Completely inexperienced dad looking for some guidance

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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I have to agree with @ameridad to an extent…although FA does make things harder.

DS weighed in (YES he’s back home ???) on ranking schools Last night. At first, he thought we were talking about colleges and started to explain how ranking them prior to acceptance is beneficial (ED/EA, etc), because that’s where his mindset has been this fall. When he found out it was boarding school, he threw up his hands and said, “Until you have acceptances, what’s the point? Ranking may not even be an option.”

I always did love @Calliemomofgirls approach with remembering a school by voice memo. We only remembered to do that once, though. ?

Although the virtual approach of 2020 has its downfalls, I will say that never before has so much information about a school been readily at one’s fingertips. Before, yes, you could visit and see people and interactions in person. But, unless you were close enough to attend in person admission events, games, theater performances, etc, you had that one interview time slot to gather most of your information. Websites were helpful but sparse with interactive and admission-based video. Now, we are on virtual admission overload. At this point, besides our interviews, we’ve attended at least 30-40 virtual sessions of one type or another…and that’s just for DD. Don’t get me started on DS and his college events this past Spring/summer. Every day we receive an email inviting us to a virtual admissions event. I’ve never interacted with so many students and parents in my life. Most of these are recorded sessions, so you can go back and remind yourself what was said or compare notes between schools. I actually find the need for the spreadsheet/detailed notes about each school less necessary. It’s amazing what you can tell about a school from the people they select to represent them to the subtle interactions/expressions on each face whenever someone else is talking. Close observation can provide great intel.

I do wish in-person visits were available, but I also think we have more than enough information at hand to deftly analyze whatever options, if any, M10 provides…

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Back with a question, and an update.

First the question:

Several schools are asking for a graded essay. What exactly are they looking for? I’m not sure that she has anything great that has revisions on it, is that what they are looking for? Or just something with a grade? I will ask her when she gets home to show me what she has. I’m not sure what they want, and assuming I have more than one thing to pick from I’m not sure what I should be looking for to put her best foot forward.

Now the update:

That doubt she had is gone. She is 100% bought in now and really is hoping that something affordable works out. She likes some better than others, but I think she would take her last choice (of the ones we are still considering) over the LPS. Which is good, if that isn’t the case they shouldn’t be on the list.

She has done several interviews. I have listened in on most of them from another room. I have given her ideas of things to mention after the fact a couple of times when she got stumped, or had a great answer that I know she could have given but she didn’t think to do so. A couple of times she has asked for my opinion on how to answer a question better in the future. I am certainly staying out of sight and not communicating with her until summoned by the interviewer.

But mostly she is learning how to do this on her own. I don’t think there is a good substitute for learning how to interview short of actually doing it. Even if she was willing to practice with someone, it’s different without the pressure.

I think I had the right idea to have her start interviewing with a couple she doesn’t care about, but she wasn’t really onboard with doing extra interviews at that stage so we just jumped straight into the list of schools under serious consideration. Unfortunately the first interview is one that has turned into a current favorite. Oh well, she did tell the interviewer it was her first one, so hopefully she is graded kindly. I will say the the difference between her first interview and how she interviews now is pretty substantial.

5 interviews down, 7 more scheduled. Probably 2-4 more I will add this week if we still can, but if I had to guess the 12 scheduled probably contain all of her current top 10. 2 that I like are still unscheduled, 2-3 more that I am on the fence about but may schedule depending on how ambitious I feel. She wants me to schedule a couple more if we can.

She has looked at the essay questions, but hasn’t written anything yet. I need to light a fire under her for that I think. She is probably thinking she can do what she does for school, and just quickly crank something out. I think this probably should be something she takes a bit more time with.

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Thus far all but one interviewer asked if she had a parent nearby who wanted to ask questions. I know it was discussed earlier, they are all asking me why she is considering BS. But by that point she has also told them that she has 3 older siblings, all 3 who went to the LPS. Plus a couple of times when they asked her how she found them in particular, or why she was considering BS in general, she mentioned that I was the one who first brought it up with her. So asking me is just following up.

They may be feeling out whether this is a serious application or just a dad humoring his kid assuming she won’t get in so he doesn’t have to say no. They already know we are not a BS family, and that we are not applying from an area that typically sends kids to BS. So they are probably also genuinely curious why she is interested, and why I am ok with it.

I had conversations with a couple of coaches when her brother was being recruited for college, and I definitely felt like that was a major reason the coaches wanted to talk to me. They wanted to make sure I was ok with him traveling 1/2 way across the country, and that for the Ivies I was ok with no scholarship. Maybe I’m projecting that experience onto this, who knows.

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If your daughter’s writing experience in middle school is like my son’s was, the graded sample was a challenge. He had exactly one graded writing assignment, and it was from the very beginning of the year. Fortunately at least there were some minor comments on it. But is was some weird, short non-essay thing. You can only do what you can do. If you don’t have a good sample, call a school and find out what you can do instead.

The essay portion of the applications was eye opening. His idea of an essay and how much work had to go into it was very different than what I imagined the schools expected.* It is where we had the greatest conflict - fighting over whether he had done enough work. I think he genuinely had no idea how to write - how could he? But he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

As a parent it was a struggle to guide/push to get him to write something appropriate, without taking it over and losing his voice. It took time. If your daughter is similarly inexperienced, be prepared to walk her through multiple revisions and brainstorming sessions. Talk to her now about what her thoughts are on the writing process and topics and which essays overlap and how much time she is going to need to do 3(?) drafts with space in between to get perspective. It is an exercise in project management. I put together a detailed calendar of when each draft was due to me. He had never had to do that kind of long term, multifaceted project before. He needed that structure. He rolled his eyes at the beginning, but appreciated the timeline at the end.

Between now and the deadline there is a lot of work to do. But she can do it!

One of the great things about this process is that she will be so much more savvy when she hits college applications.

  • I don’t want to sound like I made him write a super polished essay. Not at all. But the first drafts were nowhere close to what even a basic essay should be. Mostly what I did was ask him what he was trying to get across, so he could get what he said out loud down onto the keyboard. I did a read through for typos, etc at the end. He wrote every word, and there were things I would have re-written if it were up to me, but I didn’t want to intervene on that level.
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She said they did about a page and a half the first week. That’s the biggest writing assignment they have done. In honors English.

I’m starting to understand why her siblings were such horrible writers in HS. If you want to be a decent writer you need to write.

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Sounds about right. Unfortunately. Like you, I had no idea how little writing they were doing. I just assumed…

It is shocking, how much of a difference there can be between public and private education. I imagine for college AOs the applications reflect an even more stark comparison.

These boarding schools get them up to speed fast. Freshman year the teacher told me he was writing at a 5th grade level (this is a kid was reading in pre-school). Two years later he is getting an A- in Advanced English. They (and he) worked his tush off to get there.

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Thanks @CateCAParent you are making me feel a little more optimistic. Cate is on her maybe list and probably quite a bit more academically up there than most of the ones she is looking at so that gives me hope she isn’t so far behind that they won’t want to take her.

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This comes back to your comment about why they asked particular questions. If your daughter is coming from an unknown school, especially a public one, they will need to kick the tires a little more to make sure they know what they are getting. Writing samples only tell you so much about potential if you don’t know the school.

A student who has done her research and is choosing bs for the right reasons, and a parent who is supportive in all the right ways will be compelling no matter what the writing sample is like.

Some people will tell you to be careful not to appear like bs was all the parents’ idea. But in my opinion it is the rare public school kid who could learn about boarding school on her own, especially when no one she knows has ever done it. I think it is ok to acknowledge you happened upon the idea first, you looked into the idea together, and then she was all in, and took it from there.

I think your evaluation that local school was just fine for 3 kids, but this kid needs something different, says a lot about how much thought has gone into your side of determining fit and how much you support your daughter. I gotta think that helps. In a weird way, the writing sample supports that narrative.

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I apologize if this has been discussed …

We are applying to a competitive day school. Do you think applications are greater, fewer, or the same as last year?

Do you think the “hurdle” for test scores is the same or lower than usual years?

How are they going to sort out academics, when kids (in my area) haven’t been to school since spring - it feels like transcripts, recommendations - all feel less relevant than usual since everything has been over zoom?

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It could be worse.

My kid’s 8th grade ELA teacher had the kids grade their own essays. This did not mean exchanging your essay with a classmate and grading it. Nope. It meant comparing your own essay to his sample essay and a grading matrix. There were no creative writing assignments because “creative writing cannot be taught.” This was not an honors class; our district throws everyone in the same ELA pool until 9th grade, so this class included kids who read at the 3rd grade level.

So my kid submitted a self-graded essay with an explanation of the teacher’s policies.

She said she learned more about writing in the first 3 weeks of BS than she had in the past 3 years of public school.

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From what I’ve seen, there are more applications this year. With many schools going test optional and all of the events being virtual makes applying much more accessible.

This is nowhere near as bad as what you have, but last year my English teacher had us read a book, then right an essay on it. Very vague instructions, no rubric or anything too. And when we got the essays back (usually one or two months later), we would have a grade, but no comments or feedback or anything. I tried for some feedback on my essay so I could submit it for the Graded Writing Sample last year and he never got back to me.

I’m sure it would have been worse at a BS, but even freshman English at my current school has been a struggle because there’s such a large jump in expectations and standards compared to eighth grade.

Makes you really think about how flawed and arbitrary our public school system is.

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She is doing an interview right now in the other room. I can’t believe this is the same kid struggling to give more than one word answers a month ago. This interviewer may not get through her questions, because D is giving a story with every question. Finally sounding like a conversation.

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Update: All interviews done except for one next week. 3 apps still need turned in with February 1 due dates, planning on wrapping them up this weekend. The rest are turned in.

Here is the final application list:

Berkshire
Blair
Brooks
Cushing
George
Governor’s
Loomis
Mercersburg
Millbrook
NMH
Pomfret
Stevenson
Taft
Williston

If there is a school that isn’t on here that you are surprised by, it probably doesn’t offer volleyball. That was a surprise to me but cut several schools off of the list. She also wanted coed. 300 students was the arbitrary floor. Preferred a high percentage boarding, although flexed a bit on that one as long as there seemed a critical mass of students who board. Financial aid needed to be generous enough that it looked like there was at least a reasonable chance we would get an affordable number if they liked her.

After those more objective criteria, by and large “kinder, gentler version of BS” was the more amorphous criteria we used. Lots of schools added due to comments here and in pm’s, lots of schools deleted for the same reason. And a bit of gut feel good and bad, who knows if we were right on who was included/excluded using the gut feel factor. I’m sure there are a few schools we missed that would be great fits for her. But I am also guessing if she goes 0/14 she would probably go 0/20 too, so it probably doesn’t matter if we missed a few.

I put the list alphabetical, because I really don’t know how to rank it. At the moment, there is 1 school probably on the bottom, and 2 at the top, but I don’t think she has thought really hard about ranking them, and as discussed before it’s kind of counterproductive now anyway. She would take any of them in a heartbeat.

Interviews: I don’t think n=1 will really mean much for how the process works, but I am really curious to see how her admissions play out and to compare that against her interviews. I felt like I can put them in 3 broad categories:

1 - the “non-interview”. She had one interviewer who seemed bored and not that interested, I think some of that is his personality and honestly it was an evening interview and we all have off days. I think he was probably having one. Another interview (at a relatively high acceptance school) I felt was more like a sales pitch and less like an interview. He spent a lot of time talking about how great the school is and not much actually asking about her.

2 - the “feel good interview.” These were great. They asked good questions, she gave good answers, and seemed really interested in her. My suspicion is that everyone who interviewed with them walked away with the same feeling. Having said that, even though everyone probably loved their interview I think she did better by comparison to her peers than the category below.

3 - the “East Coaster interview.” These are the ones that worry me, and were probably around 1/2 of her interviews. I don’t know if this description makes sense for everyone. We live in the midwest, which is where I have lived most of my life, but I did spend several years in NYC and the surrounding area. I think there is just a bit more abrupt and confrontational style of conversation there. They talk faster, and ask things like “what did you mean by that”. D doesn’t really have any experience with this, and it rattled her a bit. Even last night when she had probably her 5th or 6th interview like that it still threw her off. She said afterwards “I really liked her, but she was kinda scary!” My guess is that kids who grow up in the more traditional boarding school areas are more used to this kind of conversation so less thrown off by it.

Endowments: If you told me to make a list in order of best to worst endowed schools based on my interactions with them, I wouldn’t get it perfect but I wouldn’t be that far off.

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Love the list. All you need is one acceptance with adequate aid. Can’t wait to see how this goes for dd. Fingers crossed. :crossed_fingers:t2:

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Ditto.

My only list criticism is that we ended up with only a few crossovers so my dream of our daughters hanging out next year just grew a tiny bit dimmer.

Kidding aside, kudos to you all for making this list happen!

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If she gets a successful outcome, it will be in no small part due to the help I have received here. Maybe I could have pulled it together and got some apps in to random schools, but the odds of coming up with a list anywhere near this one is remote. I’m sure a few slipped through the cracks, but I bet if there was a way to know the true top 20 schools in the country that would be best for her, most or all 14 she applied to would fall on that list. I also had no idea how to approach the rest of this process either, and many of you helped me out, usually more than once.

Even if this whole process fails, it was really productive (I’m having a Zen day again). She and I, but mostly her, had to do some serious soul searching to determine what she wants out of HS. Even if she stays here, that was helpful. Her ability to interview, while still age appropriate, is leaps and bounds better than it was 2 months ago. I don’t know when exactly, but that will almost certainly help her down the road. It was actually good for our relationship. We spent a lot of time together the last few months, talking about schools and essays, but also talking about 500 random other things.

So since I’m not sure if I will have anything to post about for the next 50 days, I’ll give a big thank you to everyone now. You can expect another thank you coming focusing on either (hopefully) the first or (if necessary) the second paragraph above.

Right now I feel pretty good about the process and what we did. I guess if anyone still wants to help and you happen to be a doctor, I could use enough Valium to get me to March 10. Thanks in advance.:grinning:

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I rarely say this but: I would be floored if you are back at this next year. I cannot imagine you won’t have options with this nice long, wide-netted list.

Our crossovers are Berkshire, George and MB. (Surprised no SAS.)
(We are VB family too so I know how sad it is to cut some of the non-VB schools.)

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@Calliemomofgirls what was DD3’s final list? I have some crossovers too(although different grade)
Best of luck come M10

@dadof4kids I hope D has many options M10(and she most likely will) Best of luck!

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@dadof4kids I haven’t been on the forum much lately, but I have followed your journey since you started posting. I have always been impressed with your questions to parents here and your insight into your daughters path to BS. I love your list - I think you have an excellent selection of schools and I do believe that you will have choices on M10. My son applied to 3 of the schools on your list and currently attends Mercersburg (which was his first choice). I am rooting for you and @Calliemomofgirls during this application cycle, as I know how much work you have put into this process!

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My DD has some crossover with your list. It will be so interesting to see where M10 brings us all. Hopefully with at least one home…optimistically with options!

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