<p>Hey everyone. As one who had gone through this prep school admission madness, I figured it would be helpful to some if I were to answer some questions that you might have about my school -- Mercersburg Academy. Although it's not of of HADES schools, I think highly of my school and it truly is a great place to be. I will be as honest as possible with you guys(I promise I won't respond like those slippery admission officers :p), so throw me any type of questions. How are decisions made in the admissions? Are interviews really important? What are my chances for these schools? -- just about anything! Questions about other schools are fine, too -- Personally I'm fairly familiar with Deerfield, Hotchkiss and Choate. </p>
<p>Here's some info about myself:
Personal info: international student from South Korea, 18yo, in 12th grade
Academics: 10 AP's, 3 Post-AP's(including two independent studies in econ)
Extracurricular: Dance, golf, GSA, photography, backpacking</p>
<p>Can you speak a little about the diversity (both ethnic and socioeconomic) at Mercersburg. I know that MA has a relatively low “people of color rate”. I just wanted to know if that rate is a good reflection of the diversity at the school?</p>
<p>Mercersburg has been pretty good with keeping a fair degree of diversity. There is a cap on each country – meaning, the admissions won’t accept beyond certain number of students from each continent and they always match “the number of people accepted” to “the number of people who will graduate by each year”. For example, last year there were only 4 Korean students graduated, so they accepted 4 Korean students this year. This year, however, because there are 6 Koreans graduating, it would be relatively a bit easier for Korean applicants to get admitted in this year’s round. </p>
<p>When you are doing prep school research, look closely at number of international students and where they are from. Some schools(like Webb School in TN, Stevenson School, Perkiomen, Berkshire… there are dozens out there) tend to accept large number of people from Asia (since they pay full tuition. It’s the only reason!), who tend to form their own Asian clusters and talk in their native language rather than English, eventually not really contributing to the diversity of school. This problem exacerbated when the subprime crisis hit them a big time. Some schools, like Mercersburg and Hotchkiss, began to notice this problem several years ago and came up with their own policy regarding international admissions. For instance, a few years ago the president of Hotchkiss decided to enforce 12% (of the whole school’s population) cap on international admissions, making international admissions much more competitive nowadays. </p>
<p>So yes. Diversity really matters. But where students are from matters even more. If you like looking at one of those “ethnicity chart,” it probably won’t help you, since a lot of schools don’t include international students in those charts. What I would suggest is, look closely at % of international students and where they are mostly from. If that goes above 20% and most international students are from Asia, I personally would not recommend that school since they won’t likely mingle into the rest of school very well.</p>
<p>But honestly speaking, as long as you go to one of the top 20 schools, it probably won’t matter. Diversity is a huge deal to them and they all do a pretty good job maintaining it well.</p>
<p>There are some pretty enthusiastic Mercersburg fans on this forum, so I’m going to ask you a different question: If there was anything you could change about the school (other than the remote location!), what would it be? Actually, make that plural . . . what changes - both big and small - would you want to make?</p>
<p>KE9016: I don’t think you completely understood my question. Let me clarify. While I definitely think it’s important to have a high percentage of international students, I’m more interested to know about diversity in regards to American minorities. I’m sure most of the top schools will have a high international rate, that’s why I’m not as focused on that. I’m more concerned with American minorities, because I’ve been warned by many, that Mercersburg isn’t very highly populated with minorities (Hispanics and Blacks in particular). I realize that it will be like this at good majority of the schools on the East Coast, but I’ve just heard that it is especially so, at schools like Mercersburg.</p>