<p>Here’s my current situation:</p>
<p>I am an international student living in a foreign country and my parents and I applied to six boarding schools. We applied while asking for financial.</p>
<p>I got into 4 out of the 6 schools I applied to and didn’t get into my first/second choices. Out of the 4 schools, 1 gave financial aid while the others either gave none or put me on the FA waiting list. </p>
<p>My parents based the decision on where I would be going in the Fall on whichever school gives the most financial aid. And unfortunately, it was the school that was my last choice. It’s not that I don’t like the school, but I’ve never really felt strong feelings towards it. Whereas with my first-choice school, I had never felt so strongly about something in my life.</p>
<p>Anyway, so now I am going to be boarding as a 10th grader in the class of 2009 this Fall at a school that is in the TSAO (Ten school Admission Organization). Eventhough I am somewhat happy that I got in, I still feel as though I did not really put as much effort as I could into the applications. I didn’t really take them as seriously as I could have. They always say, ‘you never know what you have until it’s gone’ and I think that was the case with my applications to prep schools. I had the opportunity of a lifetime but since I didn’t work as hard as I could have, I ended up only dissapointing myself. </p>
<p>So I am actually considering at the moment to reapply to my first-choice school next year for Grade 11 admission. I’m not really certain about this, I mean, I could actually love this school I’m going to when I get there and I may find out my first-choice school isn’t really as cracked up as it seemed to be. But as for now, I’m keeping my options open. I predict my parents will strongly dissaprove of my idea but I think that I can probably convince them to allow me to apply if I am really passionate about it. I actually have a few questions that I’d like people to answer please:</p>
<li><p>Do you know of anyone who has transferred between prep schools? How did they do it/find it?</p></li>
<li><p>Would I have to go through the same process as if I had been applying from my current school (ie. SSAT’s, Teacher Recommendations, School Report) The main reason I ask this is that if I do in fact decide to apply my teachers/principal will only have known me for about 2-3 months and I don’t really know if they would be able to make good recommendations as me being a fairly new student.</p></li>
<li><p>What sort of reaction do you think the students/teachers at my current school will have if I applied? My first-choice school isn’t exactly MAIN rivals with the school I’m going to but they do compete against each other fiercely.</p></li>
<li><p>What sort of reaction will the school I’m applying to get if I do apply? Will they think my move is just unnecessary or something. That I’m just being irrational and betraying my current school?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you have any further advice regarding my situation?</p></li>
<li><p>And on another note, how do people find out stories/reputations about boarding schools such as ones mentioned on this board like ‘Miss Porters is a lesbian boot camp’ or ‘the Andover Student President committed suicide three years ago’ or something. Do people know any more? Would current prep school students know all the rumors and stories?</p></li>
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<p>thanks for your help. And by the way, if I do apply again I don’t know if I will get in for sure but I know that my chances will definitely be increased as I will put MUCH MUCH more effort into my app.</p>