I plan on applying again for the 2020-2021 season. Who’s with me?
In addition, is there anyone who’s done this before who has tips or experiences they’d like to share?
i’m so sorry u didn’t get great news today,
BUT YOU’LL DO GREAT NEXT YEAR I KNOW IT IN MY B O N ES
I’m just here to say that, and also, you’re amazing and so cool and i’m so happy to have met u
Hey same here- also I might apply as a repeat
It sux, but maybe next year will be my year (and yours)
Who knows, maybe we can even get off the wait list somehow://
^^^ look its me tryna be positive again and its not working
See you next year dude, hopefully I can one day meet the glorious mondaydevil in person.
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@TheHappinessFund ThANK YOU!!! not gonna lie, youre like the best writer I’ve ever seen and you’re so talented and awesome so good luck at Culver (?) or whichever school you end up at!!
@doodlebean8 YEP WE CAN DO THIS!!
@hdog27 I wouldn’t go as far to call me glorious but let’s do this!!
- Would they take out and look at your last year's application side by side with your new application?
- Can you recycle previous year's submissions to the same school? (essay, video, portfolio, recomm, etc.)
- New visit, tour and interview necessary?
These would be some of my questions.
@enpassant2019 About the recycling the materials, I don’t think it would be a good idea to use them again, even if you were allowed to. I mean, if you didn’t get in, there was probably something about at least one of the things that didn’t sit well with the AOs, right?
Good luck I’m sure you’ll do great! There’s generally lots of things that change and that you’ll se you drastically improve on and learn from one year to the next (which is why i would recommend not reusing anything and starting from scratch). Last year I applied to 2 BS and got rejected at both, this year I applied to another 3 (equally competitive if not more than last years) and got accepted to all 3 with FA! You can do it, just make sure to be happy with your effort and present who you really are. Wishing you the best of luck!
Possible/probably
Can you? Yes. Should you? No. They want to see the growth in a year. A year is a large percentage of time in a young life.
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3. New visit, tour and interview necessary?quote]
Yes on the interview. The tour is up to you (unless the school requires as part of the interview).
I’m planning on re-applying again for the 2021-2022 year. I will admit I shed some tears for around 2 hours, but I’m better now.
Good luck to everyone trying again and I will be sure to stay on this thread.
@soo2024 Hey, it’s cool to cry. I cried for a little too, but we back and trying harder than ever!!
For those of you reapplying, maybe take some time to read through the websites for the schools you really love and figure out what the key themes are, then tailor your essays highlighting how you will contribute to and support those themes/goals of the school. Show the school how you will help the school. Good luck.
Also, maybe have some experienced parents here read essays. I think kids/parents get stuck in thinking their writing is good when it’s really not. I am specifically thinking of several of the essay topics that were mentioned on here this cycle that made me just roll my eyes. They just seemed soooo pretentious and trying way too hard to show how brainy the kid was. The essays are the chance to show how human you are, how you will be a good roommate, great classmate, supportive teammate, not to brag on yourself because you are “obsessed with neuroscience” and doesn’t that make me seem smart and precocious and super interesting? I hope that makes sense.
@one1ofeach I get what you mean. I plan on reading over my essays for the first time since submitting them and seeing what may have gone wrong. Do you have any tips for particularly presenting yourself in a more human way?
^talking about a way you would like to grow if often a good way to do this. This kind of essay can show that you know who you are and that you have some humility. It can also show a lot of other things - your sense of humor, what your family and friends are like, what you like to do…
I’m not a poetry person but here’s a dumb thing I came up with:
Exeter is red; Andover is blue,
I want to say I hate them; but we all know that’s not true.
I’m hurt and broken, not gonna lie
Laying awake at night, wondering how and why
But tomorrow we rise, up from the pain
and once again, wish upon our thousand cranes.
@doodlebean8 That’s pretty good!! pretty much sums up my experience
@gardenstategal thanks for the advice!!
You are all amazing.
GO YOU!!
Proud to be your CC mom, @mondaydevil!!
@Calliemomofgirls THANK YOU!! Congrats to your daughter on her acceptances if i haven’t said this already. I hope we can meet someday (:
Hi folks. I have a few pieces of advice though the n=1 so take it with a huge grain of salt, but I’ll tell our story. My 99% SSAT flutist humanities-centric daughter was rejected or waitlisted everywhere last year. I love the immediate spunk you all are showing to get back in the ring after taking the punches and meanwhile wish everyone the best for waitlists. This is going to sound pollyannish but the rejections, as painful as they were, built character. In fact, you’re already showing it! And @soo2024 our tears went for about 2 days.
She got into Hotchkiss this year, a dream choice (the last portal to open, after another 10 hours of waitlistmaggedon…ugh!) and three others. Full stats in the results thread.
This was a brutal year. Pace yourselves better than we did. All our perseverating all March-August did nothing productive. Leave more in the emotional tank for the push September-Jan 15.
The major advice: 1) you should apply to other places.
I concur with @taftie23 above. Hotchkiss we applied so late last year we neither visited nor interviewed. If that therefore counts as a new application, all the places she got in this year were not applied to the previous year.
I have a partial hypothesis why and it’s not that you’re damaged goods. Given they’re “building a class.” really building four “classes” If they need a Sax player, and have a Sax player already, there’s only a 25% chance that person has graduated. If you’re a new possible Sax player, do they need you, no matter how much growth there was? (Yes you might want to draft your replacement QB NOW but maybe other priorities in class building take precedence.) Our hook was in part flute skills. I saw one place’s orchestra and…hmmm, a good number of flutes. Wait list ensued. (You can extrapolate the combos.)
And if not new places #2) apply to repeat 9th instead of 10th again at the same school.
If they’re really just building a class (a grade), you might want to think more about re-application for ninth grade instead of tenth. That is, EACH GRADE has a Sax, well last year found their Sax, so you’re back up against him/her but they already know they have their Sax yield. Most places were really firm, no you have to choose a grade and maaaaybe we think about you in another.
I thought a lot about this the last 24 hours. I think we would have had a better shot, our application was so much stronger if we had applied for repeat ninth instead of tenth. (This is such a crucial decision, and I really have de minimis insight beyond our own experience, which is still mostly a guess. Buyer beware). I think I said I thought FA played a role for all the waitlists but no I think it’s going up against the same people, who are already in! The College Confidential vets might have more insight in this and how schools expand slots 9th to 10th but…
If there is a school you really want, but isn’t on Gateway: I think it’s OK to ask the recommenders to take one more step to upload elsewhere. We didn’t do that. It’s OK to ask that just little bit more from your recommenders. Schools not on Gateway (St. Andrews, Lawrenceville) must not be as swamped.
Also other than Hotchkiss our admissions were slightly less competitive institutions. We did not even know about Mercersburg and would be delighted to go there now, and more delighted to have gone there last year! Moving the needle from reject to waitlist at HADES places year over year is a pretty hollow victory. I know there are stories of repeat success, including maybe us, but the slugging percentage was sooooo much higher with new places. Maybe you can move the needle from WL to accept, but reject to WL…pffft.
Answering @enpassant2019 :
- Would they take out and look at your last year's application side by side with your new application?
– In our case, the answer was a very clear yes. Unlike round one, the interviewers at several of the repeat schools (but not Andover or Exeter FWIW) had clearly reviewed her file, before the second interview and gave extensive comments. This made for a more productive interview I thought, and better advocacy within the schools. NB: It didn’t in the end make a difference, even with the best second interviews, she was waitlisted again.
These second round interviews were all extremely positive, borderline “you’re a lock to get in this time.” How close she was to an admit the first time. We considered not going wider as a consequence. Which could have been an epic mistake.
- Can you recycle previous year's submissions to the same school? (essay, video, portfolio, recomm, etc.)
Anything non-time sensitive outside of the Gateway app (e.g., an alumni recommendation) should be re-sent to be safe. I would not rely on their technical infrastructure. The usual stuff (English teacher rec) needs to be fresh I believe.
- New visit, tour and interview necessary?
Almost certainly to show the interest.
Happy to answer questions, and I know it’s hard to detox after being shot up with Boarding School juice for eight months but get some vacation from this, come back tan, rested and ready and GO GET 'EM.