<p>Hey all! It has been a really big dream of mine to go to a prep school on the east coast, like Exeter, Andover, Deerfield, etc. I am currently a high school sophomore and am applying for junior yr.
Grades:
I think my grades are too low to get me into prep school.
9th Grade Fall
Computer Apps. -- A
Orchestra -- A
Geometry Honors -- A-
Spanish 2 -- A
English 1 -- B+
PE Q1 -- A
PE Q2 -- A
Biology -- B+
9th Grade Spring
Orchestra -- A
Geometry Honors -- B
Spanish 2 -- A
English 1 -- A-
PE Q3 -- A-
PE Q4 -- A
Biology --B+
Health -- A
10th Grade Fall
Marching Band -- A
Orchestra -- A
World History -- A-
Chemistry -- A
English II -- A
Algebra II Honors -- A-
Spanish III -- A
Psychology AP -- A-
Overall weighted GPA: 4.000
not that good...but compared to the people at my school, my grades are great since i go to a us news gold school and one of the most competitive ones in cali.
Extracurriculars
I do a lot of great extracurriculars, but most of them aren't competitive.
1) I've been playing the viola since the end of 3rd grade and do competitive orchestras in my community and have played at Carnegie Hall. and i have various awards
2) Marching Band
3) homecoming court (high honor at my school)
4) math club (various awards)
5) ive been a member of california scholarship federation
6) i do a lot of traveling abroad over my summer vacations and most of the trips I go on, i do community service in another country and will go to africa this summer
and i have a few questions just about prep school in general...
what does it mean to have postgraduate years?
if both of my parents are unemployed, will i receive financial aid?</p>
<p>i havent taken the ssat yet, but i will because i am applying for some schools in california..and even though my grades arent that great, im enthusiastic and I really love to learn and discover more about myself in life :)</p>
<p>I think you have a OK chance. Yes, your grades aren’t straight A’s but they look at grades less than you think because, like you said, it’s hard to get straight A’s in some schools and easy in others. And your EC’s are great. There are other things that matter too, though. Like recommendations and if you need Financial Aid and interviews.</p>
<p>EDIT: I see you said you need a lot of financial aid, or I would think if both of your parents are unemployed. That definitely doesn’t help.</p>
<p>yes, they do take financial aid into condsideration because they onlyhave a certain amount of money they can give out. Also, your grades are good, sll A’s are fantastic but, the grades are not the big thing for prep schools. Where as the EC’s are major, since you are applying for financial aid you willbe competing with mny other kids who may have the same grades as you, which is why they tak more look at the EC’s so i would suggest joining more EC’s. </p>
<p>i think new uppers are usually pretty well-rounded people. none of my friends who were new uppers were really big geniuses or anything…BUT they did have fantastic grades are their old school.</p>
<p>i think more important than having good grades is the importance of an upward trend. and your tenth grade fall grades are definitely better than your previous grades. :)</p>
<p>are you an american citizen? andover/exeter (idk about other schools) has need-blind so if you fill out… whatever appropriate financial aid forms you can get financial aid accordingly to your needs. </p>
<p>PG is basically staying for another year after your senior year. if you’re planning on becoming a PG… you’d come after your senior year and graduate with the senior class. PG’s are usually recruited for sports or are international scholars (eg. Thai scholars)</p>
<p>I think you have a better chance at the bigger schools like Andover/Exeter, just because I think they accept more new uppers. </p>
<p>Make sure you do an interview and write great essays!</p>
<p>“For the past two years, the school has been able to meet the full, demonstrated financial aid needs of all admitted students, making the Academy effectively “need blind.” Last year, as part of its ongoing effort to make the school more affordable to able students, Exeter announced that it would eliminate student loans as part of its financial aid program, replacing them with outright grants.”</p>
<p>Exeter has a great FA program, but it is not “need blind.” “Need blind” doesn’t just mean meeting a families demonstrated financial need, but not taking into account FA when making admissions decisions. Though I really wish Exeter was need blind, then I could worry a lot less! Are you a FA applicant?</p>
<p>@ifax,
I wasn’t trying to state a position, just to add some information. The quotation is from the linked article.</p>
<p>I can’t say for sure how Exeter’s FA system works but I can tell you how funding worked at an institution where I once did admissions work.</p>
<p>The institution had a fixed FA budget. We would first look at the demonstrated need of returning students, subtract that from the FA total budget, and arrive at the amount available for new students. We would essentially work down the list of students we wanted to admit until we had exhausted the FA budget. Beyond that we could take only students It was neither quite that linear or simple (some students qualified for outside grants, a student requiring full need might be swapped for 3 needing partial FA) but that’s basically how the process worked.</p>
<p>A truly need blind school would have a flexible FA budget. It would be able to offer admission to any student it chose because it would never exhaust the FA budget.</p>
<p>I think what Exeter is saying (or not saying) is that they have a FA budget cap but it is so larger that in the last few years they have not reached it before admitting all the students they wanted. While they are not guaranteeing that they can cover the financial need of every student they have a track record of being able to do so.</p>
<p>Of course, it could also mean they only take kids who don’t need FA and thus, voila!, they can cover every student’s need. I’ll assume this isn’t the case, as it seems a little too Machiavellian for such an august institution. :-)</p>
<p>Not totally true. The only prep schools that take financial aid into consideration when making their decisions are Deerfield and the Philips Academies (Andover and Exeter). Aside from the exception of those 3, prep schools, for the most part handle decisions as follows:
Applications are split into two groups, those who need financial aid and those who don’t. X amount are picked from those who do not and those are the kids who get in no problems. X amount are then picked from the pile of those who do need financial aid (usually less are picked so it can be a little more competitive, but their awareness of how much aid you need is blind). Out of those, financial aid is divvied up in order to try to accommodate all students. When an aid plan has been worked out and agreed upon, students are notified of how much aid they will get. If they get enough, awesome, if not and they decide they can’t attend, that aid is then set aside for either waitlisted financial need applicants or given to those who direly need more.</p>
Are you a FA applicant?</p>