Chances for Boarding Schools?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Chances
1

Hi, I’m a current 8th grade female student applying to boarding schools. I’ve been at the same (private) school from K-8th. I’m half german and half chinese. My main focus is STEAM. I speak Chinese, English, and French.

The schools I’m applying to are: Andover, Choate Rosemary, Deerfield, Exeter, Hotchkiss, Kent, Loomis Chaffee, Middlesex, Milton, Northfield Mount Hernon, Peddie, and St. Pauls (+ a private boarding safety school in my state). My top choices are probably Andover, Hotchkiss, and Loomis Chaffee.

Standardized Testing:
SSAT: 96th percentile (Q: 93rd, R: 89th, V: 97th)

Grades: (I take both of the accelerated classes at my school, Honors Biology and Honors Geometry).

6th: Mostly B’s (online learning), although my school’s grading scale showed 93s as B’s in only this year, so I recieved a lot of 90-93s as B’s.

7th: Mostly A’s (other than Math and French). My main worry in 7th is that I had a B in math, although I take accelerated courses.

8th: All A’s except for Math, where I got a B+.

note: current school is connected (?) to many boarding schools

Extracurriculars:
Robotics (3-4y):
2021-2022 (VEX IQ): Won Design Award at State, Progressed to World (competed w/ 3000+ teams from 36 countries)
2022-2023 (FIRST, FTC): Current season, Outreach leader for team (raised $9000+, helping minorities and female students become involved in robotics)
Andover Summer, did very well during the program.

Swimming (8ish y)
No major awards, although I swim competitively.

Piano (8ish y)
Won a few decent awards (in state?), but were a long time ago.

Misc.:
2 years of Debate
2 years of Track
2022 Science Fair: won Best in Aerospace Category at State, nominated for a BROADCOM application (top 10% of competitors), Gold Award at State.
I run a discord server for my class, connected during COVID (essay)

So far I’ve only done the Exeter Interview (30-40m), although I have the rest coming up. I don’t need financial aid, and I’m not a legacy student.

Could I have chances for the schools? Thank you!

2

Seems to be less people on the forum (hehe)!
All of the schools are highly selective. Exeter being lower than 10% and most of the schools around 15%.
However, you have a pretty strong profile. Your essay story seems very compelling, it depends on how you express and formulate it. Your grade are higher than average, but the really good thing is that they are improving, which is a good sign the schools want to see.
Spend time this Christmas crafting your application. I think chances are you can see one or two schools accepted. If not, it is still normal. Don’t stress yourself that much. You have pretty appealing ECs, and maybe take time thinking about how to show it. Z

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Hi! Fellow FIRST member here. I’m not an AO, so I can’t chance you, but you write well and seem like a really likable person. Your involvement in FIRST is very impressive! My team also made it to worlds last year although I didn’t join robotics until after (we’re an FRC team, hope we make it this year). I think your involvement in helping minorities and females in STEM is something very valuable. It seems you put a lot of work into it and AOs want to see you’re committed. They’d rather a student that excels and puts in a lot of work into 3 ECs than a student who does 15 for 30 minutes a week. Good luck!!!

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You’ve got a strong profile! It’s all on the interviews. Be prepared for Peddie to ask you some curveball questions, however :slightly_smiling_face:.