<p>Dear CCers,</p>
<p>I haven't been on CC in a while. I am in eighth grade, and I applied to Choate, Loomis, and Taft this year for full FA. I was accepted to Loomis without any FA, and I was waitlisted at Choate and Taft (I never got off the waitlist). I honestly believe my lack of FA/waitlists were due to my 62% Math SSAT score. Otherwise, I was pretty stellar (96% Verbal SSAT). If I reapply to the same schools next year, how will Loomis take that? Will they reject me because I had to turn them down this year? Also-- what schools are particulary generous with FA? Also, how do I approach my parents with the idea of reapplying? Boarding school was a new concept to our family, and my mom wasn't even into the idea when I applied this year. P.S. I plan to study a LOT this summer and bring my Math score up. Thanks!</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation with my SSAT scores. They pretty much sucked. I’m pretty certain that if you reapply next year you will have a better chance of getting accepted to all of the above schools, and more of a chance for financial aid because you showed how dedicated you were to said schools. Be sure that if you can include a letter or something of the sort to Loomis explaining why you had to turn them down. Explain that you needed financial aid, but do so politely and gently. They will understand. </p>
<p>As for schools with generous FA, I’d look into a different range of school. Most single-gender schools are very good at making sure every accepted student can attend. Also some lessser known but still just as great schools have good sized endowments that help with financial aid. For a list of the top school endowments try: [Boarding</a> Schools with the Largest Endowments - Boarding School Review](<a href=“http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/largest_endowments/sort/1]Boarding”>Boarding Schools with the Largest Endowments (2023))
and for a list of the top endowments per student check: [Boarding</a> Schools with the Highest Endowment Per Student - Boarding School Review](<a href=“http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/endowment_per_student/sort/1]Boarding”>Boarding Schools with the Highest Endowment Per Student (2023)) which contains some lesser known schools.</p>
<p>For approaching your parents, just express to them how important these schools are to you, and what it would mean for you to go there. My parents weren’t all that into the idea when I applied (twice) but as soon as they saw the very generous grant I recieved, they immediately changed their mind. Hang in there, they’ll come around. Just be percistant (but not annoying) about why you want to go so much. </p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>We’re like… THE SAME! Except I got into NMH. and my math was a 45 <em>coughthatsridiculouslolcough</em></p>
<p>my math was a 54 and i ended up getting in lawrenceville. but my verbal and the other one were 98 and 99s</p>
<p>Thanks so much! Samantha, how did you convince your parents to let you reapply before they realized how much FA you were given? Will I have a better chance at reapplying to schools if I’ve previously been waitlisted?</p>
<p>LOLZbabe, I love your story. It makes me happy how you got off the waitlist. 
Anywho, I’m applying again too. I’m in similar cirumstances. I’m pretty sure it ups your chances and shows committment to the schools. Get that SSAT score up, though!</p>
<p>Yeah, I would think you’d have a better chance of acceptance at the schools you’ve been waitlisted at. It shows how dedicated you are to said schools. This year they might not have accepted you simply because there wasn’t enough space. Next year there’s space and they already have established that you’re more than qualified to go there by waitlisting you!</p>
<p>I didn’t really need to convince my parents. They were never completely for it, but they were willing to allow me to apply. I showed them just how dedicated I was, and proved I wanted it enough to try again. My parents were really mostly just afraid that being rejected so many times would just crush my dreams and depress me, and I pretty much just showed them that it only encouraged me more. Try to explain to them why you want to go to the schools, show them the viewbooks and allow them to see what the shools are all about, that might help them along. A tough point to explain is how the financial aid grants work. Up until I got mine my dad was convinved it was a loan we needed to pay back. </p>
<p>Prove to your parents that you really want this. I did the entire application process myself, from parent forms (my mom was too “busy” and my dad gave me permission to fill them myself and he’d review for anything that might be incorrect) to essays. If that’s what it takes, don’t be afraid to do that. Set up your interviews yourself, study for the SSAT on your own, don’t push your parents to be more involved then they want to be if you feel that might turn them away from the idea. It’s good to let them have a say in your education, it’s partially their decision where you’ll end up going to school, but for the sake of applying it may be best for them to take a step back and allow you to show just how much you want this. </p>
<p>They’ll pick up on your drive and it will be very hard for them to say no to something you’ve worked so hard on. And a nice financial aid grant couldn’t hurt either.</p>
<p>Pinkdragonfly, I have three words: Apply to Peddie. You are guaranteed FA there, and it is a fantastic school.</p>
<p>Thanks so much, guys! Are there any other schools with a particularly large endowment that offer lots of FA?</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but check out this: [Private</a> Schools - Data and Information About Private Schools](<a href=“http://privateschool.about.com/]Private”>http://privateschool.about.com/)</p>
<p>This website has a lot of really good info from an expert.</p>
<p>I think Hotchkiss would be worth consideration. </p>
<p>Besides the fact that it’s a great school, it’s endowment is HUGEEE for a school with only around 600 students… Roughly 400 million last time I checked. (lots of donations from very successful alumnae help make this possible.) </p>
<p>Also, from my experience applying there, Hotchkiss seems to be one of those schools that manages to see past numbers and really predict whether or not a student will meet success not by looking only at their GPAs and SSAT scores, but also their personality. This is why they have such a truly diverse student body filled with all sorts of amazing individuals. Hotchkiss is a school where all your peers will be beyond smart, but not all will be robots spittin’ out 4.0 GPAs and 99th percentile SSAT scores. You may consider me biased, but for this reason, I think that the Hotchkiss student body represents diversity in a way that no other top tier BS could ever replicate.</p>
<p>So ya… Look at Hotchkiss. It’s a great place to be. :)</p>
<p>Why did you say “alumnae”? LOL</p>
<p>Here’s a particularly interesting page on that Private Schools web site:
[Top</a> Boarding Schools - Top Boarding Schools in the U.S.](<a href=“http://privateschool.about.com/od/schools/tp/topboardingschools.htm]Top”>Top Boarding Schools in the U.S.)</p>
<p>I love facbrat!
This is so strange that you did so well on the verbal, and yet so…eh…on the math. It’s usually the opposite way around universally. I guess you read a lot, huh!</p>
<p>I’m considered really strange by some of my classmates because I find analogies really easy and fun. I got in the 99% for verbal on the SSAT, no joke. My math was like 78%, good, considering I had no idea what half of the stuff on the test even was.</p>
<p>2^^I wouldn’t say universally. I got pretty much the same scores just my math was way more atrocious.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the math percentile is based on kids taking the test who did better than you, not your actual score. So a 78% was probably, scorewise, very good–my kid was in the mid-80’s with a 750, which means he didn’t miss much. So most of you scoring in the 70’s or above are actually probably doing quite well on the test–there are just lots of kids applying to prep school who have taken advanced math and who missed maybe 1 or 2 fewer questions than you did.</p>
<p>^^…which is why kids who have a math percentile in the 70s or 80s can still have an overall in the 90s. They should really raise the ceiling on the math section so that it’s more in synch with the verbal and reading sections. Ten wrong on analogies can still produce a score in the high 90s percentile while ten wrong on math would probably put you in the low 70s or lower. Too many kids do extremely well on the math. They should make it harder. As it is, if a student is aiming for a score in the 90s, they can only miss 2, maybe 3 questions. There is a similar trend with the SAT. Apparently, a LOT more people are good at math than are good at verbal.</p>
<p>I had the same thought, neato–but works for our verbal-oriented household as is :).</p>
<p>Neato, I think that may reflect the composition of the test-taking pool. It’s really an international test, with all the applicants from Asia. I suspect that if you saw a by-country breakdown of the scores, the applicants from Asia would score very well on the math sections, and not as well on the verbal sections, which makes sense, as they are mostly not native speakers of English. Conversely, the American students (in the aggregate) probably do much better on the verbal sections than on the math sections. </p>
<p>I have to think that the candidates’ preparation and background is taken into account. That would also explain why some parents get so indignant when some applicant with “much lower scores” is accepted over their children. They don’t know the full context of the applications, whereas the admissions offices do.</p>