<p>Congratulations Pan, your story makes a lot of sense. Even in the NYC day school arena which has been even crazier than boarding schools, many schools are still quietly accepting applications. I think most schools are on pins and needles about how many will fall out before September. For FP waitlist students, this is a year it won’t be over until the bitter end.</p>
<p>hmom, does that include the Daltons and Collegiates and Chapins and Trinities and Horace Manns of the world?</p>
<p>hmom, clear your inbox!</p>
<p>Intuitively, this is the year for FPs but for us, it remains elusive. My D’s a great candidate–3.9 GPA, 90% SSAT, AllStar athlete in 2 sports + lots of other ECs, great recs and good interview skills, comes from excellent private day school, and did I mention FP? We don’t have a school for her for next year; we are miffed. We’ll probably make some calls to consider rolling options.</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds like a stellar candidate! I assume that you are interested in the NE, because she applied to HADES. I suggest that you consider inquiring at every school except the top six to eight ones. I would call Loomis, NMH, Blair, Brooks, Pomfret, Tabor, Berkshire, Peddie, Concord, Kent, and there are many others. She will certainly find a school.</p>
<p>She is a GREAT candidate…Bershire has rolling admission as does Governor’s.<br>
Then a host of others where a SSAT of more than 60% is a big plus…
However given her stats, I would call a few tier two schools and see if they are interested.</p>
<p>Where will you son attend? I’m rather curious.</p>
<p>erlanger, you are not alone. I’ve heard several stories like yours. FP is a help, but not an automatic by a long shot.</p>
<p>My niece will be a freshman at [The</a> Masters School](<a href=“http://www.mastersny.org/]The”>http://www.mastersny.org/) next Fall!</p>
<p>erlanger – What are your daughter’s 2 sports? Some boarding schools have strong records in certain sports.</p>
<p>Pan, it’s the same as with boarding schools, the very top should have no problem with long lists of FP’s on the waitlist, but just below the top it falls off fast.</p>
<p>How did you contact the schools?</p>
<p>Yes hmom. What is striking is how precipitously it falls off once you get past the top few schools!</p>
<p>pan – Your son was a desirable full-pay candidate with grades and SSAT’s that placed him at or above the 50% group of the accepted student pool at the schools he applied to during the second round. You also said that you come from the south. While coming from the south is not a hook, schools like to say that they have students from xx states; I think coming from the south helped. </p>
<p>While being a full-pay undoubtedly helped this year, I also remember that there was someone on this board trying to decide from among Mercersburg, Blair, and Loomis during the summer 3 years ago. Last year, Exeter even put on its website that they still had openings for Juniors. However, someone who needs financial aid would be wise to apply during the regular round of admissions and to apply to a range of schools.</p>
<p>Thank you for telling your story. I hope you help some waiting list applicants move forward. I’m glad that things worked out so well for you and your son.</p>
<p>Pan - Thanks so much for the post. It is good to hear about your son’s choices and what a supportive parent you are.</p>
<p>To the poster who wondered how to get a student to go through it all over again after rejection, I framed applying to boarding schools as a Practical Life skill (like in Montessori classrooms.) I told her we weren’t focussed on the outcome, but that by going through the process we would gain more understanding of the college application process. Not that it wasn’t puling teeth to get the essays from her…</p>
<p>Pan,</p>
<p>I’m glad it worked out well for you. I don’t know specifically which schools you are talking about in each category, but it is a little known secret that aside from the top tier schools, most schools have openings through May and sometimes into the summer for full pay students. Kent has always been like that, and I routinely recommend it to students in the summer, same with NMH, Loomis, Pomfret, etc. </p>
<p>I have not, however, found schools like Lawrenceville, Exeter, etc. to have many, if any spots after the deadline. They usually stick to their wait list and use that if a student drops out over the summer. You can apply late for that wait list, but the chances are slim.</p>
<p>Here is another fact that might surprise some of you: There are many boarding schools that never fill up AT ALL! You can call them a week before school starts and get a spot. You can call them in October and start in the Nov term. And some of them are really excellent schools. I suspect that with the bad economy, there will be even more schools in this category.</p>
<p>newyorker22, sent you a PM.</p>
<p>Bumping this thread from 2009 for more recent applicants…</p>
<p>This is a very interesting thread - thanks for bumping it, @SevenDad.</p>
<p>I do think it bears remembering that the spring of 2009 was an extremely dark economic time.</p>
<p>From the Wikipedia entry “Late 2000s Financial Crisis”:
"The US stock market peaked in October 2007, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average index exceeded 14,000 points. It then entered a pronounced decline, which accelerated markedly in October 2008. By March 2009, the Dow Jones average reached a trough of around 6,600. It has since recovered much of the decline, exceeding 12,000 for most of the first half of 2011.”</p>
<p>The DJIA closed at 12,720 last Friday, Jan. 20.</p>
<p>I would guess that applications were greatly affected by the economic crash of late 2008, and the continuing fallout in spring 2009. I would also guess that the schools experienced much lower than normal yields, as families had to make decisions not knowing if their jobs were secure, or if their investments would continue to decline. And it is also possible that schools lost currently enrolled students, who couldn’t afford to continue in light of the economic uncertainty.</p>
<p>Three years after this thread, I expect that the schools have adjusted their calculations and have a pretty good “feel” for their yields. I know that last year there did not seem to be lots of movement off of waitlists.</p>
<p>I do not have any kind of inside information - these comments are just my own thoughts and observations. But I don’t think it would be wise for anyone to believe that late applications are a great strategy for acceptance. Possible though? Yes.</p>
<p>In the proud tradition of seeing what you want to see, what I got out of it was the “think outside the acronym” message…which I think rings true regardless of economic climate ;-)</p>