<p>Over break, I was talking to a friend at a public high school whose little sister is applying to only all the HADES schools for tenth. Sis is expecting admission plus full financial aid, despite living in an affluent town with great public schools. She is caucasian with good grades and scores in the mid 80's. Older sis wants to know if admissions/financial aid officers favor those who have fewer local school opportunities or if location and opportunities don't factor.</p>
<p>Location won’t matter… although I think it’s a deadly triple combination to see all HADES, mid 80’s, and full financial aid in one candidate. Wow!</p>
<p>Location does matter; schools strive for geographic diversity.</p>
<p>Being idealistic, I thought admissions might compare two full need candidates (stats being equal) and say this one has a great public school with resources, but this other one, put into our environment, could achieve way more here than they could in their current school.
I agree @sharinggift</p>
<p>Stats and all being equal, they might prefer the one from the lesser public school system, because it takes more smarts and motivation for a relatively disadvantaged kid to achieve the same as the privileged kid.</p>
<p>Should she consider her sister’s competition others from the town she is from (a substantial number), or is her competition the entire pool of female applicants this year? My friend says just her town and I disagree.</p>
<p>What students applying to 10th seem to forget (or simply don’t know) is they’re competing against a huge number of JBS students ( ten schools) for only a few slots. Sure, some repeat 9th, but most kids shoot for tenth. JBS/Seventh Form is a highly competitive pool with both FP and FA applicants (International / Domestic) who have already flourished in a rigorous BS setting. They also have incredible SS placement teams working on their behalf.</p>
<p>^ More of a FYI than anything else, but definitely something everyone should keep in mind.</p>
<p>I agree with ThacherParent.</p>
<p>I live within three hours of all the east coast schools, and I think my location puts me at a disadvantage because they have so many kids from around here. At Exeter, they have a map in the admissions office where kids touring put a pin to represent their town, and I couldn’t find mine.</p>
<p>@photographermom does JBS usually go through the end of ninth? I agree that would be serious competition. Little sis, as much as I like her, says she will have freedom, social time, and unsupervised visitation at HADES schools. I think not!</p>
<p>Location matters at state, not township, levels. Think about it. It’s impossible for AOs to be familiar with individual township names from 50 states unless they verify the names and locations using Google map. </p>
<p>As far as I’ve heard, 10th grade is about the same, if not a little bit easier.</p>
<p>It definitely matters at the State level, less so at Township I suppose, and then more so at School (i.e. multiple kids applying to St. Pauls from the same middle school). And chukker, no school is going to want too much density from any location. You could probably fill a class with Greenwich kids etc. With respect to your socio-economic reference, many schools (Thacher included) would be extra impressed by any kid who excels in an under-resourced environment. It goes to “grit,” which is a wonderful, if not subjective, predictor. That being said, the applicant from an under-resourced environment will still have to give the School sufficient confidence that he or she can catch up academically to the kids who have only known abundance. </p>
<p>Like so many other aspects of boarding school admission, once you’ve met the basic requirements (smart, hardworking, socially capable), other criteria that often vary year to year can make all the difference - specific talents, geography etc.</p>
<p>@SharingGift I would say 10th grade competition varies by school–Andover, for example, takes about 60 new sophomores ([Phillips</a> Academy - Historic admission rate yields exceptional 236th incoming class](<a href=“http://www.andover.edu/About/Newsroom/Pages/The236thClass.aspx]Phillips”>http://www.andover.edu/About/Newsroom/Pages/The236thClass.aspx)) while Groton, on the other hand, adds 11 (15 last year) ([Groton</a> School ~ The Circle Comes to Life with New and Returning Students](<a href=“The Circle Comes to Life with New and Returning Students | Groton School”>The Circle Comes to Life with New and Returning Students | Groton School)). I don’t know how many students apply for each, and I know Groton isn’t HADES like the OP addressed, but Groton wants most of the kids to be there for at least four years.</p>
<p>Yes, most JBS go through 9th, and strongly encourage kids to stay. Then, as Photographermom states, some are repeat 9th graders, but most go for 10th-- with very strong placement officers behind them, with often very close relationships to BS AOs. So even if admit rates are slightly better for 10th, her point about JBS making the competition tougher for 10th grade is correct. Of course, no school wants ONLY JBS kids to fill out their 10th grade class, but it is a factor.</p>
<p>And you’re also right, chukker head, that the idea of tons of free time and unsupervised visitation at HADES schools (or most BS) is just ridiculous. Sounds like kid sister isn’t too realistic in many ways.</p>
<p>@chukker- Yes, the vast majority of JBS students go through Seventh Form, but a very small percentage of families do apply to SS (for ninth) during Sixth Form year ( for a variety of reasons, but mostly for financial reasons or SS Die Hard Status). Most kids today go to JBS 7th-9th. These students are not the Go Big or Go Home Crowd. They’re going. </p>
<p>That’s not to say all JBS students get into their first choice, but I think it’s safe to say many of them do. I think with all the SS exposure (on the athletic field (most play SS JV and Varsity teams) and two classes of JBS alums (scattered everywhere) to contact for insight about SS culture, etc. ), these kids know where they’re going and why. Along with valuable SS placement assistance- the application lists for JBS kids actually make a lot of sense and therefore have significant impact.</p>
<p>** Sorry Daykidmom- I just scrolled down and saw your post! I should have just said: What Daykidmom said! I kept hitting Preview Post while taking a bunch of calls. Story of my life…</p>
<p>stargirl, numbers don’t matter as much as percentage (i.e., acceptance rate). My conclusion is based on the same question I’ve asked again and again, every place I visited, including Andover and Groton.</p>
<p>@SharingGift Good point. Percentages.</p>