<p>My oldest applied to 9 of which 8 were reaches (the usual suspects) and one a safety. It was overwhelming for her and I suspect her applications suffered as a result. </p>
<p>We were novices and did not know the meaning of the word "match".</p>
<p>Now we are beginning the process anew with S. We have a solid list of matches/safeties and two reaches under consideration. It would be very easy for us to choose 2 or 3 match/safeties for him and be done with it. We need FA. He would be content to attend any one of these schools. </p>
<p>So:</p>
<h1>1. How many did you visit and apply to?</h1>
<h1>2. Now that you've been through the process, would you change the number or type (reach,match,safety) of schools?</h1>
<p>D #1 as I recall applied to 5 and D #2 applied to 6 I believe. D #1 chose 5 schools (Middlesex, Peddie, SPS, Choate and Loomis). She did not consider there difficulty in getting in but rather these are the schools I'm interested in and either I get in or I don't. With D#2 we used the more traditional way of choosing schools.</p>
<p>I don't think we would change anything. D #1 had her choice of schools (waitlisted at peddie), and D#2 had her choice of schools other than being waitlisted at Middlesex. As a family the wait list of MX for D#2 may have been a blessing in disguise.</p>
<ol>
<li>Visited 3, applied to 2. Looked at many and narrowed it down after phone conversations with faculty members re: arts programs. </li>
<li>Would not change. 2 was right for us. All family members were willing to use the public high school as back-up if acceptance at these 2 schools wasn't attainable. Honestly, I can't imagine visiting 8-10 schools and doing that many applications. It was exhausting as it was...</li>
</ol>
<p>Goaliegirl applied to 3 schools (2 matches and a safety). School selection was a bit limited based upon who needed goalies and were interested in her, though. 100% acceptance, though. Needing a lot of FA factored into the decision, though eliminating 1 school out of hand. </p>
<p>I think that needing FA can color school application choice (limiting reaches to the most generous schools only). I also think safety schools tend to be more generous with kids who are likely to be in the top 10% of their class, making up for a lack of endowment at times.</p>
<p>Visited 6 schools with D. She applied to 4. Dropped her yesterday at the one which was her clear favorite out of those 4. If we had been desperate for her to do BS that was probably too few. Also, the mix didn't really include any safety so there was some chance of not getting in anywhere. We had some fairly clear criteria by which we sorted and evaluated schools and did have other options if we got the wrong answer from all 4 so didn't need to do more. From a pure practical perspective, application process for the 4 was painful enough, would not have wanted to think about anymore.</p>
<p>Good question as we are going through the same thing. It's so hard! We've been given (by many) the 2-2-2 guide.
2 reaches
2 matches
2 safeties</p>
<p>Narrowing it down from 17 to 10 visits was painful (especially because my ideas weren't exactly the same as my son's). Visits will narrow it down more, but we are leaning towards 2 reaches, 1 safety and 3 matches. </p>
<p>I'm looking forward to seeing what others have to say.<br>
I'd also like to know how many schools you visitied before you applied.</p>
<p>H & I vowed that this time we would have S apply to only 3 and it would be either 3 match/safeties or 2 m/s and one reach.</p>
<p>A match/safety in my book is one with a 50+ acceptance rate that is a good match for S in terms of challenging academics, SSAT score range equivilant to S's, geographic location (meaning for S: plenty of outdoor space for hiking & exploring, water access, rural or suburban location, within 4 hours of home, but 2 hours is better!), and last of all, a baseball team that wins the vast majority of games and has good coaching/training practices (can't help it!).</p>
<p>We are fortunate that we have a good lot of schools that meet our conditions for a match.</p>
<p>creative1--It sounds like you've taken the approach we're considering this time around and it gives me reassurance that finding the few perfect matches and pursuing them may just be the best plan for S.</p>
<p>Linda-
D applied to every school she visited. Our logic was that she'd been through the interview and visit, so why not complete the process?</p>
<p>Visiting 9 schools was exhausting and it became difficult to remember which one had the XXX library or XXX science building.</p>
<p>One BIG downside to lots of visits is that the child becomes overwhelmed by the guidebooks and tours. My D realized which schools were her clear favorites weeks AFTER her interviews, so she couldn't possibly have communicated her strong feelings for the school during the visit.</p>
<p>This is one reason we've visited several campuses over the last couple of years with S for a drive or walk through self-guided tour, usually when the campuses are empty (summer, vacations, etc). We have eliminated several schools from consideration by this process. When S declares, upon entering campus, "I'd never go here.", you've just saved yourself a full day of touring, interviewing, etc.</p>
<p>We are lucky to live in close proximity to many schools, and have the added benefit of having visited some campuses with D years ago, so this approach won't work for everyone.</p>
<p>Here's our problem. My son finally told us what the issue has been all along in terms of academics. Not only is he a bit lazy, but the laziness comes from not being challenged. He never spent time on his homework because it was so easy he felt it was a waste. Soooo....he needs a **very **challenging school academically, yet his personality is a little lazy, so one that's not so intense.<br>
We'll see when we do the visits, right now it's hard for him to say that he's not going to apply somewhere because he likes them all.</p>
<p>LOTS OF SCHOOLS TO TOUR? With lots of schools to visit -- such as the Linda S itinerary -- bring a digital camera. One that fits in your pocket so you don't stand out as major dorks...but do use it. Even just a few select shots will help jog your memory.</p>
<p>SAFETY SCHOOLS? Unless you're in a pinch and your child HAS TO attend a BS, I'm not a big fan of "safety schools." The concept itself suggests a not-so-perfect fitting school and if it is, in fact, the school your child ends up attending, there's a sense that you've "settled" or "compromised." If it's not potentially as good a fit as the other schools you're looking at, why is it on the list? Your local public or private day options should be included in the mix. Unlike college admissions, your child has a place to go to school next year if your BS applications all tank. For college, you need a safety or two. For BS...probably not.</p>
<p>We had thought about doing the drive by's this summer and they just didn't work out. We happened to do a drive by of Suffield and none of us was really very impressed - in the middle of town, no real campus. We mentioned that to a few people at our current school and they said you get a whole differnt feel when you do the tour. But that one is still on the edge of elimination for that very reason. I have been to a few of the campuses for other reasons and that has helped some.</p>
<p>D'yer - Good point on the safety schools. Our public school isn't horrible, but I don't think our son would be happy there. He did a visit day there last spring and came away with new motivation to get good grades. I also think that applying to 3-4 "matches" the chances are pretty good that he'll get into at least one of them with the right amount of financial aid offered. We do have one really good day school here, but at this point, he is not willing to look at it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
SAFETY SCHOOLS? Unless you're in a pinch and your child HAS TO attend a BS, I'm not a big fan of "safety schools." The concept itself suggests a not-so-perfect fitting school and if it is, in fact, the school your child ends up attending, there's a sense that you've "settled" or "compromised." If it's not potentially as good a fit as the other schools you're looking at, why is it on the list? Your local public or private day options should be included in the mix. Unlike college admissions, your child has a place to go to school next year if your BS applications all tank. For college, you need a safety or two. For BS...probably not.
[/quote]
Ouch!</p>
<p>I'm going to disagree with you here. My thinking is that Boarding school is not just about the academics, it is about a different experience. There are things that a kid gets as a boarder that they cannot get at the local public or day school. </p>
<p>Perhaps we disagree on the concept of Safety School. Some people put it as a school with over 50% acceptance rate. I don't. I look at a safety school as a place where your child will be in the top 25% of his/her class. Those top 25% students don't often get turned down by any school, whether it is a Middlesex, Blair, Tabor type or the ones not often mentioned on this site.</p>
<p>I understand the logic of "Why pay for a school only as good as my local options?", but remember boarding school isn't just about the money and the test scores. It isn't about spending money for better college placement or having the pointiest head of the pointy headed kids.</p>
<p>That being said, if you don't see something in a safety school that doesn't say "My child will be a better person because they went here", it is definitely time to cross that one off the list.</p>
<p>And I'll go one step further to say that a family should only apply to 1 safety school (where s/he will be in the top 25%) unless there is a special circumstance (FA comes to mind here) involved. With FA, much of it is how generous the school has to be to get your child. Having options is a good thing in this case. If applying to only 1 safety school, obviously pick the favorite after the tours.</p>
<p>You're right...we're comparing apples to oranges. BS is about a far more comprehensive experience. That doesn't make BS better than a day school. In fact, a more comprehensive mediocre experience is arguably worse. I see no reason to expand any list of schools to include a school just so you're assured that one of your BS selections will come through in the end. </p>
<p>If the school wouldn't make the cut before you look for a safety school, don't add it to the list. There's nothing wrong, per se, with having a "safety" (by any definition) as long as it's a school that's a terrific fit and worthy of applying to even if it wasn't a "safety."</p>
<p>I take exception to the concept that people need to find a safety school for their lists to round them out, not that their lists might happen to include one or more safeties.</p>
<p>I visited eight prep schools and three local day schools, and applied to all of them, which made eleven applications. That was a lot. (i.e. That was too many and came close to driving my parents insane.)
Of the eight I applied to, two were matches and six were reaches. I got into both matches and three of the reaches. Worked out very well in the end, but, in retrospect, I shouldn't have applied to at least two of those reaches. I would reccomend little more than six except in exceptional circumstances.</p>
<p>PCK--Thank you for the honest and excellent feedback. You almost cut your app list in half! (6/11!) Now, if you had eliminated 2 reaches on the front end, would they have been ones you were not admitted to?</p>
<p>When did you complete your apps? Thanksgiving or Christmas break or earlier/later?</p>
<p>If I had eliminated two reaches, they probably would have been two of the ones that I wasn't admitted to (which actually I didn't know at the time). I was waitlisted at Groton, St. Paul's, and Deerfield, and if I had had to choose before, it probably would have been St. Paul's and Deerfield. I wasn't that interested in St. Paul's from the beginning, and Deerfield was too far away from my grandmother's for my parent's and my comfort. Besides, neither of them had fencing. That brings up another point: if you have an extracurricular you really like, you probably shouldn't apply to schools that don't have it. I did, and, interestingly enough, the three that didn't have fencing were the three that waitlisted me. I also reccomend not applying to private day schools unless they really are worth it. After I got into boarding school, and the year was ending, I realized that, if I were going to a local school, I only would have left all my friends and everything for one of the three day schools I applied to.
I finished my applications (put them in the mail) over the Christmas holidays (while I was in Boston, actually.) It was nice, because then during January and Febuary I didn't have to stress out about it, and I was able to double and triple check that everything had been received, but it was rather torturous to have wait for <em>three whole months!!</em> :p for decisions.</p>