My family and I signed a contract for a school (St. Paul’s!) yesterday. What kind of communication should we expect in the coming months?
Congrats! Where did you commit?
We received an email about 1-2 days later that had basic 2023-2024 calendar dates, basic packing, tech info, heads up when placements tests were coming, and key dates between now and school let us know when forms, housing, summer reading, ids, etc handled.
I am sure schools are inundated today, but they are well oiled machines, so I am sure you will hear from them shortly.
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Probably less than you think!! Early on, you’ll probably get a welcome and info on accessing your student account, important dates, etc. Our school had a summer reading list, and this went out in June, iirc.
You’ll probably get information on placement tests sometime in May or June. You will probably get a roommate questionnaire around the same time. If you play a fall sport, you may get a summer training plan and information about pre-season or and/or tryouts. Our school had another questionnaire to help make a good advisor match.
Often in mid-summer, you’ll get info about what you might need for your dorm room in case youwantto start shopping. At some point, you’ll be asked to read and acknowledge the student handbook. You may be asked to pick classes and your advisor may contact you to help with that.
As the start of school approaches, you are likely to get your dorm assignment (and roommate contact.) Your dorm parents and RA may reach out.
Some schools may assign an older student to you as a resource. Ours did this, but not until a few weeks before school started.
As you can see, most of the information will be around logistics and "onboarding ". Right now, they want you to finish the current year and be focused on that.
Others may recall other communication as well.
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We almost instantly got an email from admissions welcoming us and with a private link to a pop-up shop and coupon to buy school shirts/sweatshirts etc.
Today (a few minutes ago, which was about 1 hour after contracts were due) we got an email to whole class (Presumably) saying class is full and welcome to all and there were some save-the-dates for upcoming events (in spring/summer). Note, this is for a day school, but on whole doesn’t seem different than what I would expect based on my experience with BS.
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Also, just want to add that most of these communications went to my son and only a few of them also came to us parents. Make sure you child checks their email account (mine was not in the habit of checking email regularly so he almost missed a few things…)
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I got a lot of stuff about course placement on my student portal (because I’ll be entering in 10th grade) but surprisingly nothing has come yet in email form… I’ll give it a few more days because we only submitted the contract on Sunday lol. Thanks everyone for the very helpful info!
@Sroo I will be attending St. Paul’s 
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For daughter’s school (Proctor), they said we should not expect anything until mid-May. They indicated that at that time, we should expect communication about:
Course selection for next year
Housing questionnaire
Athletics/activities form
Then, in late May, the final transcript forms will be available as well as:
Summer reading assignment
Summer math enrichment
In June, the admissions portal will become their active student portal and they’ll have access to their student email.
Then everything picks up with lots of forms and things due over the summer.
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In our experience there was not much. We were supposed to be assigned an existing parent but ours never contacted us, I only found out about it on here.
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Lville just sent a note for a webinar in May for new parents and a few more links so I suspect more schools start info around that time as well.
That’s disappointing.
At Deerfield, parents have the option of being a contact/host (Green Key parent) and need to opt in if they wish to play this role for new parents. So for someone to volunteer to do this and then not do it, is odd.
I had a great experience with my Green Key parent for my 1000 new parent questions for freshman year. I wished to pay it forward, so I volunteered to do the same the following year and hope that my new student/parent family felt that it was useful. I have volunteered again for the upcoming class.
Current Deerfield students do not have the option of choosing whether or not to be a Green Key for new students. I wish that Deerfield had an opt in (or an opt out) to ensure that all incoming students have someone who actually wants to share the Big Green spirit and answer questions on extra curriculars, dorms, dress code and whether or not to do the assigned summer reading!
Note to all new students and parents: if you are meant to be assigned someone as a liaison and aren’t getting the support/answers that you need, then call the school and ask for someone else.
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Yes it was disappointing. I did end up reaching out and was told that the person assigned to me had a medical emergency, but if they knew that they could have reassigned. It was ok because my daughter was a 17 year old repeat Junior, and I had this board, I probably had way fewer questions than it my kiddo was a 13 year old Freshman!
I did not volunteer, because I hadn’t had one and didn’t know that I would be much help.
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