

<p>It’s a bear of a process. And danged expensive for many of us. </p>

<p>Hang in there!</p>

3

<p>All the schools we asked said that they would take the common recommendation forms. Also they take letters mailed or emailed. The questions in Gateway, SSAT, and Choate recommendation letters are the same. So the teachers can complete one form, print it out, or save it in a PDF file and mail/email to the rest of the schools.</p>

<p>Thus, you could pay fees for only the schools DC is certain to apply and trigger the process. For the other schools you can ask teachers send the copy of letters after the interview.</p>

<p>For Gateway app, you can’t fill in essays until the fee is paid. However, you can view the essay prompts so DC can start working on them now and then fill in and complete the applications after the interviews.</p>

4

<p>My understanding is you can interview most of these schools without having to pay application fees. However, your D’s interviews are scheduled for Jan, and Choate has Jan 10 and most others Jan 15 as application deadlines, so I don’t think it’s realistic for you to expect your D’s teachers can write letters in such a short notice. She might want to ask her teachers to write letters now whether she’d eventually complete application.</p>

5

<p>A few more questions-</p>

<p>I assume that the schools know which other schools she is applying to based on the ISEE or SSAT report that get sent? Or perhaps all the gateway schools know which other gateway schools? We have a few schools that are not on the above list that are certainly a few steps down academically and we fear if she applies to them, some of the top schools she is applying to might view it as, “She’s just applying to us to see if she can get in etc, when that is not really the case.” Thoughts?</p>

6

<p>Just one caveat: Don’t send schools recs with the logo of a different school on it. Or the logo of SSAT for a Gateway school, and vice-versa. It’s just tacky.</p>

<p>I agree with payn4ward that your dc can and should get a head-start on essays, offline.</p>

7

<p>I am going to be a Debbie Downer and say “It’s kind of late in the game to be having these sorts of epiphanies.” Especially on the recommendations front.</p>

<p>Hopefully you’ve already given teachers the heads up that you’ll be needing reccos. We asked teachers BEFORE Thanksgiving and only had 3 schools to worry about. Best of luck.</p>

8

<p>SevenDad has a point. OTOH, if you have already given the teachers a jingle that they’ll be getting forms, it is not yet too late. I am also remembering that our dd’s math recommender noted that the new, supposedly easier to use, online forms are a real PITA, and that it would have been easier just to send letters, as in the old days. Even filling out PDFs has its limitations… from what I have seen, the PDFs are not electronically fillable (we made ours fillable in order to make our recommenders’ lives a bit easier, but that’s only because we had the software to do so)</p>

<p>In case anyone from SSAT or TABS or Gateway is paying any attention, how hard would it be, in this digital age, to make PDFs that a recommender can type into? It’s not like these teachers want to hand write their recs. </p>

<p>Anyway, back to the OP, you may want to consider 7Dad’s comment and get that ball rolling sooner rather than later.</p>

9

<p>I didn’t think your D’s application status are shared among Gateway schools. That sounds unethical, if not illegal. But admission officers/interviewers might ask you or your daughter which other schools you are applying. This can be done in person or as part of formal application questions.</p>

10

<p>The crux of the problem for you is that you are interviewing very late in the process.</p>

<p>We actually used which forms a school accepts to help shape our list of potential schools.</p>

<p>On your list, a quick glance at ssat.org showed me that Andover and Deerfield will accept the SSAT online application although you have them listed as Gateway (which I’m sure they will also accept). Maybe all your Gateway schools will accept SSAT–worth looking into.</p>

<p>Also it’s always worth a call to the school to confirm which applications are acceptable and/or how to reduce paperwork for teachers’ recommendations.</p>

<p>As to schools knowing which other schools your child is applying to, they are going to know. I think some ask right in the application and I think every at every interview, asked D and/or I was what other schools she was applying to. Don’t drive yourself nuts trying to second guess how the AOs will view your list. But DO be prepared to make each school feel your child would be genuinely happy to attend there and would be a great addition to their community.</p>

<p>I helped my D make flashcards with a few choice attributes of each school, so that she had something she was enthusiastic about at each interview, and to help her keep the schools straight.</p>