<p>So far,
accepted at Exeter
wait listed at SPS</p>
<p>I love the above Hotchkiss story and will repeat it many times. Love can make people do some pretty crazy things!</p>
<p>Waitlisted SPS Mdlx
in at Brooks
waiting for 6 more.</p>
<p>accepted Exeter and Middlesex
wait listed SPS
waiting to hear on Andover, Deerfield and Choate</p>
<p>son: accepted at Exeter
waitlisted at Middlesex</p>
<p>Congrats protective mom on the MX acceptance!</p>
<p>FYI..."Grammy" has her revenge and my daughter was accepted to Hotchkiss! It is her first choice and definitely took the sting out of: exeter rejected; SPS, Choate, Groton waitlisted.</p>
<p>Time to buy Grammy the Hotchkiss sweatshirt! Congrats to your daughter!</p>
<p>Protective Mom: Well, regarding my earlier email, NOW she can fall in love. Hope she is feeling good. Of course she could wait and see on SPS. ;)</p>
<p>But she has some good choices!</p>
<p>all done...
Accepted:
Exeter, MX
Waitlisted:
Choate, Deerfield, Andover, SPS
She's upset over Deerfield and Andover. Doesn't care about the others. Our headmaster knew a couple of days ago. The schools called. They get impressions about what schools the kids want to go to and don't want to give acceptances if the kids are going to say no. Makes sense to me. The crazy mind of a fourteen year old. Won't go to a school off of an acceptance list...off to Exeter we go. BTW, Exeter was at the top of her list....with Andover and Deerfield. I think she was over confident. We definitely were swinging for the fences. Frankly, would not change a thing. Like I said before we live in a top top school system....private school now but wouldn't mind if she went public. We're lucky. No sleep lost if PS was our option. 200K in my pocket. I feel like it is getting depressed over getting accepted at Harvard but not Princeton.</p>
<p>I do think they pay a lot of attention to yield. My niece loved Exeter on paper and told them in the application it was her first choice. When she visited, she did not like it at all. Her head of school told her to withdraw the application and tell her real fist choice of her level of interest.</p>
<p>protective mom - she can get her revenge at Exeter/Andover days. That may be why the rivalry is so fierce :)</p>
<p>Be positive about her acceptance, but be sure not to be too excited. I applied to Hotchkiss, Deerfield,, Taft, and Pomfret, and I only got into Pomfret. My SSAT was really bad though, but I had great interviews and I mind-blowing essay. I have had straight A+'s for the past Choate 3 years. I have wonderful writing skills, and I love sports. I have played tennis for 11 years, and I have many awards for it. I was determined to get into Hotchkiss, but instead I got rejected. Since it was my first rejection, from my 1st choice, I cried a lot and felt like dirt. I hope your daughter gets into all of them, but just prepare yourself for rejection! GOOD LUCK!!!!!</p>
<p>In the aftermath of this week's roller coaster, there is one thought I keep returning to....my daughter has had no experience in her life that compares to this admission process. When her interviewers told her she was great, she believed them. When one of her interviewers sent her a Christmas card that said, "I am happy to work at a school that attracts applicants of your caliber," she believed him and felt confident. So when she was waitlisted at said school, she said that she didn't mind so much being waitlisted there because she didn't really want to go, but she was so surprised because of the wording on that card. That whole phony wooing courtship that goes on is a little out of a 12/13-year-old's realm of experience. At another school, she developed a nice email correspondence with her interviewer that started with Obama updates...one such email said "when you're here next year, I'll have you to my house to watch Obama's State of the Union Address." Again...waitlisted, and my daughter has mentioned that one email several times. She had imagined herself in that scenario. I wish that the admissions officers could play it a little cooler and not lead these kids on. She is so excited to be going to Hotchkiss and no doubt will put the waitlist letters out of her mind much sooner than I will!</p>
<p>Has anyone had a similar experience?</p>
<p>Similar, not quite as obvious as yours. It was at Taft. I was applying to get into Grade 12 and possibly PG year. Because I am young 16 year old to be in Grade 11 this year, I would be starting college at 17, which is 1 to 1.5 years younger than most, the interviewer encouraged me to apply to go into Grade 11 instead. My scores are all very high (90s GPA, SSAT 95%) and the interviewer indicated that there is not an issue. He would make the necessary adjustments etc etc. I also interviewed with the coaches of 2 sports and it was all very very positive and encouraging. They wanted me at the school for 2 years for academics and sports. I was happy as it means that I can take all AP courses in Grade12.</p>
<p>I never expected a rejection letter. I think my mom was shocked.</p>
<p>Hi PomMom,</p>
<p>Like you, I am having a harder time with the waitlist letters than my son! He was being <em>heavily</em> recruited by one school. There were other school's, but this one coach came to numerous games to watch my son play, made frequent phone calls to him and sent several cards/emails. My son was confident that he would be accepted to this particular school, but I tried to be more cautious. I understand this is a business for them, but I honestly believe they lose sight of the fact they are dealing with high school (and younger) children. </p>
<p>I find it appalling that your daughter received that email from her interviewer. Why wouldn't she believe him/her? Shameful!</p>
<p>Pom pom, my daughter, a newly turned 13 year old, had an interview at school A on a Friday, and then she had an interview at School B on Saturday. School A called School B and told them that they were very interested in her. The interviewer at School B brought this up to my daughter during her interview. She thought that it was a bit creepy. Notes and cards later, my daughter was rejected from school A. The rejection didn't seem to faze my daughter, and she is extremely happy at her current school. Needless to say, my husband and I thought some of the interview tactics were heavy handed.</p>
<p>Thanks for your stories...they help to take the sting out a little bit. We're trying to put that part of the process behind us now and I refrained from writing sour grapes emails to those two interviewers! We have two sons who may be going through this in a few years and I don't want to burn any bridges...</p>
<p>I would not like stuff like those stories discussed directly above. I had asked an interviewer at one of the ten schools how the admissions process worked in terms of the number of candidates/interviewers. This person basically said that s/he lobbied for the candidates in his/her pile, and others lobbied for "theirs". So my take was that someone could have been a good fit etc by one person's opinion, but loses out in the "horse trading" that must go on. It is hard to understand the decisions in these cases, but not much to be gained from stewing over it if there are other viable choices.</p>
<p>My daughter was kind of "recruited" by one of the TSO schools and with all the positive comments and close contact, I guess we all thought she was going to get in, but was waitlisted....she had only applied to that one school that year and was pretty devistated as you can imagine. The encouragement from the interviewer and the school made her feel like they really, really wanted her. She stayed on the waitlist all summer and then in August received a letter saying there would be no one from the waitlist admitted. After about a month, she picked herself up and decided since she did have the academic qualifications to attend one of these schools (>95 on SSAT), she would again take the SSAT and apply to four schools, three of them TSO schools. The outcome was much more positive that second time around and now she is graduating in a few months. Looking back now, while we as a family felt a bit angry toward that school, we know now that the school she went to was an absolute PERFECT fit, and the other school would not have been. So, sometimes even rejection has its positive outcomes. I would suggest to anyone who has gone through a similar scenario, consider widening the search and apply to three to five schools, a couple safe schools and a few reaches. It is heartbreaking not to get into a certain school, but sometimes in the long run it all works out for the best.</p>