<p>This all sounds great…but I wonder–could a child like the OPs (who sounds a lot like my middle child) who needs significant financial aid get into ANY school without pretty stellar stats? Or is this path one that can be chosen mostly by those who can pay? </p>
<p>We wouldn’t even have considered bs for our kid if we hadn’t thought he had PEA/PA potential–not because we don’t think there are lots of other wonderful schools out there, but because we assumed he wouldn’t get aid at any of them–which, for us, amounts to rejection.</p>
<p>Just curious whether my sense of things is valid or not.</p>
<p>classical–I think when I first looked into bs my feeling where like yours. I looked at schools that had large endowments because I knew that we needed close to 100% FA. As I did the research I found out that many schools not just Hades have money and will be generous with FA if they want your kid. I believe that most schools are not looking for perfection on grades or scores but a child who will “make them proud”. In that sense I mean, take advantage of what bs has to offer and contribute to the community. </p>
<p>I always thought my child “strange”, not in the weird way but truly off beat for the kids around her. Her desire to go outside and play (bringing a book) and not caring about training wheels when she was 7 was not what I thought to be normal. I loved her no less and worked to give her self-confidence and strength to deal with others that would make fun or her. </p>
<p>At bs she doesnt stick out as strange, but the uniqueness that she brings to the community has surely made her a welcome addition. </p>
<p>She was truly admissible to PA and PEA but as we searched more we found that other schools gave her more of what she wanted/needed.</p>
<p>We also thought of the top schools so my d wouldnt be a big fish in a little pond. But we have found that many schools can offer the rigor and challenge that PEA and PA offer but in a different setting.</p>
<p>I think your sense of things is valid on the surface but just not true of all then non-Hades schools.</p>
<p>Alex: but as you point out, your daughter WAS admissable to PA/PEA and chose to go elsewhere. Sure, lots of other schools offer aid; my question is, who gets that aid, even at the non-HADES school: the good all around, but not stellar kid like OP’s, or the stellar one who chooses not to go the HADES route?</p>
<p>WM Dad, thanks for a refreshing thread. The ‘resume-building’ this generation is engaged in leaves me cold. When did it become not enough for the kids to try new things, fail and try something else. Now instead of being on a team, playing and instrument or joining a club, they have to be captain, virtuoso or president. Childhood is short enough as it is. If one more person tells me about a ‘charity’ or ‘club’ their child started, which, in my experience was actally driven by the uber mom or dad, I will scream (or at least roll my eyes.) : )</p>
<p>Neither of my children applied to - or even toured - Exeter or Andover. For both, we looked at what is important - and E and A did not fit. Primarily because they are so big and both my kids wanted a smaller study body.<br>
Yes, you can get good FA at ANY school - even without “stellar” stats.
It’s about finding the right fit.<br>
Your motives are EXACTLY what they should be - smaller classes, teachers that are available, motivated peers, etc. You’ll find all of those things at many, many “less well know” or “not top tier” schools. </p>
<p>@apl: your comments are so spot on, I had to post just to tell you I had exactly the same kind of conversation with an AO at Loomis Chaffee. They do not expect entering students to be entirely polished works, they recognize them as kids and want to encourage them to take risks and try new things as part of the high school experience. </p>
<p>From my own experiences at top tier BS and Ivy, the very fact of their being “considered” top tier messes up a significant portion of the student body. They become risk averse and extremely intellectually conservative. For these students it becomes a sophisticated game of parroting the views of “absolute sources”, whether that be their own well-to-do parents, the views of prestigious alums, or the views of the revered professor on whom the school lays its claim to fame. I find this dynamic actually counterproductive to education and learning. I’m not saying the top tier is exclusively this way, but it is an odd “rebound” effect that I think you only find at the schools where the students adopt for themselves the attitude and identity that they are “the best of the best.” Disappointing, to say the least.</p>
<p>OP, I see you are getting a lot of “it is o.k”'s from this forum because it is just as you expected, but here’s a different perspective. First, I wonder among the things you are looking for for your child as outlined in post #20, which ones are you sure that you won’t get from A or E and are sure you will get from other schools? One can get caught up with preconceptions and it works both ways - one may dismiss non-HADES schools as unworthy and one can have biases against HADES as well. </p>
<p>People like to say that on March 10 if a school rejects our child we’d say “It’s their loss”, but I say if you have no convincing reasons (just like when a school rejects an applicant) to dismiss a top school your child is competitive for admission to, and you wouldn’t even try and have that option available to yourself, it’s your loss.</p>
<p>Like I said, it IS o.k. (and you will get that from people wearing red or blue or otherwise), and this is just different point of view - to avoid the boringly one-sidedness of the thread.</p>
<p>DAndrew – I think the issue is that most people missed that fact that the title of the thread is a bit tongue-in-cheek… Obviously it’s o.k. to apply to other schools and only a tiny % of boarding school students end up applying to PA and/or PEA but they (and the other “top” schools) seem to dominate this discussion board. I was just making the point that most kids aren’t fully formed, super high achieving beings at every aspect of their lives at the age of 14. To focus only on those schools or admission to them to the exclusion of other fine boarding school choices that may be more appropriate (i.e. a “better” fit) given the selection criteria of that student is doing a disservice to the vast majority of prospective boarding school student and their parents.</p>
<p>The truth is students who don’t have perfect scores/publications/all As, “charities” get into A and E, and those students who do have nearly perfect scores and all the rest don’t.</p>
<p>It’s taken me awhile to get over the grief of having a stellar student not get into his first choice top flight school, but he reached for a star and got another so called top tier and as much as I hate to admit it, may be a better fit for him as he is excelling and loves his school. I agree with the sentiment, Love the school who loves you. It may be a match made in heaven.</p>
<p>I recommend Carol Dweck’s book, “Mindset” for anyone who wants to follow up on Big5’s thoughts on risk aversion. I really enjoyed it, and found it a nice addition to my Alfie Kohn bookshelf. :)</p>
<p>Class…I think money will go to the kids that the schools want, regardless of stats. If your child fills a void, and I dont mean star football or star swimmer, but lets say, loves latin and plans on continuing the study at bs then they will have another student to fill that class. Do they really need another student in 3 yr french? Kids that have an interest in “odd” things bring diversity to the community. </p>
<p>I think my “strange” child is even stranger because she loves chinese and japanese, and she is a african-american kid from the big city with no connection to asia—lol. She has no one in her past that has even been to asia except her grandparents–go figure. I believe that her “strangeness”, different from the typical student and her ability to articulate this made her attractive to schools. </p>
<p>Latin is a very popular course in private elementary and middle schools. In my opinion, it’s unlikely that a love of Latin is unusual in the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Alex–could be. I’d still need to hear from someone with less impressive stats than your daughter’s to be convinced.</p>
<p>Otherwise, this whole thread strikes me as too idealistic (and maybe a little condescending and elitist) for most of the population of the US. Sure it’s great to praise those who take the less grade-obsessed path; but is that really a path someone who needs significant FA can take to boarding school? IMO, that student needs great grades AND SSAT AND and a passion/talent to get in. Those kids deserve respect, not the judgment that their priorities are skewed.</p>
<p>That’s interesting, because I’m pretty sure that there are more students taking Latin than French at my kid’s school. It may be because Latin is stressed in the feeder schools, or that parents know that studying Latin is good for vocabulary building. And Chinese is definitely more popular than French! I don’t think they even offer German any more…</p>
<p>classicalmama, I don’t think anyone is casting aspersions on the students who attend PA and PEA by stating that their child isn’t interested in those two schools.</p>
<p>^^Yeah. This is like having a meeting in a room full of people plenty of whom are wearing or shopping for red or blue. Then the host of the meeting says “Today’s topic is why I don’t like wearing red or blue”. Legit topic but starting from there, every theory about why purple/orange/black are better sounds like criticisms to red or blue to the people wearing red or blue. Can you blame them? Not that they care. Red/blue are currently seller’s market, and people who are already wearing them couldn’t care less, and people who want to wear them are more than happy there’s less competition. The meeting nonetheless is a bit strange.</p>
<p>I don’t think the topic’s strange at all. Many more threads are started about Exeter and Andover than are started about any other schools. Yet many parents come to CC seeking information on other schools. </p>
to be convinced.</p>