I go to High School in Virginia and I have an A average with a 4.2/4.5 GPA from freshman year only taking one AP and it was my lowest grade as an 85. My extracurriculars are 10 years of basketball, 9 years of soccer, 2 years of lacrosse, 2 years working at my family’s insurance agency, and 1 year leading a club based around robotics and technology and leading the club in community service opportunities around my county. My school does not have a great reputation with only 1 kid a year(maybe) going ivy league, but is it worth me transferring to a boarding school and can I get into a boarding school like Exeter, Andover, Hotchkiss, etc.? (Just finished 1st semester with all of my grades except my spanish above a 94 and My math and engineering classes with a 100)
I’m no expert on this subject matter, but here goes.
If your end goal is only to get to an Ivy League college, no. From what I can tell, you seem like a good student and probably would be able to try to get into an Ivy League. Going to a boarding school won’t increase your chances. (I think, I’m not 100% sure.)
If you have other reasons for wanting to apply to boarding school, then I think you should try. Applying for junior year is very competitive, but to quote somebody on this forum, I can’t remember who, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s almost like practice for college applications. It’s similar enough to boarding school applications.
Thanks, also that quote is originally from Michael Jordan.?
Not to split hairs, but I believe it was Michael quoting Wayne Gretzky. :).
Back to the OP – are you thinking about this for next year? If so, just be aware that you are right up against the deadlines and would need to get into action pretty quickly. Not to create alarm or stress but just didn’t want you casually checking things out to find out in a week or two that you missed your chance. Are you familiar with the deadlines and the requirements of application? If not, I would do that research immediately and decide if you want to go for it. There will be folks who would say “that’s crazy! it’s too late!” But I would say: if you want to do it, go for it. Grab a cup of hot chocolate and start reviewing and researching and making a to-do list today.
Transferring in as a junior can be rough grade wise. Especially coming from a weak public school. If an Ivy League is your goal, transferring into a much harder school, likely getting a bunch of B’s junior year, isn’t going to help you.
Is there any chance you can repeat sophomore year? I still think if ivy placement is the goal this isn’t the best path. To go ivy from one of those boarding schools you need a hook (recruited athlete, legacy) or you need to be top 10% of your class.
At my sons school 2 junior transfers are looking at schools like Miami, Lehigh, trinity. They are smart lovely kids but couldn’t get the grades for an ivy while adjusting to bs.
Despite what others on the thread have said so far, attending boarding school is a MASSIVE ADVANTAGE. Look up u/WilliamTheReader on Reddit. He is a former anonymous application reader from a T5 University (his credentials have been verified by Reddit staff) and he says attending the feeder schools is the #1 easiest way for an unhooked applicant to get in. Also, according to him, legacy isn’t a hook unless your parents are actively involved in the community or have made lots of donations. One of the economists in the Harvard lawsuit developed a model that correctly predicted one’s admission decision 70% of the time, based on over 200 factors, including school attended and legacy preference. While 5% of all applicants are admitted and 33% of legacies are admitted, the model predicted that if legacy preference were removed, 26% of legacies would still be admitted. So the advantage is 33% vs 26%, not 33% vs 5%. Also, this is mainly due to the facts that 1) legacies had all-around better applications according to the ratings assigned by admissions officers, and 2) legacies are much more likely to attend feeder schools than other applicants. Even making a massive donation or being a child of a faculty member isn’t a guarantee anymore: only 35% of applicants whose families were on the top donor list (meaning they donated at least $10,000,000) were admitted, and only 40% of children of faculty members were admitted.
Correction: a FEEDER school, not just any boarding school
Also, I shouldn’t say unhooked, because feeder school is the largest hook one can have besides recruited athlete and maybe even URM.
According to William The Reader, the standards to get admitted from a feeder school are MUCH LOWER than the standards for students from average public schools.
Correction: what I meant to say two posts ago is that attending a feeder school may be an even greater hook than URM
He’s an admissions consultant sharing his opinion. Take it as you will.
He’s an admissions consultant NOW, but he used to be an admissions officer at a T5 university.
Being a former AO does not mean one is in tune with what is happening now. Michele Fernandez was also an admissions officer at Dartmouth before writing A is for Admission, which people still reference on this site (and reddit and prep scholar, etc.) even though she has not stepped foot into an admissions office since my dad was applying to colleges.
While the rest of academia moves at a glacial pace, admissions has changed dramatically over the past several cycles. So my point, which I will not further debate since that’s a violation on this site’s rules, is that users can take what he says (or you say or I say) and decide how applicable it is to today’s environment.
Hmm. Attending a ”feeder” school is a massive advantage if you’re in the top 10% of the class. Maybe top 15%? The middle of the pack kids at our bs are absolutely NOT getting into ivys. many of them were top students at the schools they came from.
True.
@one1ofeach are you sure you attend a feeder school? According to the college matriculation data for the Class of 2018 at Phillips Andover (in 2018-2019 school profile), 58% of them attended T20 Universities or T10 liberal arts college.
I found this by looking at the exact numbers of students that matriculated at each T20 university/T10 Liberal arts college in the profile and dividing by the total number of students. Not all boarding schools are feeder schools. I’m only referring to the top boarding schools.
I most certainly do not attend a feeder school as I am in my 40’s. However I said ivy, not top 20 uni or top 10 lac, as the op mentioned ivy as a goal.
I have had (crazy) friends do huge spreadsheets with the goal of figuring out how to get the best outcome for their kids. Adults whose job it is to model outcomes, etc. The consensus from those is, in our area, public schools have an edge once you exclude the kids who aren’t going to college no matter what.
You may not live in an area where the best public highschools are sending 10++ kids to Harvard every year, but I do.
And yes, my kids attend schools where they used to simply call Harvard and Yale and give them the list of boys who’d be along in the fall. However, times are changing. I have noticed that the grading rigor at my sons school is pumping out uber qualified kids but possibly hampering college admissions.
@ChemAM
Perhaps to clarify you can let us know which schools are on your list of top boarding schools?