Official 2019 Prep School Stats/Ec's Thread

Prep School Admissions
42

Accepted: Choate, Deerfield, Hotchkiss, St. Andrews
Rejected: Loomis
Wait listed: Groton, Mercersburg
Likely Attending: I don’t know yet, waiting for revisit days

Stats:
• SSAT/ISEE/TOEFL/PSAT: 76% or 2115 (R – 61%, V-83%, Q – 71)
• GPA Unweighted/Weighted: N/A
• Rank: school top 10% in school
• Other stats:

Subjective:
• Interviews: all were excellent
• Essays: Hotchkiss, Groton, St. Andrews – were just ok, Choate, Deerfield, Mercersburg, and Loomis
• Math Rec: Blind – probably 9.5/10, teacher really likes me
• English Rec: Blind – 10/10, one of my favorite teachers, and maybe one of her favorite students
• Personal/Extracurricular Rec: Blind- Dance recommendation; don’t really know how that went but I think it was good
• Principal/Counselor Rec: Blind - 8/10, principal is new this year, doesn’t really know me that well
• Sports (if any): Volleyball, Track and Field
• Instruments (if any): Flute
• Other ECs (if any): Dance, Student Government leader for 3 years
• Hook: African-American

Location/Person:
• State or Country: US
• Current School Type: Private
• Ethnicity: African American
• Gender: Female
• Grade Applying For: 9
• Age: 13
• Financial Aid/Full Pay: FA

Strengths: Interviewing

Weaknesses: SSAT

Why do you think you were accepted/rejected/waitlisted?
Accepted: bc of my people skills and great interviewing, and bc of my leadership skills
Wait listed: bc I didn’t really show interest but still did well during the interviews
Rejected: bc they didn’t have enough money to offer me

43

Accepted: Gunnery, Millbrook, Northwood, Winchendon
Rejected: none
Wait listed: Berkshire, governor’s
Likely Attending: Northwood

Stats:
• SSAT/ISEE/TOEFL/PSAT: 2210
• GPA Unweighted/Weighted: 3.9
• Rank: n/a
• Other stats:

Subjective:
• Interviews: Berkshire and Millbrook were definitely the best. Northwood was good to. Others were just average

• Essays: good I think?
• Math Rec: blind but good I think although teacher only knew me a couple months
• English Rec: excellent. My teacher told me how she raves about me
• Personal/Extracurricular Rec: n/a
• Principal/Counselor Rec: guidance counselor. All my recs were blind but have known her a while saw probably good.
• Sports (if any): Hockey, lacrosse
• Instruments (if any):
• Other ECs (if any): best buddies
• Hook: hockey goalie would be only potential hook

Location/Person:
• State or Country: Northeast
• Current School Type: public HS
• Ethnicity:
• Gender: Male
• Grade Applying For: 9
• Age: 14
• Financial Aid/Full Pay: FA

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Why do you think you were accepted/rejected/waitlisted: guessing slots they needed filled and amount of FA needed was the reason for being waitlisted

44

Accepted: Exeter, Deerfield, Groton, Hotchkiss, SPS, Choate
Rejected: none
Wait listed: Andover
Likely Attending: Exeter

Stats:
• SSAT/ISEE/TOEFL/PSAT: 98/V 91/Q 93/ R 99
• GPA Unweighted/Weighted: 4.0
• Rank: n/a
• Other stats: n/a

Subjective:
• Interviews: 9/10, Most of my interviews were pretty good, but my Andover interviewer wasn’t actually an admissions officer, which could have effected my chances. Exeter and Groton were my best!
• Essays: 10/10
• Math Rec: 8/10, my teacher didn’t particularly like me, but I was doing very well in the class
• English Rec: 10/10, my teacher loved me and showed me my rec!
• Personal/Extracurricular Rec: 9/10, blind
• Principal/Counselor Rec: 10/10, solid relationship but still blind
• Sports (if any): field hockey (8 years, club and school)
• Instruments (if any): piano, violin
• Other ECs (if any): academic team, quiz bowl, theatre, community service chair of drama department, stich for a cause club president, Quiz Bowl starter, top state test scores
• Hook: Really under repped area

Location/Person:
• State or Country: KY
• Current School Type: Private
• Ethnicity: White
• Gender: Female
• Grade Applying For: 9
• Age: 13
• Financial Aid/Full Pay: Full Pay

Strengths: test scores, good interviews, sports, UR area

Weaknesses:

Why do you think you were accepted/rejected/waitlisted?

45

I’m pretty private, so I’m not doing all of this, but here goes…

Subjective:
• Interviews:
Exeter: ok-ish. Interviewer said they’d “highly recommend” me to the AOs but I did something everyone says not to do
Andover: really well! I connected with my interviewer decently and my parents told me they said they really liked me
Deerfield: literally perfect, oh my God… But that probably had more to do with the interviewer than me

• Essays: I’d say they were pretty decent. I write as a hobby, so it wasn’t terribly hard. I got a personal note saying one of my essays was very special so uh… 9.5/10?

• Math Rec: Blind. We had fairly good relations but I screwed up pretty bad right before they had to write the rec. 8/10

• English Rec: Probably awesome, but blind. My teacher once said I was the kind of student every teacher thinks they’ll have when they become a teacher so uh… 9/10

• Personal/Extracurricular Rec: didn’t do it. Wasted opportunity, I have a ton of people I could’ve asked for an amazing rec. Welp.

• Principal/Counselor Rec: I actually know what got put in there. Since my counselor didn’t know me that well, they talked to all of my teachers to figure out what they should write, and asked me if there was anything else I wanted them to mention.

• Sports (if any): Swim, 7 years

• Instruments (if any): nope

• Other ECs (if any): community service and Science Oly, a few other things too

• Hook: URM? Is that a hook?

Strengths: test scores, (some) good interviews, URM, excellent essays, pretty good recs…

Weaknesses: bad interviews, lack of information about certain parts of the process

Why do you think you were accepted/rejected/waitlisted?
Accepted: No idea! I’m nothing special - every time I look at the Chances forum I feel ashamed of myself.
Waitlisted: I actually know why I got waitlisted at a decent percent of schools, and it’s such valuable info about FA applications that I’ll be making a post about it.
Rejected: terrible interview. That was so bad I don’t even want to talk about it.

46

Accepted: Milton, Taft
Rejected: L’ville
Wait listed: Andover, Exeter, Choate, Middlesex, Blair, Peddie
Likely Attending: Milton

Stats:
• SSAT/ISEE/TOEFL/PSAT: SSAT 97% (2310); TOEFL 116
• GPA Unweighted/Weighted: Fall 92.8 Avg, Winter 95.25 Avg
• Rank: N/A
• Other stats: N/A

Subjective:
• Interviews: I thought Andover, Choate, Milton and Taft was okay, but the rest weren’t all that good. I didn’t feel the synergy and bond with the AOs I was “supposed to feel” during interviews. Our schedule meant that Exeter had to be first (the worst school to have a first interview imo).
• Essays: I spent a month writing a LOT of essays, and I mean a LOT. Aside from Lawrenceville, Peddie and Taft, I applied to all the other schools through Gateway (drastically increasing the number of essays I had to write).
• Math Rec: I was the only one in my school who had completed all the math courses available there, so I had to take an online calculus course. I didn’t have a math teacher I had formed a strong bond with, except maybe the math director. I asked him to write my math rec and he said yes.
• English Rec: I wasn’t able to get into Honors English (Honors classes are generally not provided to first-year students. I only attended this school for a year before transferring to boarding high school. Then, for some odd reason, I was assigned Honors Biology and Spanish. But I digress). I was one of the top five students in all the non-Honors English classes combined, so I think it went alright.
• Personal/Extracurricular Rec: I had my Juilliard Pre College Piano professor fill it out. We are really close, so it must have been pretty good.
• Principal/Counselor Rec: This one I’m not so sure about. My school’s guidance counselor and I disagreed in a lot of things, and he wasn’t particularly supportive.
• Sports (if any): Varsity B Soccer and Basketball
• Instruments (if any): Piano (10 years). I compose for fun as well and I have a strong interest in conducting. Outside of school, I attend Juilliard Pre College as a piano major and was invited to take part in the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado.
• Other ECs (if any): School math club, school choir conductor
• Hook: None

Location/Person:
• State or Country: Originally from Seoul, South Korea
• Current School Type: Junior boarding school
• Ethnicity: Asian
• Gender: Male
• Grade Applying For: 10
• Age: 15
• Financial Aid/Full Pay: Full

Strengths: Music, STEM. I could probably say that the essays were one of the stronger parts of my application.

Weaknesses: Principal/Counselor recs (for sure) and interviews. I do believe many students gave way better interviews than I did.

Why do you think you were accepted/rejected/waitlisted?
Again, interviews and recs were underwhelming. I should have formed stronger bonds during my short time at this school. Choate was my top pick (Milton was close behind) since I actually could commute to Juilliard without much of a problem, but I guess the situation didn’t pan out the way I wanted. Taft is a good school, no doubt (and within commuting distance from NY) but it wasn’t a good fit for me…
L’ville: I didn’t really care much about that school, only applied cuz of my parents (who later agreed with me that it wasn’t a good fit at all)