<p>Hi me and my parents were looking at inquiry forms and such today and my father wanted to know if there was any kind if early desicion program for prep school. I haven't heard of any but if any of you guys have any help would be awesome. </p>
<p>Thanks for your time
-a random prep school applicant</p>
<p>*(I always feel like I'm writing letters when I do these things)</p>
<p>The schools that belong to the TSAO (Ten school admission organization) have agreed to release admissions decisions on the same day, usually March 10, and not before. There are occasional mild exceptions previously noticed on these forums. Siblings may get a call a day or so ahead of time, and some recruited athletes get strong hints.</p>
<p>Agree with above comment. Often there are strong hints (or more). Our daugter got pretty clear indication from three of the 5 GLADCHEMS schools she applied to (she got into all 5), including one HADES school. For example, at one school we were invited to the winter play (as were all applicants, I believe). At the play, in early February, we ran into the AD and in our brief conversation he said that our daughter’s application looked “rock solid”. He winked when he said it. At another school, we had a conversation with the ice hockey coach in early January. Our D is a good ice hockey player. He said he felt very, very confident in admission. Finally, our educational consultant, who knew all the AD’s, would back-channel with them on our D’s behalf and he told us that two of the schools would be offering admission (this in mid-February).</p>
<p>Bottom line is, the more interaction you have with the school, the better the chances are that someone will let the cat out of the bag. However, there is no way to know – say in November – if your in or not, unles you are a superstar of some sort. </p>
<p>Final thought. Even if there were early decision, my view is that it is critical that your child – actively and with due consideration – chose the school they attend. What do you really know about a school if you go for an interview and have a 1 hour tour? Not much. But if you go to a play, attend a sporting event, do the revisit day, you really get a feel for the place. I would strongly suggest that you apply to enough schools that your child has a choice of 2 or more schools where they have been admitted. Then let the child choose. That way, in the dark days of November, when its getting cold, and the work is hard, and someone is mean, your child realizes that they actively picked the school and thus they need to make the best of it. Then they own it.</p>
<p>A Hill friend of mine was accepted “EA” by Hill in January. . .but she went through a consultant. Likewise, I was offered by the same consultant the option to apply binding EA to Taft when I was applying, which I declined.</p>
<p>Devolution: “educational consultant” - how much did that set you back?</p>
<p>Hi, to everyone who has helped me in this thread thanks and if you want to keep the discussion going I guess sure.</p>
<p>You should ask around when choosing a educational consultant. There are a lot of weakly qualified people doing this. At a minimum, they should have been an admissions director for a leading school. Ideally, as was the case with ours, he went to a GLADCHEMS boarding school, was an assistant AD at two GLADCHEMS schools and then the admission’s director at a near-GLADCHEMS school for 6 years. He knew everybody everywhere. He checked out our D quite carefully (e.g., had her math and english teachers do a questionaire, interviewed her, got her grades, etc, – it was almost like applying to the school itself). </p>
<p>Services he provided included detailed interview prep (he made us prepare (and tested our D) responses for the 30 most frequently asked questions asked by leading schools), body language, tone, what to say in the office to the admissions support staff, etc. Also arranged for two different mock interviews (videotapped) with two different actual Admissions officers who came to his office (one was from a HADES school), he would call ahead when our D was going for her interview to put in a good word. He also warned us about speciif hard questions asked by specific schools our D interviewed at (and the questions were indeed asked). He would call the AD after the interview to find out feedback, he would back-channel with AD’s, etc. He helped our D pick essay topics that would be true to her but also “speak” to specific ADs at specific schools, he read applications and made suggestions (but did not write one word or suggest specific wordings – as he felt very strongly about it being the child’s work). He strongly encouraged out D to create a portfolio of her academic work, as well as hobies, special interests, sports, etc., and he helped our D create a wonderful portfolio that every admissions interviewer looked at. Our D would open the portfolio to specific things to support her verbal responses. He was helpful in helping us narrow the set of schools based on fit and he was very helpful once we had the decisions in hand as to how we should think about what the best choice would be. He also helped us select a quality private tutoring company for SSAT prep. Consultant cost: $9,100. Private tutoring cost by a great company: $4,950.</p>
<p>We considered another consultant when we were making our choice and he charged $10,000. I think this is pretty much the range these guys are in if they have the expereince and, importantly, connections. </p>
<p>While all this was helpful, our D also was a good student with ultimately very good scores, etc. End result was 5 admits at the 5 schools applied to, including two HADES schools.</p>
<p>You do understand, don’t you, that for most families who can afford such services, they are generally unnecessary. (I say “most” because there are indeed families whose students have special needs, and who can use the services of a consultant to find a school that would be an appropriate fit.) And for families who can’t afford these services, they wouldn’t be much help anyway.</p>
<p>Bottom line, alert a school that you’re willing to drop $15k (or more!) just on consulting services, and the school will certainly bend over backwards to admit your student, if at all possible. In this context, as in most others, money talks.</p>
<p>So, kudos to those of you who have those kinds of resources . . . you can rest assured that your student will get into boarding school, with or without the use of a consultant!</p>
<p>(And my sincere apologies to those who are offended by my cynicism . . . let’s just say that I, like many others on this forum, have earned the right to be cynical. ;))</p>
<p>Applicants are also accepted to boarding schools with the only expenses being the cost of application & test fees, copies, and postage. I guess you could also include the cost of an internet connection for Skype interviews. A few dollars spent on gas money for local interviews.</p>
<p>No pre-private this, or pre-prep that, or heavy-tutor this is needed. They submit their applications, have an admission interview, and wait for their fat envelopes to arrive on March 10th. </p>
<p>Please don’t think extreme measures or tactics are needed to obtain an offer of admission. Simply doing what the schools require is enough. Sadly, many qualified students will not be admitted (and some not-so-qualified students will be admitted). </p>
<p>It is possible to achieve admission to boarding school (yes, even the hallowed HADES schools) without the need for smoke and mirrors or bells and whistles.</p>
<p>Devolution - Thank you for such an honest picture of what money can buy. And while most of us do not have the finances or desire to spend so much money on “packaging”, it is definitely interesting to see what the competition is doing. And frankly, if the schools prefer packaged goods over authenticity, then that is what they are looking for. After all the schools need the students whose last names will grace the sports fields/dorm buildings etc.</p>
<p>I fail to see how people going through a consultant should be considered “packaged goods”. Are you saying that kids who have access to good college counseling are not authentic when it comes to college admissions? </p>
<p>I say BS. </p>
<p>Some pre-prep schools (like St. Bernards in NY) provide their kids with boarding school counselors, who WILL speak on the kids’ behalf in a similar fashion to educational consultants’. And those pre-prep schools do send a ton of kids to GLADCHEMMS + other great hidden gems. For those whose middle schools don’t have a tradition of sending their kids to boarding schools, their chances are much tougher, and it is NOT wrong to try to procure whatever bits of advantages there are, given how competitive admissions have proven to be.</p>
<p>Does going through consultants give the students an edge? Yes. Does that make it fair for all applicants? No, but life isn’t fair, money buys, and studies have shown academic admissions have always favored students from high income families. But PLEASE enlighten me with regard to how that makes us “packaged goods”. Authenticity? Please, you know you packaged yourself a heck lot for your first job interview. You made the word sound more like sanctimony.</p>
<p>"…academic admissions have always favored students from high income families…"</p>
<p>I’m not sure you can state with certainty that students from high income families are favored. You can, however, likely make a case that parents with high incomes are favored. The students themselves may well be irrelevant.</p>