<p>@toombs61: Point taken. But those stats only matter to families who see boarding school as a means to a college placement end.</p>
<p>“There really is no other school in the area that can compete with it in prestige and college placement.”</p>
<p>@DA: Again, if prestige and college placement are what matter to people…</p>
<p>Of course. I was just talking about why L’ville is so popular and why the “attitude” in a way. I know famlies send kids to BS for different reasons. That’s why as popular as L’ville is not everyone is applying to it.</p>
<p>lville also has a lot of applicants from new jersey because all the other good boarding schools are at least 2 hours away if not more. i have a friend at sps and if i were to go there it would be like a 5 and a half hour drive which is too much. most parents dont want to be too far away from their children so that they can visit periodically.</p>
<p>Wow - I have to weigh in here, because our family experience was so different than what has been described here.</p>
<p>We live on the West Coast, so scheduling visits to East Coast schools requires some coordination effort. In late August, early September, I contacted seven schools (Lawrenceville, Choate, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Andover, Exeter and St. Paul’s) requesting visits for the end of October (NE schools) first weekend in November for L’ville.</p>
<p>Choate would not schedule an interview until my child completed the first part of their application on their on proprietary GO CHOATE system. Hotchkiss and St. Paul’s were willing to schedule an interview/tour just on the basis of an e-mail request. Deerfield would not respond to an e-mail, just a phone call. Lawrenceville responded quickly and scehduled our tour/interview for the date and time requested.</p>
<p>Andover and Exeter claimed to have NO availability for any of the three days I requested. Keep in mind that I contacted them in August/September for a late October visit. Andover was actually sympathetic to the fact that we were flying across the country for a visit and made a faculty member available to interview my child. Exeter told us we were welcome to visit their campus and take a self-guided tour but there would be no interview and my child would need to schedule an interview with a local alum. Really? thanks but no thanks.</p>
<p>Sounds to me all the schools did what they could’ve done and then some extra given the circumstances (so the time slots you requested were taken at Andover and Exeter - that happens). You don’t have to put down other schools to show that L’ville is good too. Actually I think it’s great that you share some positive experience with L’ville. It just goes to show that things like AOs’ “bad attitude” were random sometimes and one can’t really judge a school based on one bad experience with the admissions.</p>
<p>Hi DA - didn’t mean any of my comments to be a put down. I was just noting that one school (Andover) made a point of trying to accommodate us because of the difficulty involved in traveling from the West Coast. A second trip was just out of the question - not only because of the expense, but because of additional school days missed. I just thought it was odd that I asked Exeter for ANY available slot over a 3 day period and they just weren’t willing to work with us. </p>
<p>Having toured 6 of these schools, I know how important it is to actually see the school, meet the students and get a feel for what going to school there would be like. Each one was so very different from the others, and we would not have known that without visiting.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, my daughter decided to apply to Deerfield, Hotchkiss and Lawrenceville, so we will see!</p>
<p>@SevenDad:
First, Im not going to argue about the reception of the Lawrenceville admissions office, as I believe these cold incidents are the exception not the rule. </p>
<p>Your comments “@toombs61: Point taken. But those stats only matter to families who see boarding school as a means to a college placement end.” and "@DA: Again, if prestige and college placement are what matter to people… " have the connotation that only parents who care about college placement will consider Lawrenceville a top choice.</p>
<p>Not to say that your comments implied Lawrenceville should be only recognized for college placement, but I’d just like to clarify that the students at Lawrenceville are equally as happy/motivated/outgoing if not more as any other BS. It is fair for one to think that the admissions office is cold due to personal interactions, but one should not assume anything about the institution beyond that.</p>
<p>i know what you people mean. Lville gave me the cold shoulder when i called today asking for a fee waiver for the ssat online application. they told me all this stuff saying that in order to get it my parents need to send in a bunch of tax return forms, and that they dont usually give it to internationals and so on, heres the thing i called hotchkiss, deerfield, and andover about three weeks ago and they kindly gave me fee waivers without even questioning me, andover did ask me if the fee was a hardship for my parents and i said yes, i am currently on FA at the prep school that i attend. im not even going to bother to apply to Lville after that if thats how their going to treat students who need financial aid.</p>
<p>Apply to The Hill School, Lawrenceville’s rivals.</p>
<p>i would but they dont give FA to internationals.</p>
<p>bump please</p>
<p>I have no say in this whatsoever.
However, I called a few hours ago to the 5 schools that I’m applying to. Funny. It’s January 14th, 2011. One day before everything’s supposed to be sent in. Don’t ask me why I called them so incredibly late.</p>
<p>One school said they’d contact me in February if they want more information.
The second school quickly gave me an e-mail and hung up.
The third school gave me an e-mail and name and phone number of the interviewer.
The fourth school said that they were extremely busy and may or may not have an interview with me.
The fifth interview was scheduled.</p>
<p>Goodchoices,</p>
<p>Passing on an alumni interview is a mistake. You would actually get a LOT more time with that interview (in most cases) than the tiny time 10 -15 minute slot given on campus. We couldn’t fit Andover into the schedule so we opted for an alumni interviewer close by. The alum really understood what she was going through, shared a lot of his personal stories to set me at ease as a parent, then advocated for her - even staying in touch. My Exeter interviews often last 1-2 hours depending on the candidate. And we can go in depth in ways a campus interview will not. I see my role as being able to fill in blanks that aren’t on the application and I know how to draw stuff out of students who may have missed things I think an Adcom will find interesting.</p>
<p>In other words - alumni interviews feel less like a meat market.</p>
<p>Ideally - having a campus interview helps the committee member see your kid up close and personal. Hopefully there will be a strong personal and academic connection. But they’re interviewing thousands and if you don’t make an immediate impression you may be a face in the pile when it comes time to weed. Alum, on the other hand, are interviewing “tens” and have more time to write a comprehensive report.</p>
<p>So the thanks, but no thanks attitude might not be the best choice for your child if there is a strong interest in the school.</p>
<p>At MIT - there is a high correlation between college acceptance and alumni interview conducted. I also noted that the amount of time spent on in interview correlated favorably to my D’s acceptance rates as well.</p>
<p>I would second what ExieMITAlum said. My child had an alumni interview recently and it was phenomenal! The alum spoke very compellingly about what a wonderful place school X was . . . and I felt that I learned far more than I ever could have during a visit, because we got an “insider’s” view of the school.</p>
<p>I have to admit, I have also heard horror stories about alumni interviews - I guess it’s very much the luck of the draw who you end up with. But, in our case, I couldn’t be more pleased. Don’t know of the interview will lead to admission - I wish it were that straightforward. But I really feel like we got a very special view of the school and I appreciate that.</p>
<p>And it did, as ExieMITAlum suggested, last quite a bit longer than the usual on campus interview.</p>
<p>We had an excellent response from L’ville admissions as a last minute applicant…we realized some of the other schools my daughter had been interested in had fallen off our list and she decided to finish the L’ville application on February 1 (their deadline) and take her chances. Interviews were over, but they contacted us and set up a Skype interview (at our convenience) and they have been responsive and polite - E-mails answered within the hour. The AO was warm and encouraging. We have a very good impression of the admissions office. It may be that the experiences of those earlier on this thread were due to the office being overwhelmed in the peak of the season?</p>
<p>Lucky you, lightning can strike twice in the same place, they might have read this thread before your interview. Are you full pay? It is also possible that if they received less applications than last year before the deadline, they might entertain more applications so that they can look very selective.</p>
<p>Or…maybe 2prepMom’s anecdotal experience is every bit as telling about Lawrenceville’s AO as the other contrary anecdotal experiences shared here.</p>
<p>Or…maybe 2prepMom is a super secret Lawrenceville spy trying in vain to propagate positive vibes!</p>
<p>@D’yer, I am not a secret L’ville AO, just an average stressed out parent this time of year. We have crossed paths before, check the “does prep school help college apps” thread from last week - in our last conversation, I did not sound at all AO-ey</p>
<p>@pulsar, If they just wanted the app for numbers sake they already had it (and the 50 bucks), no need to go out of their way to set up a Skype and be so nice about it. They didn’t have to do it at all, since we had missed the regular interview request period. </p>
<p>Just saying we had a good experience. Jeesh.</p>
<p>Actually, when I sent out questions through e-mail to many schools including the HADES, I got one sentence replies from all of them, so I do not think Lawrenceville’s response is that surprising. </p>
<p>Of course, this is just my experience.</p>