@GGNewton: If the SSS indicates to Choate that you could be full pay, you will be expected to be full pay all the years your child attends. We absolutely did not think we could swing it (we thought we needed $15-20K), but the SSS thought otherwise. Choate notified us prior to M10 that if we could find a way to be full pay (and they suggested ways, including loans, which we weren’t willing to take out), they would admit our son. If not, they would send the rejection letter indicating that they were unable to meet our financial need.
You can do some research here and find many threads on this dilemma. We had less than 48 hours to make this decision, and it was agony. Obviously, we decided to bite the bullet, but it meant close to “rice and beans” for four years. We are not poor (and never claimed to be), but we did not think the school would require every penny of our disposable income and no further contributions to our retirement or any other savings plans during those years. We had sizable 401Ks and significant equity in our home, neither of which we were willing to tap for high school. We knew we’d have to stop 529 contributions, but we did not have any type of memberships or any other optional cash flow commitments to redirect to BS. (We did not have cable, our companies paid our phones, and we had no car payments. Selling either of our very old cars would not have made a dent.) We just stopped retirement contributions and hunkered down for four years. Many here have similar stories, and each family facing this hard decision needs to determine what is right for them; there is no one-size answer.
Of course, no one should feel sorry for anyone in this position. If you can somehow scrape together $50-60K+ to send your kid to a boarding school, you are not exactly hurting. We feel no resentment. We just didn’t fully understand at the time the level of financial sacrifice we’d have to make and that the boarding schools would expect. For example, they will impute an available financial contribution from a non-working spouse, and they will consider home equity. We were both working, and Choate did not expect us to tap into current retirement savings, but if we’d been willing to tap our home equity and/or take out loans, those four years would not have been so tight. It was our decision not to incur debt for high school, so how we lived those four years was entirely our choice. If we’d had other kids who would have been affected, we may have made a different choice. Everyone has different parameters to consider. If you are fortunate enough to face this dilemma around M10, come back to the board, and we’ll commiserate with you then. Good luck!
@GGNewton i have been fortunate enough to not need any financial assistance, but it was definitely not an easy financial commitment for my family so I understand the concern. @ChoatieMom definitely has much more experience than I do in this area, but I know of a few people in my grade who are receiving financial aid (both partly and full). Choate is a need-blind school, but it is definitely possible that you may be asked to pay full tuition in the end, especially since Choate’s FA budget is lower compared to other BS (relatively big student body, mediocre endowment, one of the highest tuitions). According to @MAandMEmom, Choate’s stats are:
Choate 862 students $11.7m FA budget ($13,573/student) $346m endowment
for comparison, here are Exeter’s:
Exeter 1085 students $22m FA budget ($20,276/student) $1.15b endowment
@badminton4life like @skieurope said, I have no clue what the inner workings of the Choate Admissions Office are, nor do I know their admissions numbers, but this past year, around 50ish new sophomores enrolled. Again, I want to emphasize that this IN NO WAY REFLECTS this year’s decisions (or any other year for that matter) and I have no idea the number of people who were accepted, waitlisted etc.
@ajl021: I think you meant to say that Choate it NOT a need blind school. The only school that still claims to be need blind is Andover.
The size of a school’s endowment has no relevance to any particular applicant. Each school’s FA budget is reserved for the applicants they want who need aid, and some schools with small endowments can be very generous. Do NOT apply to schools based on the size of their endowments. Do your research here to understand just how generous those “smaller” schools can be.
@choatieMom@GGNewton sorry, my mistake, Choate is indeed not need blind. The FA budget is usually set as some percentage of a school’s endowment, so very generally speaking, endowment does have an impact on the FA budget (among with many other factors), which is not to say that small endowment definitely means less FA. Choate’s website gives a better description of the financial assistance (https://www.choate.edu/admission/tuition-and-financial-aid) and may better help to answer your questions. Choate’s FA budget in particular, compared to other BS, is somewhat in the middle: it provides assistance to 1/3 of students similar to Deerfield, Loomis, and Taft.
@CavsFan2003 financial aid does make it more difficult to be accepted of course, but I think many people have stories of how they have been able to attend BS due to generous FA awards -us included. As our youngest is getting ready to graduate in June, we find ourselves looking back over our 9 year journey at PEA. We once again realized what a gift we have been given as we spent time with our kids this holiday. They would not be the same people they are today without their experience at BS. This would not have been possible without the close to three quarters of a million dollars of FA our 4 kids received while at PEA. A world class educations has been a priceless gift for our family and we are so thankful for it. Good luck in admissions this year.
@CMKDad Freshmen are required to be in their dorm rooms studying with doors open and cell phones in the hall from 8-9pm and 9:30-10:30pm, Sun-Thur. Prefects cruise the halls and monitor during those hours. Lights out at 10:45pm. That’s the only required time freshman year. Not sure about other years.
@vegas1 That’s why I have zero problem paying full price at BS. Someone gave me the $ to go to excellent schools. So giving back is part of the picture. I think that’s how it’s supposed to work. Someone donates to better someone else and that person pays it forward. I hope your kids realize what a fantastic gift they have been given. I’m sure they do.
BS have to pick carefully where the FA is spent. They are betting on each and every recipient. Not just because they want future donors ( they do) but also since they want to ensure the best possible outcome for the most number of students. FA is a real gift. I wish more people saw it that way.
@CMKDad Hey there! So all-school curfew on school nights is 9:30 when students need to personally check-in with their advisor. 8 pm is when study hours officially commence for freshman, sophomores, and juniors (i believe seniors have more loose restrictions) and there’s usually a 15-30 minute study break around 9:30 (it really depends on the dorm). Here are the more grade-specific guidelines (to the best of my knowledge)
Freshman:
phones out, doors open by 8 pm all the way until 10:30 pm
prefects come by to check-in
usually need to stay in personal dorm room unless you receive special permission from your advisor which is really only given when you have a group project (if you’re going for extra help with a teacher, you may not need to ask for permission)
wifi shuts off at 10:30
lights out at 10:45 with prefects knocking and checking in to make sure you’re in bed
Sophmores:
phones out doors open by 8 pm until study hours
prefects come by to check-in
similar to freshman, you’re usually either in your room or at extra help with a teacher
your door may be closed once break starts
wifi shuts off at 11
lights out at 11 with prefects knocking and checking in to make sure you’re in bed
Juniors:
phones out by 8 pm (i believe?)
prefects come by to check-in
door can remain shut for study hours
allowed to go to library for studying, but not supposed to go to study rooms in the SAC or math building
wifi shuts off at 12
no lights out but stay quiet after 11 since dorms are often sophomore/junior
Seniors:
can be pretty much anywhere on campus between 8 - 9:30
@poppyseedbagel hey, so I actually took the ISEE and I don’t remember clearly but around 99th/98th percentile for math, 95/96 for reading, and mid/high 80s for vocabulary
@ajl021, what happens if a student likes to be sleep by 930-10, and roommate wants to be up as late as lights out? Also, in best case scenario, if both roommates are sleep at 10, and door is closed, is the prefect opening the door at 1045 to physically check they are in bed? I would be really annoyed. (Good thing, I’m not the one going to the boarding school!)
@GGNewton my experiences with my roommates have been pretty positive in this aspect. Usually, roommates are very accommodating and understanding the best thing to do would probably be to maybe ask them to work outside in the common room if they’re trying to recite something or doing something loud, but also turning off all unnecessary lights, asking them to put in earbuds. I live in a dorm where the ceiling lights are separated so I can turn off my lights without affecting hers. But if it’s really a problem, you may have to reach out to the advisor early on to see if there are any other options available. Usually the prefect will come in at 10:45 anyways just to make sure you’re in bed (for safety reasons), but if you convey to the advisor and prefect that you’re a really light sleeper and don’t want to be awakened, I’m sure they’ll be able to make an exception.
Do you complete a roommate questionnaire the summer before school starts? I know our son completed one, and it included a question about whether he considered himself a night owl or morning person. They used the questionnaire to attempt to avoid egregious mismatches. He said he preferred a single room, and he was assigned to one.
Not to steal the OP’s thunder, but yes - they still send out a questionnaire before schools starts. They ask preference of single vs roommate and several questions about habits. I don’t recall the exact questions, but things like late vs early bedtime, late vs early riser, tidy vs sloppy (not those words), bright room vs dark room, quiet vs music and other sounds, etc.
the best thing to do would probably be to maybe ask them to work outside in the common room if they’re trying to recite something or doing something loud, but also turning off all unnecessary lights, asking them to put in earbuds. I live in a dorm where the ceiling lights are separated so I can turn off my lights without affecting hers. But if it’s really a problem, you may have to reach out to the advisor early on to see if there are any other options available. Usually the prefect will come in at 10:45 anyways just to make sure you’re in bed (for safety reasons), but if you convey to the advisor and prefect that you’re a really light sleeper and don’t want to be awakened, I’m sure they’ll be able to make an exception.