<p>I haven't been able to find this information anywhere, so I'm hoping some parents with experience can offer advice. I guess I'm looking for the 'inside track'. I am trying to choose which schools in the Northeast to have my daughter apply to for ninth grade. Her IQ puts her in the highly gifted range, she is very self-motivated, has a passion for all learning but especially math. She has taken the SSAT and scored in the 99th percentile, and she received a 2240 on her SAT. She is not a fan of sports and has not been doing many extracurriculars. She will enjoy having club choices. We will require complete financial aid. I have used the following points to choose the ones she is applying to: large financial endowment, high average SAT score, high number of faculty with advanced degrees, and low number of day students. We have so far chosen St.Paul's, Exeter and Andover. There are SO many in this area and many that fit the criteria. Any suggestions, especially from parents with similar children who are very happily attending a boarding school?? Many thanks</p>
<p>Yes - let your daughter decide! Put together a list of the schools that satisfy your criteria . . . and then let your daughter look into them further. She can look at the websites, request viewbooks, send emails to anyone at the schools that she might have a question for, and, lastly, she can probably find students on this forum who attend the schools she’s interested in and ask them any further questions she has.</p>
<p>You might also suggest that she wander around boardingschoolreview.com and see if she can find any school that you missed.</p>
<p>In the end, in order to narrow down her choices, she’s going to have to visit the schools. What’s a good fit for one student won’t necessarily be a good fit for another. So we can all give you our own lists of personal favorites, but in order to narrow things down, you’re going to have to visit the schools yourselves.</p>
<p>@wellreadgem: Unfortunately, I think you are going to have to put in the legwork to find more schools that fit your criteria, whether by searching on here or something like
[The</a> Association of Boarding Schools (TABS)](<a href=“http://www.boardingschools.com/home.aspx]The”>http://www.boardingschools.com/home.aspx). For example, we ordered viewbooks/info from 14 schools and could have easily kept going. </p>
<p>There is no “inside line”, IMO, unless you feel like hiring an educational consultant. Because as dodgersmom notes above, it’s really about “fit”. And what might be right for one child with similar stats may not be right for another. And what might look like a good fit on paper (or a website), may be less so in person. </p>
<p>Also keep in mind that plenty of kids apply to schools like SPS, Exeter, and Andover (you’ve picked some of the most selective schools around!) with high 90s percentile scores, strong athletics, interesting and long-term ECs, and full pay. And more than a few don’t get in.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’ve found the prospective parents and parents of current BS students on the forum to be particularly friendly…again, as dodgersmom notes, we may all have our favorites, but none of them may be right for your D. Welcome and best of luck to you and your daughter with the search/application process.</p>
<p>Here’s a thread worth checking out…you can use it to PM (private message) the people associated with a given school:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/667365-resource-list-current-bs-parents-students-9.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/667365-resource-list-current-bs-parents-students-9.html</a></p>
<p>Sorry to seem like a newbie…how do I PM these people?</p>
<p>Find a post they’ve written, click on their name, and a drop down menu should appear, with “Send a private message to…” in the list.</p>
<p>Add Choate, Deerfield and Hotchkiss to your list. You may also consider the smaller Groton. These schools all fit your requirements, i.e. “large financial endowment, high average SAT score, high number of faculty with advanced degrees, and low number of day students.” (except maybe you should look for “high number of boarding students” instead of “low number of day students”)</p>
<p>I think your daughter should become involved in some EC’s. Many candidates have extremely strong test scores and grades. Schools are looking to build interesting and diverse classes and look for more than grades. It will be even more important for her to stand out in some way other than academics if she needs a large f/a package.</p>
<p>I can’t really speak to specific schools or anything, but I went to a charter school for the highly gifted for elementary and middle school and I thought I’d throw my two cents in. I would advise to make sure your daughter is comfortable there, that’s the most important thing to me. School prestige is useless if you hate the school and don’t try.</p>
<p>I would also like to suggest a school with a bit of a higher enrollment because it can be a bit of a culture shock moving from a smaller school to (in my case) a public high school or college.</p>
<p>Knowing that some will think me anal…like they havent already, I created a spread sheet. It was overwhelming, I am not the most organized person, but could not afford a educational consultant.</p>
<p>I didnt want my d to be overwhelmed so I sent the emails out and requested info, maybe 40 schools. I asked her questions regarding what she wanted, from languages to activities, to size. I added on my sheet columns for location (from airports) and FA. I narrowed it down to about 15 and then let my d look at the books. (At this point all schools were realistic in terms of what she wanted). As she made decisions the list got shorter, after visits, list got shorter, some schools added, some dropped.</p>
<p>I felt she should apply to 10, at the end, she filled out for 7 schools. She was selected at 5, wait-listed 1, not selected at 1. </p>
<p>I admit it was the most difficult time since pregnancy. But having a d much like yours, the joy of having her home for thanksgiving and her LOVING her bs, made me say I would do it all again for the happiness and education she has now.</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you want more of my sorted story.</p>
<p>Good Luck</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I disagree with keylyme’s advice that the OP’s daughter should become involved in ECs. I can’t imagine the OPs daughter can be as bright as she is without having some interests - they may just not be what are traditionally considered ECs.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, OP’s daughter does absolutely nothing other than sit in her room and do homework, then, yes, I would agree that she should find an outside interest. But it doesn’t have to be a sport, it doesn’t have to be a musical instrument . . . it should be whatever floats her boat!</p>
<p>OP, you mentioned your daughter is especially interested in math. Does she have any major awards in math competitions? And you said she doesn’t have <em>many</em> extracurricular actitivities. Does she have any at all? It’s still not too late to pick up some things. I think she’s a strong candidate for top schools.</p>
<p>Here’s what I did and it worked out very well for my son (and hopefully for my daughter as well!) </p>
<p>Don’t mention her IQ or SAT and SSAT scores when you interview. You can include a copy of her SAT scores with the app and list any organizations, like Davidson or CTY, that she belongs to under awards, etc.</p>
<p>Do not limit yourself to school with the points you mentioned. Just because a school has an endowment of less than 50 mill does not mean that they won’t offer a huge amount of FA (I know - trust me.) Average SAT is directly related to incoming SSAT. There was an Exonian who once posted that he got a 99 on the SSAT and is regularly made a fool of by kids with scores in the 80s. My son would likely say the same.</p>
<p>Add some schools with greater than 30% admissions where your daughter will be in the top of the applicant pool. In the more need aware schools with lower FA budgets, they will be more likely to accept (and be glad to have) your student.</p>
<p>Do NOT write off schools that don’t come up in the top ten of whatever category you search for on boardingschoolreview.com. There are so many amazing places out there. </p>
<p>Always keep in mind that academics only count for so much. Your daughter’s intellect will not be anything remarkable at Exeter, Andover, et al. (Again, trust me.) My son had wonderful interviews and wrote beautiful essays at plenty of top schools where he was waitlisted. </p>
<p>Sometimes, even when a school would really love to admit your student, they just can’t. They have a balance to keep and only so much FA available. They use that money to get the students that they need to round out their class. Smarts is not something that any of the schools that come up in your search criteria is lacking in applicants.</p>
<p>Every math geek in the country applies to Exeter. Just so you know.</p>
<p>ALL boarding schools will find a way to challenge your daughter. If she is very self-motivated, she doesn’t need to be pushed into a crazy workload. And no matter what school she goes to, she will not be the only one there with her intellectual capacities. She will find peers. Some really brilliant kids don’t want to go too far from home. I know a kid who is applying this year who is a great candidate for top schools but isn’t even applying to any because she doesn’t want to be more than an hour from home. You’d be hard pressed to find a school without kids like this so please please widen your search if you really want your daughter to have this opportunity. Another advantage for a brilliant kid going to a not-insanely-competitive school is that she will have more time to develop leadership qualities and a passion if she’s not buried under the level of work expected at say, Exeter, which even the smartest kids find themselves unaccustom to. It’s a “whole new normal.”</p>
<p>Visit as many schools as you can, but none that you would not be OK with her attending. You don’t want to have her fall in love with a school that you don’t like so do that initial sorting first.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the lack of sports. My son had 4 offers with full to nearly full tuition covered last year and his only sport was golf, which he’s terrible at. He had other interests, of course, but it doesn’t have to be sports. They need kids on the debate teams, math teams, theatre, orchestra, chorus, etc. But, he’s enjoying sports for the first time at BS.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>I** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** agree.</p>
<p>Dyer’s shortest post ever. ;)</p>
<p>Great post Neato :-)</p>
<p>Kudos Neato!</p>
<p>dodgersmom…I think we agree. I wasn’t referring just to sports and musical interests; I was pointing out that hopefully her daughter is more than just a high SAT and IQ score because as Neato pointed out, there is no lack of such applicants and the schools are looking for interesting applicants.</p>
<p>While I understand that everyone is trying to help, the comments implying that the kid should do more to be competitive to get in the top schools may add stress to OP and their kid unnecessarily. Kids have different strengths. Some are well-rounded, some are great atheletes with solid academics, and others are intensely academic… We are fine with a kid who’s a great athelete with a 3.5 GPA, knowing that they’d be competitive, why can’t we accept that an 8th grader with 2240 SAT (let’s face it - as strong a group as the top school candidates are, how many 8th graders have such scores?) with weaker extracurricular activities are equally competitive? </p>
<p>That being said, there is no garantee that OP’s daughter will be accepted into one of the top schools. When the admit rates of these schools are lower than 15%, they become anyone’s reach. Full FA need would make it even more challenging. The final result will depend on many factors including yes luck, but in general I think OP’s daughter is in as good a position as the most competitive candidates.</p>
<p>@DA: I think people were just trying to make your point that “there is no garantee that OP’s daughter will be accepted into one of the top schools” — in different ways.</p>
<p>It was interesting that the OP disclosed her daughter’s relative weaknesses in addition to her academic strengths (which, as you note, are on the high side even in this self-selected group)…you don’t see that much on CC…and I think that was also a factor in the tenor of the replies so far.</p>