<p>Does anyone know of schools that will take new students midway through 11th grade?</p>
<p>I’ve wanted to go to boarding school for quite awhile, but my parents said they wouldn’t even consider it until 11th grade, but somehow, they convinced me to stay at public school. Well, I hate it, and I don’t want to go any longer.</p>
<p>So, I have a couple questions:</p>
<li>Schools that admit students mid-year?</li>
<li>Can you get financial aid mid-year?</li>
<li>Is it crazy to be thinking about doing this?</li>
<li>How to convince my parents?</li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, schools that I’m currently looking at:</p>
<p>1) Are your parents opposed to this or have they agreed to support you? If it's the former, we can end the conversation.</p>
<p>2) You have a short list. I could look up the answer to your question about whether they have mid-year admits...but then so can you. A call to the Admission Office of each school seems like the obvious, quick way to get the answer. </p>
<p>3) I would not be optimistic that there is financial aid money lying around unclaimed. How often do you see $20 bills on the sidewalk? If financial aid is a dealbreaker, maybe your parents can afford the full cost of a half year and then hope to pay half tuition when you'll be back in the pipeline. So there's some hope that by paying the full cost of a half year is much like receiving financial aid for this year while it may also be possible that you can get in line for financial aid subsequent years.</p>
<p>4) I say "years" because you may want to explore the possibility of repeating a year. If a school doesn't accept mid-year juniors, then they might accept mid-year sophomores -- giving you 2.5 years at the school instead of 1.5 years. Or maybe you just apply for a full year as a junior -- in the standard admission cycle -- so that you'll enter next fall as a junior and graduate in 2010.</p>
<p>5) No matter how things shake out or where the answers to any of my above questions pan out, get past the "I hate it" attitude for your current school and start making the most of it and shining in that environment. If you want to break away from it, that's what you need to do. If you can't break away from it, that's also what you need to do.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>My parents haven't agreed or disagreed. It's one of those things that "they'll think about."</p></li>
<li><p>I've sent an email out to all the schools currently on my list asking. About my short list, it would be longer, but I definitely can't go to a school more than 6 hours away, and most of the schools that I've looked at before don't have rolling admissions so I definitely wouldn't be able to get in mid-year.</p></li>
<li><p>No way could my parents afford to pay full tuition for half the year. There are a total of 7 kids in my family including me. One is a full time college student, one is a part time college student, and then there's me, my sister in middle school, my sister in elementary school, and my brother and sister in preschool. What my parents said to me before was that I could only go is I got major FA!</p></li>
<li><p>I think I would feel really weird entering mid-year as a sophomore, or even repeating 11th grade next year! I'm already old for my grade (I'm going to be 17 in two weeks), so then I would graduate at 19. Maybe that's not so weird for BS, but, I don't really know. If there were other kids around my same age that did this, I wouldn't really feel that odd, but if not, I really don't want to be 1-2 years older than everyone.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You definitely would not be older than everyone. It is very common in boarding schools to repeat grades. My son is a repeat ninth grader (he did his first year at public hs). He knows several other kids in his grade who also did this.
Reclassifying as a "junior" (i.e. doing your junior year twice) is also a common boarding school practice. Kids do it to take more AP's, up their GPA, or to increase their recruitment chances in their sport. Don't forget that most boarding schools offer a post-grad year.
By the time senior year comes, I am certain there are a fair number of 19 (and sometimes even 20) year old's.</p>
<p>Knowing that I wouldn't be really old makes me feel better. As I said, I'm already old here (it's because of when my birthday is, my parents had the choice between two years of sending me to school, and they sent me to the later one, so I started when I was 5, almost 6). With my age, I could easily be a senior here, no doubt!</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure I've heard of Cushing before. I don't remember what I thought of it, but I can look into it again.</p>
<p>Question:</p>
<p>Would it be better to try and get into a school mid-year, or just wait and apply to repeat 11th grade next year?</p>
<p>Most schools will accept the PSAT for jr transfers, even if their web-sites and view books don't exressly so state.</p>
<p>Forget Cushing if you need finaid - - I know a couple of kids who were applying to BS during the summer for Sept admission and Cushing had no $ at that point.</p>
<p>It would certainly be easier to wait and repeat 11th grade - - but why, if you don't have to? Also, if you complete 11th grade and $ is an issue, will your parents be willing to pay (even w/ finaid) for and extra year at BS? And why would they want to spend $ that could go towards a year of college for an unnecessary year at BS?</p>
<p>I definitely need LOTS (as in at least 90% paid for me) of FA. As I said, there are 7 kids in my family including myself, one is a full time college student, one is a part time student, and then there are 2 in preschool...My parents really couldn't afford to pay more than $3000/year or so.</p>
<p>So that basically rules out mid-year admission.</p>
<p>And that puts you at regular track for senior year admission. Or you can repeat a year. At $3,000 or so -- if that can even happen -- you'd be wise to look at repeating. Yes, it's an extra $3,000 -- but it's an extra $3,000 in 2 years. And that may be what it takes to find a space at a boarding school.</p>
<p>I think the most important point is to approach life and work at your current school as though it was Utopia. This will serve to improve your chances of being admitted and getting aid (who wants to admit -- let alone throw money at -- a sourpuss and malcontent?) and it will help you with college admissions if boarding school (or FA) doesn't materialize.</p>
<p>I'm trying to make the best out of things. I really am. I've made it through 5 years already of hating my school...It won't kill me to stay until I graduate.</p>
<p>Do you really think it's worth repeating a year just to go to BS?</p>