At A/E and other of the most competitive schools I don’t think that angular and well-rounded are mutually exclusive. Or to put it another way, I think many of the pointy students would look well-rounded if it weren’t for their pointiness in some area.
Agreed. When a BS (or for that matter, a college) states/implies that it wants a well-rounded class, it does not mean that it wants a class of well-rounded kids. Some may be well-rounded, others more pointy. This, IMO, applies to larger schools like E/A as well as smaller schools.
While schools will have a need, I’m not sure how cut-and-dry slotting applicants is, particularly in the younger years. Just like I question, along with @doschicos , how much “research” a 13 yo does, I also question how much of an impact player any 13 yo can be (yes, there are exceptions.) For many applicants, I really do think that the school expects the kid to find his/her niche at the school, and not have a PowerPoint presentation prepared showing his/her 20-year plan.
@skieurope when i said JV and Varsity I meant that they need lots of non recruit applicants who “play” those sports (not necessarily well). So say you have 15 applicants to PA or PEA that are all equivalent academically for 9th grade and 2 play soccer, 8 play no team sports, 4 do ECs that are non team like equestrian, chess, art, sailing etc and the last does threatre and ceramics. I say the soccer player and the threatre kid get in. Maybe the chess kid depending on the school. These schools, in general, dont want kids that are solely academic-they want to build a community.
I also wanted to add that you have some of the “hooks” mentioned above, admission is still very difficult. My DS is an URM, a very good athlete in a major sport and has a sibling at one of the top schools and still wasn’t admitted. Also, many kids fit into more than one category. Many (of course not all) of the URM at my son’s school are also top athletes.
Financial need is a big issue at all boarding schools, and certainly factors into deciding whether admissions is a “crapshoot.” I haven’t seen anyplace where any individual school breaks down its applicant pool into those requesting FA versus those who will be FP. But if you make a few reasonable assumptions, the numbers - and hence the perception that admissions is a “crapshoot” - change substantially.
For instance, just to put a few numbers. Imagine a school with 20% acceptance rate, and roughly 30% of the student body on financial aid. (This would approximately fit a place like Hotchkiss, say, or maybe Deerfield.) If 50% of the applicant group is seeking financial aid (and yield is assumed to be the same for FP and FA admittees - a big assumption of course that will make the odds of the FA applicant seem better), 28% of the FP group will be admitted, versus 12% of the FA group. Simple odds ratio shows that the FP applicant faces a 2.33x “easier” chance of acceptance.
Changing the composition of the applicant group to 60% seeking FA, then the numbers change to 35% acceptance rate for the FP group versus 10% for the FA group, 3.5x “easier” odds.
Obviously, this is just a stylized analysis that ignores all the other factors we often talk about (legacy, development, URM, athletics, geographic diversity, etc.). But it is useful to remember how this works. Except for a very few schools, the first priority is going to be using the entering class to pay the bills and keep the lights on.
As for reasonableness of the assumption regarding what percentage of the applicant pool seeks FA? I’d be shocked if the number were below 60%. The schools advertise their financial aid, and it is effectively free money for those FA applicants accepted. Honestly, I bet the number is somewhere nearer to 70%, but as I said I’ve never seen a school provide a breakdown of applicants by ability to pay.
As usual @SatchelSF is right on the money–pointing out the minutiae that matters! LOL: https://www.exeter.edu/admissions-and-financial-aid/tuition-financial-aid
I don’t think elite BS admissions is a crapshoot. Similar to colleges, BSs are putting together a community. It goes without saying that at a baseline you need top grades and scores. Then, you have a better chance if you have something the school needs. Yes, they take legacies. yes, they take athletes, but only those they need. If you’re a swimmer and they already have tons of those, you’re not needed as much as say the hockey players they need because the team basically graduated in the spring. It’s hard to find something they need, but first gen, URM, legacy, geodiversity (Midwest or West Coast) are considered hooks. Good Luck. But you’re right there are so many “qualified” top students from the Northeast that that alone won’t produce a compelling argument for why me?
Anytime you have the number of variables we have all agreed come into play in constantly shifting --and relatively unpredictable – percentages on both sides of the equation (the schools needs and the applicant pool, then you are defining a crapshoot or roll of the dice. @preppedparent states that “It goes without saying that at a baseline you need top grades and scores” but that is not true either: The different pools of applicants have different standards (baseline expectations or requirements). So the baselines aren’t predictable either.
For the most part, you still need great grades and scores even if you are URM or recruited athlete or legacy. Those things just put you over the top. Let’s agree to disagree.
" you still need great grades and scores even if you are URM or recruited athlete or legacy"
Nonsense. The “average” SSAT even at some “top” places is in the mid-80s (e.g., Thacher, Choate, Hotchkiss, etc.). I would assume - based on how elite college report their scores, that this number, whether median or average, represents a superscore. At the very least, you can be sure that the schools are slicing and dicing the data in order to appear most favorable. (For instance, when composite score for a particular student is higher than reporting component test scores in the subsections, composite score would be used; otherwise, component test scores are reported and thrown into the “average” calculation.)
To get an average like that, there must be plenty of students in the low- to mid-70s, and a few no doubt even lower. Respectable scores, for sure, but definitely not great imo.
There will be legacy and recruited athletes and URM students with scores below 50 at all schools, although likely not too many. Mathematically, it would be impossible to assume otherwise.
I personally know 3 students just last year accepted at schools with less than 20% acceptance rates who had SSAT below 80%, and they were not URM or recruited athletes.
Kind of sad/shocked to read this. I’ve always told my kids “you don’t want to peak in middle/ high school”. I work with kids k-12 and can definitely tell you that some of those “stand out kids” in 6/7th do not become the stars people think they will be high school. And many of the top high school kids go on to be rather average, as well.
I’m hearing many stories when visiting schools about the kid that never tried a particular sport or artistic endeavor and becomes a stand out by senior year. One of the questions I like to ask current students is “what is one thing you tried since you’ve been here that put you outside of your comfort zone” or “what have you had the opportunity to try that you might not have tried had you not enrolled here”?
I guess I may have rose-colored glasses, but I’m truly hoping kindness, willingness to try new things and a great attituded (perhaps summarized as “potential”) go a long way. After all, one of the reasons my kid wants to apply is to try new things.
I’ve known kids who were math geniuses and English language learners when they started at BS, and I can’t imagine that they had high SSAT English scores, so that has to be at least one way to be a legitimate, good student with a less than stellar overall score.
“I guess I may have rose-colored glasses, but I’m truly hoping kindness, willingness to try new things and a great attituded (perhaps summarized as “potential”) go a long way. After all, one of the reasons my kid wants to apply is to try new things.”
I think it does. Don’t let a few curmudgeonly posters lead you astray.
I am buying a Powerball ticket — I think the odds are better [-O<
Ha ha not really @Golfgr8, The odds are winning a powerball are one in 200 million, the odds of getting admission in a private school are 20 in 100…!! Remember in one case you are getting money and in the other case you are paying money…
Some of the posters said it well…let’s not get disappointed in advance. There is no guarantee but definitely a good chance that it will all work out well… 
For the unhooked with strong grades, ECs, and SSATs applying to competitive schools: My guess is FP kids probably have a 30-50 percent chance. Kids who need a lot of FA probably have a 2-5 percent chance. That’s why it is worth applying to more than 1-2 schools… or so I keep telling my kid. @SatchelSF will probably chime in with real Math.
@Sush2016 :)) you’re correct!
I don’t think FP have that great an advantage because the top notch schools have big endowments and donations from alumni and other rich donors. Kids with no money often get in through feeder programs funded by these rich donors. Likely those in the middle are the ones who are most squeezed.
I think in terms of numbers admitted in FP vs FA buckets, they do have a significant advantage. How many FA really come in through those feeder programs, maybe a few per school? I agree the middle is squeezed most…but I also think FP is a huge advantage in admissions.
Every once in a while, even a blind squirrel finds a nut.
An admissions officer at St. Andrew’s School in Delaware, one of the elite schools (“top 20” right?) and also one that makes a big deal about being “need blind,” recently (2016) wrote a dissertation that, among other things, describes the way admissions works. Hint: they are not need blind, and they really do not care enough about essays, recommendations and extracurriculars to track them in any quantified way:
“In addition to SSAT scores, all other admissions factors contributed to the admissions committee were
collected. The other admissions factors included were Middle School GPA, Interview
Scores, Ethnicity, Financial Aid, Geographical Location, Type of Middle School, and
Relation to the School.”
Rather than provide an exhaustive discussion, I would just urge anyone interested in “elite” BS admission to read the entire dissertation. (Unfortunately, the author makes numerous methodological errors in the mathematics and regression analyses - e.g., failing to disaggregate factors, failing to correct for restrictions of range in certain independent variables, etc. - but these errors do not detract in a meaningful way from the qualitative descriptions of the admissions and academic tracking processes.)
Nevertheless, a number of things jump out as relevant for this thread: (1) despite the acknowledged primacy of SSAT scores, fully 25% of the classes of 2014-15 had SSATs of 69% or lower, going as low as 24% (Table 5c, p. 75); (2) 77% of the entering students were taken from private middle schools (Table 5, p. 72); and (3) FULLY 57% (!!!) were either legacy, sibling or relation to “board member” of the school (Table 5, p. 72).
Folks, anyone really thinking that BS admission is a crap shoot is crazy. Just as at the elite colleges and law schools and other professional schools (for which there has been voluminous research over the years), the prime factors for admission for unconnected students will be standardized test score + GPA. Large exceptions will be made to admit “friends” of the school (broadly defined), athletes, certain preferred students based on race, etc. And, at least at most boarding schools, ability to pay will dramatically change the odds and outcomes, even at those advertising themselves as need blind. It is what it is.
Here is the dissertation: https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/1808414273.html?FMT=AI