<p>My friend, let's call her Julia, applied to I think Taft, Deefield, Choate, Andover, Exeter, and a local boarding school, Lake Forest Academy (Chicago suburbs). She has great grades, straight A's I think, is in an honors math class, plays club soccer, does a lot of dancing, and I'm sure had great teacher recs. I don't know her exact SSAT score, but she took it twice, the first time getting around an 85 she said, and the second time we took it together, and she had studied a lot more than I had, and yet we both found it about the same difficulty level. I got in the mid eighties overall, so I'm sure she got higher than that. I decided to wait and apply next year for 10th grade, but I was one of her biggest supporters for going this year. Yet, she got waitlisted everywhere and rejected at Andover/Exeter. She was accepted at Lake Forest, but she doesn't really want to go there. Can someone offer any reason as to why she wasn't accepted? Maybe bad interviews or something like that? She didn't even need FA, so I was really confused/sad for her when she got her results.</p>
<p>Honestly, there probably isn’t a real reason. There are applicants far more perfect than that, who get rejected everywhere, without even a wait list. I’m sure 85% (or even more) of applicants for these schools are just as qualified as your friend, it’s just too competitive for them to all get in.</p>
<p>@ryork: The most famous schools are often among the most selective, with 20% and lower admit rates. They also attract some of the highest achieving students in the country, and even the world. While your friend might be a top kid locally, she may be just an average applicant at many of the New England schools to which she applied. I mean, there are kids in the applicant pools for these schools who are taking Junior or Senior level classes at their local schools. Kids who in 7th grade scored higher on the SAT than college-bound seniors at even the most rigorous boarding schools. No one, even a full pay legacy or a sibling should take getting into any of the NE schools you mentioned as a given.</p>
<p>There is no “magic formula” to getting into the schools you listed. I’ve noted before that my D, with similar grades as your friend, unique sports, and 99th SSATs was rejected by Choate BUT accepted by SPS. When I called Choate to find out why she didn’t even warrant a waitlist, our AO said something to the effect of “Sometimes these things come down to what the school needs in a given year.” Whether that means an underwater tuba player or another full pay family is part of the “black box” of admissions.</p>
<p>I hope this helps explain why your friend wasn’t accepted, though I’m sure it doesn’t help ease the sting. One final point I want to make (which was recently made in another thread) to you and all other future applicants is this: Don’t apply to any school you wouldn’t be happy attending.</p>
<p>Well said, SevenDad!</p>
<p>ryork15 - Look at [Boarding</a> School Review](<a href=“http://www.boardingschoolreview.com%5DBoarding”>www.boardingschoolreview.com) . . . and I mean really look at it! Not just the well known schools, but lots of the other schools, as well. There are a lot of really good schools, several of which your friend might have had a really good shot at getting into if she’d been willing to broaden her view a bit.</p>
<p>The problem with Exeter, Andover, et al., is that being qualified for admission doesn’t mean you’ll be admitted. For every qualified applicant who gets into one of those schools, another two (or more) qualified applicants are turned away. So, yes, it’s definitely worth trying . . . but if you limit yourself to the really well known schools, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t turn out the way you expected.</p>
<p>So, I’d suggest that “Julia” figure out what she’s really looking for in a boarding school, and then took a look at Boarding School Review and see if she can’t find a few more schools that might fit the bill. Some schools have rolling admissions and many more don’t advertise the fact, but also take late applications. If she doesn’t need financial aid, she’s still got a good chance of getting into a school that might be the perfect fit for her . . . if she’s willing to look at something other than prestige.</p>
<p>Right now, she should wait a week or two to see how the waitlists turn out. Then, if nothing pans out, ask one of her parents to call the AOs at Taft and one or two of the other schools and ask for insights as to how she might strengthen her application for the future. The pointers she gets might be enough to help her file a successful late application at another school!</p>
<p>How much do the schools “coordinate” their admit list? </p>
<p>We were surprised that S was admitted to very, very low-admit rate school but WL by less selective schools. Do the AO’s compare applicant lists then divvy up the slots? If the AO’s didn’t do this, then wouldn’t all the schools end up with almost identical lists of the same coveted uber-achiever kids?</p>
<p>They don’t compare. I think they guess and predict to which schools a candidate will be admitted and to which they will enroll but they don’t horse trade, so to speak. Sometimes, I wish they would because their predictions are sometimes way off. If your son was at a middle school with a placement office, they may have fielded calls from schools asking if they were the favorite etc. In your son’ case, the less selective schools may have assumed he would get into the more selective school because he was very qualified and they all have a good idea of the kinds of students their peer schools are looking for. In your case, they were right and you have a happy ending! It’s kind of a drag that he didn’t get to make the choice though. But with so many applicants applying to multiple schools, can you really blame them for turning to their crystal balls, however clouded it may be?</p>
<p>@GMT: See GemmaV’s posts on this topic. She’s an AO. I’ve had suspicions about this myself, but think it’s managed through school’s inquiries about where else kids are applying. That question is a minefield, IMHO.</p>
<p>Neato, do you know for a genuine fact that the AO’s don’t compare lists? </p>
<p>It seems that it would be easy for the schools to find out to which other schools the applicant is applying to, as the schools participate in the online “Gateway to Prep Schools” application website.</p>
<p>@kraordrawoh, how do I find GemmaV’s posts?</p>
<p>@GMT: From the “Prep School Admissions” page use the search tool and search the forum using either her user name. There have been threads devoted to this topic, so you might also do a search of the forum for relevant threads. I seem to remember the comparison of lists being referred to as horse trading, lol. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>@kraordrawoh, thanks for the instructions. I found the relevant GemmaV thread. </p>
<p>I hadn’t considered the applicability of anti-trust laws to school admissions. All the same, it seems easy, in light of the electronic common-application form, for the schools to know who applied where. Even if the schools do not actively collude, I just wonder how much their knowledge affects their admit/WL/reject decisions.</p>
<p>Apparently GMTplus7 has already found the info he/she is looking for, but for those of you who are still looking, just do a search for the word antitrust. This type of information sharing would violate federal antitrust laws. (See [this</a> thread](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/867135-ten-schools-sharing-info.html]this”>Ten Schools sharing info? - Prep School Admissions - College Confidential Forums), as well as [this</a> one](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/666209-communication-between-schools.html]this”>communication between schools - Prep School Admissions - College Confidential Forums).)</p>
<p>But for those of you who prefer to believe that admissions decisions this year were the result of a giant conspiracy, to each his own! ;)</p>
<p>While I don’t believe there’s some sort of conspiracy, I do know these schools help manage their yield numbers through contact with school counselors. If an applicant has expressed some level of indecision to that guidance counselor, either about a first choice or even their commitment to boarding school in general, and that is shared with the AO, then it cetainly can sway the decision. It creates a moral dilemma for students and parents whether they should be candid about their preferences during the application process.</p>
<p>At the revisit days the AO officers at both E and A said that 60% of the kids who get into andover also get into exeter, and vice versa. I don’t think they compare lists or else this number would be a lot lower. Also just from talking to other families you could see that many students got accepted to multiple HADES schools. I honestly think it just comes down to how interested you seem in that school during interviews, emailings, etc</p>
<p>@dodgersmom, OK I’m convinced about the antitrust issue, but just trying to make sense of unexpected combination of decisions outcome for S.</p>
<p>GMTplus7 - I hate to do this to you, but time to do another search, this time for Tufts Effect.</p>
<p>The accepted theory is that schools where Student A should be an easy admit are put off by the fact that he’s also applying to a much higher ranked school, where he also has a very good chance of being accepted. Schools want to protect their yield (% of students who actually accept the admit offers that are extended to them). So, if School X think it’s just the “safety” for Student A, it may waitlist rather than admit him . . . and then just wait and see what happens. If they learn that Student A really wants to attend School X, the waitlist can then turn into an admit.</p>
<p>Thx dodgersmom, will let you know in the upcoming weeks if your WL-to-admit prediction comes to be…</p>
<p>GMTplus7 - I don’t understand. 
I thought you said your son was admitted to one of the more selective schools he applied to. Didn’t you already send notes to the WL schools asking them to remove your son from the waitlists?</p>
<p>S was indeed admitted to selective school, but prefers another selective school to which he was WL. He has already declined WL offer from other less selective school.</p>