Chance of admission if you postpone one year

Prep School Admissions
24

While kids DO have to learn to be independent and make sure they show up at the dining hall when it’s open, do laundry, etc. - there tend to be a lot of adults (and older students) around to help in that process. The schools admit kids they see have the temperament to do this but that doesn’t mean they all show up having it all down!

There are a lot of things that are good about BS and one of them is that it is a much gentler and better supported on ramp to independence than going from home to college (which most students negotiate just fine too!)

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25

If you/he ever figure this one out, please come back to share. Not even the U.S. Army has made any headway with our son in this regard.

You’ve gotten a lot of good advice here. Take comfort from the fact that imposter syndrome is real, and almost every new student/family is going through some level of what you’re experiencing even if they won’t admit it here. As a parent of a terribly disorganized (or so I thought) kid, I wondered how our son would juggle his new schedule and responsibilities on his own. Thankfully, as @gardenstategal posted, the schools don’t expect these teens to be fully formed. They’ve been in this business a long time, are skilled at selecting kids they know can thrive and, especially that first year, are on the outlook for kids who need a bit more help with adjustment.

I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but your son will have an advisor who will, most likely, live in his dorm/on his floor who will get to know him well and be liaison between you/him/the school. At some schools, the advisor stays with the student for the duration but, even if advisors change, they are there to be eyes on your student. During early days especially, this person will check in with you, give you updates, and be your first point of contact for any issues or concerns you have. We were so grateful for the communication we had with our son’s advisor(s) over his BS years. They knew him well and kept the ship upright. Use this person; they want to hear from you and can be a tremendous help.*

So, mom, welcome to BS. Your concerns are legitimate, but every year a lot of bright, disorganized kids arrive on campus and graduate four years later a lot more polished than when they were dropped off. Even if their rooms are not.

*When our son ended up in the infirmary with strep just before his first set of finals freshman year, by the time we heard about it, his advisor had already communicated with his teachers and arranged for later dates for him to take his tests. He then called us with an update from the doctor, the doctor’s number, and not to worry about homework/finals. All I had to do was send our son a care package.

ETA: ChoatieKid should have had an infirmary bed named after him. H/we missed College Info weekend(!) junior year because he was in the hospital having his appendix out. It was his advisor who took him to the hospital and took care of all school logistics. God love her! We got there in time for the surgery and the blizzard. Good times.

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26

Just have to chime in here, bcs not all advisors are as proactive as your son’s was. Kiddo1 did not have a close relationship with her advisor at all, and when she had a medical emergency of sorts, the advisor was nowhere to be found, never contacted me, and had not seen any warning signs. And while Kiddo1 was required to keep her room clean, she found ways to keep appearances without actually keeping her room cleaned (let’s just say she had boxes of trash under her bed, and a really nasty mini fridge). But that was a really rough semester for her (I’d guess 90% was covid related), and now, over a year later, she’s thriving, keeps her room relatively clean, and loves her new advisor.

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27

Thank you! This is what I needed to hear. I wasn’t thinking about the advisors and dorm parents. There is a lot of talk on CC that only kids who are incredibly organized and 100% self-sufficient can make it in boarding school. My son is still in middle school, how could he be functioning like a college student already? He does his own laundry, can fix a simple meal, and gets good grades. It’s a process.

If the Army can’t fix a messy room, then I am certainly beating a very dead horse on that front.

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Unfortunately, this does happen which is why I suggested to @maybeboardingmom to use the person–partly to ensure a relationship is started and to get a feel for how effective this person will be. Most of the time, the advisor is great but when/if there is a disconnect, the parent can ask for a change or at least know that they will need to be more involved.

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We found it was awkward, at best, to ask for a new advisor (since Kiddo1’s advisor was living in the dorm), and while Kiddo1 (and I) ended up connecting better with a different faculty/dorm member, it was clear that said faculty member was cautious not to step on the advisors toes, and she was busy keeping an eye on her own advisees. It was not an ideal situation, in an already overly stressful year (again, covid). Fortunately, Kiddo1’s advisor this year is absolutely incredible.

How the advisor system works is something to look at closely. At Kiddo1’s school, for the most part, the advisor changes based on the dorm. Having gone through this now, we would have preferred an advisory program where the student keeps the same advisor for 4 years. Taft for example, gives students a temporary advisor, and then a few weeks into school, students are able to choose their advisor, who then typically stays with them throughout their time.

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At our school, students were assigned an advisor whom they stayed with for 4 years. Unless, of course, they wanted a different one. Advisories met regularly as a group and students also met individually on anything more personal.

Dorm parents played a different role - no academic advising but another person looking out for the kids.

This is something that really varies by school. Imho, not every teacher is equally good at the advising function, so a system that makes it easier to switch and make the right match is preferable.

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31

There’s been a lot of great advice here. Just a couple of things I’ll chime in on:

Set clear expectations with your kid and get them to take charge of tackling these potential pitfalls. Discuss the possibility of coursework being more challenging and the likelihood that it will be much harder to skate by using smarts to make up for procrastination and disorganization than it has been in the past. Lay down your expectations and priorities - dipping grades due to tough grading is different than missing assignments, not doing readings, or unexcused absences. Are there conditions for staying at boarding school? Or behaviors that will cause you to get involved and ask for additional structure from the school? Be as upfront as you can while also expressing your confidence that he’s up to this new challenge.

Have a talk about specific worries. Both of you read through the student handbook in advance and then make a list of things that might be stumbling blocks. Let him go first and then you can add in as needed. For each item, write out action steps to head off issues. Ex. Potential issue: oversleeping and missing the first class or commitment of the day. Action steps: 1)Use an actual alarm clock, not his phone. 2) Ask his roommate or a hall mate to wake him up or bang on his door if they don’t see him moving by x time. Make this an ongoing collaborative process once the semester starts; if he misses a class or two, ask him what needs to change to keep it from happening again.

Second big point: schools have varying levels & forms of “scaffolding” to help new students gradually develop independence and responsibility, but most have additional structure that can be put in place for specific kids. Supervised study halls in the evening (outside of the dorm) or during free periods is a common example. Sessions with someone in the learning center (or equivalent) to go over things like setting up a study schedule/assignment calendar & following it, showing the advisor on duty in his dorm his homework/study plan for the evening and calendar for the next day at check-in every evening, handing in his electronics for a couple of hours a day or at night, scheduled meetings with teachers or a writing center to go over paper drafts (so he can’t wait until the last minute to start), etc. He can always blame it on his parents with an eye-roll when talking to friends, even if it’s something he initiated.

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32

I honestly also feel that different students have different needs from advisors. I personally had a very overbearing advisor freshman year, and it was somewhat uncomfortable; now, my advisor is a lot more hands-off, and it works a lot better for me. I usually just talk to him during his duty night. That said, my being a day student (and thus getting more parent interaction) may play into it.

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Like you, my kid loved his hands off advisor, @confusedaboutFA ! I would have like a bit more proactive involvement. But we all survived!

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