<p>Can anyone suggest a good number of schools to apply to?</p>
<p>My daughter applied to five, got into three and rejected at two.
My older son applied to four and got into all four. </p>
<p>However both of them are in college now (junior and freshman) so I am wondering if the recommended number is different. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>The admit rates at the most competitive schools have decreased in the last few years. If you have a list of schools that includes a few that have higher acceptance rates, then 6 ought to do it. Since this is your 3rd time around, you will probably have a sense of which schools really want your child based on reactions from Admissions, so you might be able to do fewer than 6. I've only been/done that once, so take my suggestion with this in mind.</p>
<p>how do I find out the current admit rates? -- are they posted on the websites?
we are visiting six.</p>
<p>I would say the number of schools applied to should be no more than 5 with 1 being a safety (where you are in the top decile of applicants), at least 1 other being in the top quartile of applicants, and up to 3 more where you are reaching.</p>
<p>For those who are FA dependent, the applicant should be in the upper 50% of accepted applicants (not just applicants) for all applications. If you chew on admissions offices long enough with your GPA/test scores/etc. you should be able to get a feel for where you fall into their pool.</p>
<p>Since many schools ask where else you are applying, having a long list of other schools makes you look less interested in each place you are applying.</p>
<p>Plus, you will want to visit all of the schools you are seriously applying to and that takes time, so 5 probably is the practical limit for most families.</p>
<p>drnancie, you look like you've been doing a good job as judged by your acceptance rates. I wish you continued luck with your 3rd child.</p>
<p>Probably the most consistent for admit rates is Petersons at <a href="http://www.pertersons.com%5B/url%5D">www.pertersons.com</a> . However, I think these are from 2005. Some school websites will let you know how many applicants applied for how many spots. However, not every accepted applicant goes to that school, so you cannot use this as an admit rate. The information on <a href="http://www.boardingschoolreview%5B/url%5D">www.boardingschoolreview</a> is inconsistent. Some of the information has been updated recently, but not every line item was updated. So you really cannot tell whether or not the admit rates are up-to-date.</p>
<p>I completely agree about the time it takes-- with my second, I felt as if I spent every weekend in the car going somewhere for months. Also, some schools change a lot even in a couple of years, so four of the six we have been to before, and one we will be going to for the third time. </p>
<p>here is a big question though. we are going to look at day schools which we did not do the other two times. We both work full -time, and could not manage the logistics of transporting kids in various directions. Since the older two are now in college, we are thinking we could manage having one at a local private day school- some of the good ones are about 45 minutes away from us. Is this going to negatively impact how schools view us if we mention that we are also looking at day schools? I am thinking that it shouldn't because we did send the older two to boarding school.</p>
<p>I have no insight on how bs adcoms will react to day schools. However, you should look at the acceptance date of the days schools to which your son will apply. They are probably earlier than March 10th. You might need to discuss with the day school admissions if they would extend an offer of acceptance to early April, after revisits. Last year, we considered 2 day schools. One said that they would extend an acceptance to after revists, the other said it would only extend an acceptance to around March 12th. In the end, my son decided boarding school was for him, and he did not apply to any day schools. I don't know if they are close to where you live, but you might consider Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY and Noble & Greenough (sp?) SW of Boston (I think it's Dedham). Both offer 5-day boarding.</p>
<p>I'm applying to Andover, SPS, Deerfield, Choate, and Groton, plus one or two day schools.</p>
<p>My d has a list as long as her arm. When it's all said and done she will probably apply to four or five. They will range in accept range from 20's to 60's percent wise and then let the chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>JK, just a reminder, you do know that Groton and Choate make their decisions with the need for FA in mind. Just a friendly reminder</p>
<p>PP: In our experience all of them do certainly for internationals. There is a fixed FA budget. The first tier schools have about enough endowment to provide aid for 30-35% of the student body at average aid of around $15-20,000. If you need more than average aid say a full ride, there is at least one kid possible two that will get "bumped", so in practice the decision to Waitlist or not to Waitlist is somewhat Solomon like. Generally the schools seem to be evolving to simply rejecting you if they do not have money for you. Our experience ( 2 separate applicants with about 12 applications between them to first tier schools) was: 2 acceptances, 2 waitlist, 8 rejections.</p>
<p>I wouldn't look at acceptance rates when judging my chances of acceptance.</p>
<p>As we all know more kids are applying to the high profile prep schools than ever (just like HYP), so the reject numbers can very well be fluff.</p>
<p>And even with a good chance of acceptance (given where your grades and test scores measure up against the averages), if you are FA dependent many schools will accept you and only offer an unrealistically low FA number (trying to see how many quality kids they can get without spending as much FA money - hey they have to spend it carefully). They admit more than they can actually take in with this method, knowing that only a small fraction will accept (putting themselves in hock up to their necks). Many universities will do the same thing.</p>
<p>So the acceptance rate (even for a certain GPA/test score) is still not the best indicator of certainty of being able to attend.</p>
<p>I say that looking at where your GPA/test score/etc match up against the current student population, could yield a good formula for your likelyhood of getting accepted with a good FA packages.</p>
<p>Let me throw out this formula for discussion:</p>
<p>100% minus (Percentile of ranking compared to current students stats) equals (%chance of getting denied or admitted with inadequate FA)</p>
<p>If you would be in the 90% percentile of the students who have been admitted and actually attended a school in recent years past, your chances of a denial or admittance with inadequate FA would be 10%.</p>
<p>Taking this to many top tier BSs - being in the top 10% of their class admissions is like having almost straight A's, being in the high 90 percentiles on SSATs and having execellent references/extra curics. Not an easy task, but there are no guarantees in life.</p>
<p>If you are a full-paying student, you can probably halve your chance of denial in this formula.</p>
<p>Just a reminder, this formula is what seems to make sense to this poster and is in no way official. It is intended as food for thought and discussion. Please don't read anything personal into it.</p>
<p>Hackley is close enough by that we could do five day boarding. the other one isn't. </p>
<p>I sort of thought though that five day boarding wasn't a great idea because of social relationships etc. would love to know if anyone has any experience with them.</p>
<p>I just checked about Hackley. It seems only about thirty kids board and primarily frmo New York City. That is really different from going to a boarding school.</p>
<p>Hackley has a great reputation, so I thought I would put it out there. I didn't realize that the boarding population was so small. I knew someone whose son boarded there, and he was happy with the program. Both parents worked and the commute was 45-50 minutes to home.</p>
<p>What I meant as accept rate and choosing schools was based on schools that seem to fit nicely with the student. After looking at fit, then we would choose a range. Kinda like reach, safety, and match. Historically,everyone knows that I'm about fit. This is why I think some students have bad outcomes with prep schools, they are looking at prestige more than anything, later to find out that they get all rejects from schools that accepts 20%.</p>
<p>I think we agree on this prepparent.</p>
<p>I like to think of safety as a school where you are will be in the top 10% of the class, a match where you are in the 40th to 60th percentile and a reach where you are in the bottom 25 percent of class from an academic perspective.</p>
<p>Of course, fit goes way beyond academics. Size, location (city/rural), extracurriculars, boarding vs. day, etc. all go into fit.</p>
<p>Getting back on topic - I'm amazed at how many "fits" people find and end up applying to so many schools. I think many people should look more carefully at ALL of their priorities (not just HYP admission) when determining fit. That takes a lot of introspective thought about what you value in life and what makes you happy now. I think that would help pare the number of applications down considerably.</p>
<p>It seems to me that a school with a 20% acceptance rate can be viewed as a reach for almost all candidates. In general, candidates do not apply to a school unless they believe they can be accepted. Even if you assume that 20 - 50% are really not what the school wants, you still have 50 - 80% qualified. These schools have more qualified applicants than they have places for them.</p>
<p>I think CCer's are a unique group. I have been on this thread for a little over two years and I think for the most part the students on CC are highly motivated. They are also name recognition "hogs", I mean this in a nice way. However, I do believe they may not be the usual bs candidate. If CC was a microcosm of bs, you would wonder how the heck any bs beyond 20 or so schools would have any applications. Apparently there are a sufficient number of students for the many schools not mentioned on CC.</p>
<p>I've always thought the typical highachiever's prep school list: AESD, is silly. It's hard to believe the person who would be happy at SPS would also love Andover. My focus was on the larger, broader schools. My brother, looking now, wants small, rural and nurturing.</p>
<p>andover, exeter, deerfield what is s?</p>