Hi! I am an international school student in China and want to apply for 10th-grade private boarding schools in the U.S. While applying as 9th grade last year, I got waitlisted by the The Webb Schools, and rejected by Milton Academy. Hence, as my family is not re-considering to re-apply for 9th grade, I was wondering if anyone would be interested to look at my stats and see if my chances for 10th-grade boarding schools are high.
Schools I’m applying to this year:
The Webb Schools (Claremont, California)
St. Marks School (Boston, Massachusetts)
Middlesex School (Concord, Massachusetts)
Achievements:
2018 China National Youth Creative Programming and Intelligent Design Competition Runner-up (2nd place)
1st place at 2020 Guangzhou city 3-people soccer tournament
1st place at 2019 Pearl River Conference (PRC) soccer tournament
2021 soccer season most valuable player (MVP) (coach’s choice)
2nd place at 2021 Southern Delta Region Conference (SDRC) soccer tournament
2nd place at 2021 Guangzhou Cup U14 soccer
2nd place at 2021 Southern Delta Region Conference (SDRC) touch rugby tournament
2nd place at 2022 Pearl River Conference (PRC) volleyball tournament
2021 touch rugby season most valuable player (coach’s choice)
Octo-Finalist at 2022 Summer Invitational Public Forum Middle School Debate
map growth math 99 percentile
map growth language usage 92 percentile
ABRSM Piano Grade 6 merit
ABRSM Piano Theory Grade 5 merit
3rd place at 2019 Battle of the books
Activities I’m involved in:
Interviewer for a student based organization “The Global Hub”
2022 Asia Pacific Activities Conference Strings (Violin 2)
Consider looking at The Saint James School in Hagerstown, MD. Small, private boarding school with many international students, and many from China as well.
www.stjames.edu
Lexington Christian Academy in Lexington, MA, may be easier to get into than the schools you mentioned. My son just interviewed with St. Mark’s and they have very few spots for the 10th grade class. 10th grade admission is typically harder than 9th. I also highly recommend The Portsmouth Abbey School in Middleton, RI. We visited there last week and it was a beautiful campus and excellent academics, and is not as competitive as the schools you applied to last year. Good luck!
Cast a wider net. Your list should include higher admit schools than you the ones you applied to last year.
Think about who you are. What are absolutely must have extra curriculars? What is your learning style? Would you prefer a large or small school? Urban or rural setting? Uniforms or casual attire? Are there specific parts of the US you would prefer? What do you hope to find/experience in boarding school?
I realize that you are focused on rigor, but an ambitious kid will challenge themselves wherever they are, and some of the lesser known schools still have challenging curriculums.
A lot of this is about fit - you list doesn’t have to super long, but it does have to be super targeted.
True… But it’s also Christian, the degree to which may or may not be an issue for some people. It’s sometimes difficult to discern from websites how a school’s religiosity might translate into reality, and how welcoming it might be to a particular individual.
And of course, if LCA is acceptable, then so may a lot of other BS schools with a similar Christian mission.
It’s good to read through those mission statements and determine whether they inspire you or make you uncomfortable.
I have done an SSAT test in the past and scored 96 percentile on math. Yet, my reading and vocabulary scores were not as high (80 percentile-ish). Therefore, I was wondering if I should submit my SSAT scores for these schools this year.
I was also wondering if I should focus more on The Webb Schools in Claremont, as I got waitlisted last year. Personally, I think there is a higher chance of being accepted to the school this year other than the ones in the east.
Adding on, I am also on the varsity team for my high school in soccer and the division one team’s most valuable player during middle school.
I am also the 25 students chosen from our grade consisting of 80 to participate in the Math Extended class of grade 9 this year.
Hence, I was wondering if I should focus more on athletics and math while applying to these schools this year. Would this make a difference?
You may want to consider applying for 9th repeat. Many kids repeat a year when they board.
NWEA is a quality test. And while it places you within the general population of students in the US it doesn’t not mean anything in terms of your competitiveness in the boarding school crowd. Boarding school admits are the most competitive students in America. I would be very surprised if you were admitted as an international student without SSAT scores.
Id also suggest applying to a wide range of schools.
Isn’t SSAT now optional for some schools?
In addition, I read on one of the schools but forgot which one, it doesn’t require TOEFL, IELTS, etc if the student has been enrolled in English speaking - I assume International School for the last two years.
Optional doesn’t mean that you might not be better off doing it. Boarding school spots are very competitive even for perfect students who are full pay. All admissions are competitive. The US sees many fine applications from international candidates who are well prepared academically. There are many, many international, applicants and more than the schools can absorb. So you face competition on all sides. Becoming more competitive with additional data is a good idea. If your grades aren’t perfect and you don’t have neutral test scores that validate your academic preparation you stand at a disadvantage.
You said you scored about 80% of the SSAT reading. I would say that is definitely worth submitting.
(There is also a problem with faked international test scores, students arriving without the necessary Engish-language skills, and sometimes motivation. So again it is helpful to present yourself as a student ready and excited to learn.)