My DS is applying as a recalculated freshman from one of the most competitive day schools in the country. He has a late July birthday and has always been the youngest in his class so repeating 9th grade feels right. His SSAT scores are 91%. His grades are mixed, middle school, mostly B, B+ but in 9th grade he has mostly Bs and 2 C+. However the grading at his current school is known to be very difficult. Its easier to get an A at a competitive public than a C+ at current school. He’s a 3 season varsity athlete, involved with Model UN and has an impressive art portfolio. His recs should be very strong and I think he interviewed well. We do have some connections that we are NOT using to help as we want him to get in organically. Do you think his willingness to repeat 9th grade will help his chances for admission?
Just trying again to see if anyone has any thoughts on the above. Thanks in advance.
Hi @karen0,
Since your son is a 3 season varsity athlete, were you able to get in touch with the coaches (either by email or by filling out the Prospective Athlete Form)? If he is extremely good at his sport and can easily make varsity, that is considered an “athletic hook” and can help his chances.
I am not exactly sure if repeating 9th grade will help his chances, of course, I am no expert, as I am an applicant, just like your son, but I see the repeating situation as more of a family and the applicant’s decision rather than an application “boost”. Did you mention or did he mention his reasons for repeating 9th grade in his application or interview?
About the grades: in his school report, did his principal or guidance counselor acknowledge that the grading system there is tricky?
No matter how strong his present school is, his weak grades will hurt him. Elite schools may cut some slack for a middling SSAT score for applicants w hooks, but not so much forgiveness for weak grades. Applying as a repeat freshman will help. And as he is already on the young side, that’s even more reason to consider being a repeat. At the elite schools, there is a high percentage of repeats-- girls, included.
I STRONGLY advise expanding your list of schools beyond those you’ve mentioned. Don’t underestimate how difficult these elite schools are to get into. While your son is a strong athlete, these schools want to feel confident that he can keep up academically and is self-regulating. The objective is not just to be admitted, but to thrive once there.
So far his high SSAT scores but weak grades send the message that he is either immature (a good reason to apply as a repeat), is an intelligent slacker, or has lack of discipline (wants to do the fun stuff first).
I totally agree with @GMTplus7 you need more schools. You didn’t mention if you are applying for FA, but especially if you are, you are looking at an uphill climb. If your son goes to one of the best day schools in the country I am assuming its Chicago, Boston, NY, California etc. This will not help either….The AO we met with at one of the schools you mentioned specifically told me that they do not have any room for kids who “have not yet met their academic potential” there are places that do, but they are not on your list. My kid was also asked if he was “a straight A student” and we too are coming from a very competitive private school with tough grading. Do you have an excisions person at your son’s school? Is he suggesting that you will get a spot?
His current school is very well known as one of the toughest in the country.
He has a spot at his school for next year so he does not need to leave his current school. Since he goes to a K-12 school there is not an advisor who works on helping students go to another school. He has mixed feelings about leaving as he loves his school despite a rough start to 9th grade. We were very upfront about his dip in grades during our parent interviews at the schools above and I believe his teachers addressed the issue in the recs. Even if he repeats he will still be younger than many of the incoming freshman. We don’t need FA.
All the more reason to consider repeating. Some of the kids at my kid’s boardingschool are double repeats, red-shirted 2 years by their parents.
Thank you very much for your responses. He can’t apply to other schools this admissions season as deadlines have passed so I guess there is not much to do but wait. I do hope he is accepted at one of the above schools as he can’t repeat at his current school and he does not want to go to another day school in our city. Most people who know him and boarding schools well feel he should have applied to Andover, Exeter and Groton as he is perceived as very bright, hard working and high achieving and his poor grades were just from the first semester of 9th grade. Of the schools listed above NMH seems to have a somewhat broad student body and higher acceptance rate.
NMH is definitely easier to get into, might have more acceptance for the grades…
Again, he is coming from a school where the average SAT score is 2250 with at 20 members of the class getting a perfect 2400, a C+ there is literally harder to get than an A at other schools, I do think the AO officers get that. My son got a 91% on his SSAT without studying or taking a practice test, if he had time to prepare I think it would be up at least 6 or 7 points. I think he will have no issue with the work load as he is taking 6 very tough academic classes now.
@karen0: I’m curious–if your son is already in one of the most competitive day schools in the country and his school already has an average SAT score of 2250 (boardingschoolreview.com says that Deerfield’s is only 2200 and St. Paul’s is only 2180 compared to 2250), and is already well-challenged academically at his current school, what are your reasons for sending your son to BS?
@swimmer, I don’t know where u are getting your inflated figures from. These are avg SAT scores reported from the school profiles sent to colleges:
Exeter 2107
Andover 2037
Deerfield 1976
Boardingschoolreview.com says:
Exeter 2100
Andover 2076
Deerfield 2000
You can google: “school profile ____” and fill in the name of the school.
I do share your puzxlement about why OP is bothering w other schools if the present school is so great.
It’s not credible that the OP son’s present school has an avgvSAT of 2250, w 20 students getting perfect 2400, unless we are talking about “superscoring”, i.e. a photoshopped score.
first @thelittleswimmer you must know that lots of people want to go to boarding schools for lots of reasons. It is not all about going to the school with the best SAT score, you will find when you get to one of the New England schools that you have applied to that there is a whole subset of kids who are coming from excellent schools but choose to go away for high school. All of the reasons you want to go to Exeter, other than your current local public school isn’t intellectually stimulating are true for kids coming from places like California, NYC etc where there are good local options. In the case of NYC kids many are thrilled at having fields and facilities that are not possible with the geographic constraints of living in a big city. 20 kids from my kids school go to boarding school every year.
@GMTplus7 IDK I am puzzled about the whole thing. I am familiar with the top private schools in NY, I don’t think any of them actually have a 2250 average SAT score…and that includes Trinity, Horace Mann and Dalton. Obviously (contrary to what I pretend) there are excellent schools all over the country, but still, thats a sample of the top 10 or so
My kid goes to a very academically rigorous prep school with kids who are sought after by boarding schools. But the kids with Cs do NOT get into Andover, Exeter and Groton….who is telling you that you will have no problem getting in there? At my kids school which has pretty great placement to boarding school they will take a kid with less than great grades at Lawrenceville, Deerfield, Choate, Taft, but the kid needs to be a great athlete. And those kids are more like the 3.0 kids. The only kids that get into Andover Exeter, Groton are the kids who get As, typically the top 10-15% of the class. Most of these kids do not need FA. Also they have it relentlessly drilled into them that the grades need to improve over time. Its easier to get past a C 2 years ago if the trajectory has been upwards. Which is the opposite of what you were saying.
In any event you came to this forum to ask for anonymous opinions and you are getting them. I think you don’t like the opinions you are hearing, but if you really trusted all the people you knew who were telling you he belonged at Exeter, Andover and Groton than I think you wouldn’t be asking us.
Of course all of this is caveated by the fact that we know nothing! Not any more qualified than your friends to give you our thoughts. More likely to be brutally honest probably since we don’t know you.
Good luck!
@LifeLongNYer: Oh yes, I completely understand–I myself am NOT attending because of SAT/ACT scores…I AM attending because BS will open many opportunities for me (that I would not be able to have in my state/hometown) and I love the diversity and the support system at BS–I would have an amazing high school experience for there. I was referring to those because OP was mentioning (repeatedly) how competitive the school her son currently goes to was, and even put the SAT average score of that school as well. That is why I put the SAT scores of two of the schools her son was applying to as a comparison. I see GMT also had some of the same confusion, so that is why I asked OP what her reasons were for having her son be in BS.
@GMTplus7: I could find Exeter’s and Andover’s school profile (which listed the actual SAT scores) but could not find Deerfield’s, so I checked boardingschoolreview.com. On the page for Deefield’s, I saw that it said: “SAT range (25th-75th percentile) 1900 - 2200”, which is where I had the 2200 from. Where did you find those statistics to Deerfield’s website? I’m not applying to Deerfield so I am unsure where to find things on their website.
Thank you all for your opinions, very helpful. My son applied to boarding school because we feel he is very young for his grade and this will give him the opportunity to repeat 9th. He able to switch from Latin II honors to Latin II and from Spanish II honors to regular and is now doing very well. I don’t feel he belongs at Andover, Exeter so he didn’t apply. His grades are all back up now to where they were in middle school, so it was just the first quarter not semester of 9th where there was a dip. Besides the advantage of being closer in age to other students in his grade (by repeating 9th) my son would love better coordination between academics and athletics, he also wants better access to his teachers than is possible at a day school.
Back to the OP’s age question:
Ok…just a little data,
This made me curious, since my son (at Deerfield) has a late summer birthday, did not repeat, and I KNOW is not the youngest in his class. So I looked at all the birthdays of graduating seniors at Deerfield (not my son’s class). Birthdays after Sept. 1st, 1996: 125 kids (who clearly did not repeat). About 12 of those had birthdays from August through November, 1997, so they’re on the extra younger side. Birthdays before Sept. 1st, 1996: 64, out of which almost half had summer birthdays, so I’m not sure if they were really repeats or just on the cusp. Then 2 kids had birthdays in the summer of 1995 (so older), and one had a birthday in summer of 1994 (no idea why). My guess is maybe 40 or so of the kids in the senior class are repeats, out of 192.
So it’s fine to repeat, and schools of course don’t mind that extra year of tuition, extra year to have athletes play on their teams, and extra year for kids to take advanced classes. I wouldn’t say your kid would be the youngest if he didn’t repeat, though, and I DEFINITELY wouldn’t say he’ll be among the younger ones if he does. That’s fine, but you should just see where he’ll fit, which is–he’ll be on the older side, which, as I said, is fine.
As far as grades are concerned, most of these schools, of course, also grade more rigorously than many public schools, and also take a lot of kids from many private schools and JBS that also grade rigorously. They still don’t like C’s. If your son’s grades have improved this trimester or quarter or whatever he’s on, make sure the school sends the new and improved grades to the various admissions offices.
Thank you so much, the birthday information is very helpful. Many students with late summer or fall side birthdays thrive as the youngest in their class, my daughter certainly does. Since kindergarten my son has been the youngest in his grade and my gut has always told me that he would benefit tremendously by an extra year. Of course it’s not essential and we have no crystal ball to know what the outcome will be.
Right-- certainly most of the repeats are boys.