After going through the admissions season this year, we discovered something quite disturbing about our kids’ current K-12 school: they make no efforts, beyond the recommendation, to get the student into other good high schools.
One of the BS admissions directors told me that this was unusual, and the AO’s BS routinely had efforts being made by guidance counselors at most schools to get their students placed. For any competitive school, the AO went on to explain that these calls really help the BS prioritize whom they will give admissions offers to, because they obviously want a high yield. In other words, failing to have this call made can doom an otherwise competitive application as there is no assurance that the offer will be accepted.
IMHO, the fact that our children’s current K-12 school doesn’t do this strongly suggests to me that they are trying to promote their own high school vis-a-vis other schools and in an inappropriate way. I don’t necessarily have a problem with them promoting their school, but I do have a huge problem when the student and/or the parents specifically requests our current school to do so, and they refuse, claiming this “is not standard operating procedure.” The clear effect is that almost no student is admitted to any comparable or better school (and our current school itself is considered “elite”, whatever that means). It apparently is “standard operating procedure” for most schools.
At the very least, there seems to be something ethically dubious about a school that would do this, and I am curious what others think. Given what we have seen happen, we are strongly considering changing schools to a K-8 school that is more transparent with high school placement and that does not have an inherent conflict of interest in promoting their own high school.
A friend of mine ran into a similar situation at a 6-12 school. The counselors are focused on college admission, not HS admission. This child did get into a boarding school, so it didn’t hold her back ultimately. But they had to push to get recommendations and documents from the school.
Are you really surprised by this? Beyond sending transcript and recommendations as required, of course they do nothing extra, why would they? Unless they want you to leave that is, in which case they will make some effort. I would be careful with switching to K-8 though, my younger child is at K-8 (older was in K-12) and they still do very little to help you with exmissions. In fact we had issues even with getting transcript out in time to one schools we applied to. They totally rely on families to use their connections, legacies, wealth and other hooks to get their kids into the high schools they want. The families that did rely on the school were mostly unhappy with the results. And unlike with K-12, you don’t have the back up option of just staying where you are if your results are not what you hoped for.
Most middle school counselors are not trained to assist with high school placement but may know a little about the high schools in the area.
One of mine went to a magnet 6-8 middle school, but it happened to be our assigned school so her high school choices were not unknown to the counselors. Most magnet students went to a public high school in the same district or the IB program at one high school; the non-magnet kids all went to their assigned high school. I took mine around to several choices including the IB program, a Catholic school, School of the Arts, and our assigned school, and we liked the assigned school the best. We had to do all the work.
Our neighbor spoke to us about this concern when he heard our child intended to apply to boarding schools. They used an education consultant who told their family not to be too surprised if their son’s school (an independent k-12 day school) turns out to be less than helpful during the application process. He explained that some administrators realize their best and brightest students are wanting to walk out the door to go elsewhere and with them go their test scores. I was appalled to think that a school wouldn’t encourage their students to better themselves and strive for more, but apparently this isn’t all that uncommon. Thankfully, the teachers and administrators at my child’s school (public) were incredibly helpful and supportive.
@eoliphant, I’m glad to hear the outrage. Appalled is the right word: there is something palpably dishonest about this, and I would NEVER have expected deliberate inaction to be used by a school to thwart the wishes of exceedingly bright kids, all of whom did well on grades, scores, ECs etc. It’s very clearly a systemic issue.
Our kids’ current school is an expensive private school with small classes, so there is no question of being overworked etc, @MaineLonghorn.
I find it frankly shocking that a school wouldn’t help out after a specific request from both the parents and the student.
“failing to have this call made can doom an otherwise competitive application as there is no assurance that the offer will be accepted.”
Since when is that assurance the responsibility of the present school? How would they know? When we moved our kids, we made the case. An admin usually represents that, as far as that present school is concerned, the kid is performing well and engaged, etc. It’s not up to them to predict your kid will matriculate. Nor the companion issues of whether you can afford it.
And your kids are now in private. Their focus is on their students, now and continuing, their responsibilities to them. Not your aspirations.
This would be different, imo, if you had to move child for disability issues.
@lookingforward, my understanding is that these calls are routinely made by a student’s current school. I am specifically referring to the situation where exemplary students (and their parents) make an explicit request to the current school to make that call to a particular school, and they refuse to do that. Nothing about that seems right.
What college AO said this? The AOs I have known make an effort to know the high schools and how to assess them and do not ding the students other how they are inadvertently hurt by the system, for having s less than proactive schools. They rate the kids within the context of the school
In most schools, college admissions is only a very small part of the GC’s job. The GCs have to deal with family, medical, personal, behavior issues. Pregnancy, drop out, drugs , prison , these are some of the more pressing issues over college admissions, much less SELECTIVE college issues. It’s a privilege to have counselors specializing and dealing with JUST college issues.
I recently worked in an area where less than half the kids go to college after highschool and most of those who do go, take a class or two from the community college network. Few continue to get a Bachelors degree. State colleges are where the vast majority of the sleepaway college group. Very rarely do they go further than a few hours away or out of state. Those who do, do so because of some familial connection.
Maybe, if your present school ends with the current grade.
But their policies are as their school sets them, not just what a parent wants. A parent whose kid is pulling out. It’s not generally vindictive. We never assumed this was on the current school to do more than represent the current school’s records and any affection, fill out the required forms.
Mine were not moving to BS. In your case, you may need to make the best case you can, in the new applications and any interview. I don’t see how a present school can assure your kid will enroll.
In what universe is there an expectation that the GC drives this process? When I went through the process, the expectation was that the student advocated for him/herself. If a school is the top choice, the applicant should say so.
eta.I guess I should have read all the comments carefully first and acknowledged that I am in agreement with @lookingforward
Other than providing accurate records and any paperwork needed by deadlines, and supplying any other requested information(requested from the BS), the current school has no ethical or other obligation to do more, especially placing a special phone call such as the one you requested. In my opinion it just seems way above and beyond. And I would not expect them to want to go above and beyond for a student who is leaving a private K-12 early.
Boy, can I relate to this. My school (public 9-12) counselors refused to write recommendations (district policy, I guess) and wouldn’t send the transcripts through Gateway–I had to pay to send them through a third party source. It was frustrating, to say the least.
Sometimes I would like to be a fly on the wall and see how the admissions process works.
My child attend an independent school and applied to BS this year. I was surprised that the advising from the school wasn’t actually all that good. We had to do virtually all of the research and legwork ourselves.
I did not expect current school to make any calls on our behalf. I doubt they did, since they never asked at any point what our first choice was. Now it makes me wonder whether other parents requested phone calls on their child’s behalf and what the school’s answer was.
To clarify my “not to be too surprised if their son’s school turns out to be less than helpful during the application process” comment, what I meant was that some schools don’t go out of their way to provide the essentials needed in order for a child to simply apply. Specifically, transcripts and recommendation letters.
For example, the principal of my neighbor’s child ignored requests to provide the principal recommendation letter. When the father questioned the impact an incomplete application could have on their child, their education consultant mentioned that the absence of school-requested info isn’t uncommon and explained one reason why…schools don’t want to lose bright students. That’s understandable, but incredibly unfair to a student in my book. While I understand it would be hard for a counselor/principal to know and provide detailed info on each and every student at their school, at the very least they should be able to provide the basics such as attendance, behavior, and a transcript. I don’t see that as being an unreasonable ask.
I didn’t mean any assistance (phone calls or otherwise) beyond providing information an application asks for.
@CavsFan2003, I am so sorry to hear that. It says a lot about your character that you persisted and didn’t let that deter you from reaching your goal. Way to go!
I think this is being overblown. My kids went to public school K-8. The public middle school wrote a recommendation (nice one I assume since my kids had good results and were good students and community citizens) and they sent the transcript. They did not place any calls to boarding school admissions departments. I doubt many public schools do. Yet, somehow, public school kids are accepted.
Like @skieurope , I firmly believe the onus is on the applicant and his/her family to sell the student to the schools and let them know they are being seriously considered. If an applicant is strong and indicates interest, they will get multiple acceptances.
I think yield rate is a valid concern but not as big a concern as many people think.
My children’s K-8 did an amazing job helping kids with the admissions process and I know it gave the kids a big leg up. They held an individual admissions meeting with each family in the spring of 7th grade, a meeting that included scattergrams to demonstrate what schools the child should be targeting. They discussed interview skills in school and held mock interviews with the kids. If the kid in question had chosen to attend the LPS the mock interview would focus on interviewing for summer jobs. They made sure that in 8th grade every kid had a leadership position so they could put it on their application and talk about it in interviews. They assigned self-reflective essays so the kids would have practice for applications.
I know the head of school was in direct communication with the DORs at at least some of the schools. The K-8 asked us to indicate late in the process whether we had a first choice school, the understanding being that they would advocate hard for us at that particular school. Not everyone got into their first choice but I never saw anyone frozen out and most kids got into one of their top one or two choices.
Secondary school placement was one of the things this school and its peers bragged about. I would expect that in a school that goes through HS there would be a lot less motivation to help the kids place out.
ETA: One of my kids applied to secondary school from the LPS. There was pretty much no help from the school but then I don’t think the prep schools expected it so it was fine.
My kid applied from a public that sent pretty much all of the kids to the regional h.s. Their familiarity with prep schools pretty much was “does he have to take that test?”
They provided transcripts. I suspect the recs were fine but underwhelming - they didn’t really know what to emphasize or what the schools wanted.
Yet… He was accepted at schools that were a good fit. Honestly, the BS know what they are dealing with with sending schools.
I am familiar with the concern that an elite k to 12 doesn’t want to lose its best students to other schools. I think in that case that it’s up to you to have a good case for why you are considering BS.
Hopefully, you DO have a good reason! And if it is something that your current school cannot provide, they are more likely to be gracious.
Private schools are businesses, albeit ones with no profits. Do you know of any other businesses that encourage and help their best customers take their business elsewhere?
In any event, I’m not sure you can blame admissions results on the school. Our public middle school had 1,000+ kids and a single guidance counselor. And while private school counselors are a great back channel for conveying first choice or intent to attend, they are certainly not the only way of conveying that info.