<p>okay so i have a 4.0 gpa in a ib school. Im in the pre-IB program. Im looking to apply to deerfield academy, and Westminster School. My safety school is Millbrook Academy. My only problem is that I scored a 80 percentile on the ssats and last year i missed 25 days of school. 2 weeks i missed because i had a viral bronchi infection and the other days I just didn't go. I didn't go to school because I found school to be too easy and wanted to work on other projects: like organizing food drives and reading books.
My grades last year were as follows:
English: 95
Math (honors advanced) 93
Science: 99
Art Foundations: 97
Band: 95
P.E: 90
Spanish: 99 </p>
<p>This year my first term grades are: My Grades are: </p>
<p>English(Literature By Genre)-95
Math(Honors Geometry)-98
US History-97
Environmental Science and Conceptual Physics-99
Spanish(3rd year)-97
Chorus-94
Drawing 1-90
Cermanics-97 </p>
<p>I aslo on the side do soccer (varsity), Dance team( Jv), Basketball (JV),dance(ballet), volunteer work at animal shelter 4hrs/week</p>
<p>Maybe you could explain you attendance issue in your essay. Other than that, your resume looks good to me.</p>
<p>You might find school easy for you, but telling the schools you skipped it just because you felt like it will most likely hurt you. Being sick is fine, they will understand that part, but the skipping part is not.</p>
<p>Missing 25 days of school is definitely a problem and your reason is not that convincing. The fact that you say the school is too easy really calls into question your 4.0 average. The transition from an easy school to a challenging rigorous program is a huge adjustment. Part of a solid middle school program is to acquire the skills that will enable you to excel in BS. These skills are learned and based on the ease of your current program, you may not be prepared for a school like Deerfield. The admission officers are skilled at understanding the rigor of middle school and it sounds as though your school may not be up to snuff. You should think long and hard about missing 25 days, sick days aside. There is an underlying message in your decision to skip school and it will not be easily explained. When we are faced with adversity do we deal with it head on or do we walk away and find something else to occupy us? I am not trying to discourage you, just give you some realistic feedback so you think about the decisions you made.</p>
<p>Can I ask what your parents made of all of this?</p>
<p>sevendad- My parents were fine with it because i was still doing well in school
Firstgenbsp112- as I said my school is an IB independent day school that people from all over the world come to. It is very selective and only has 235 students approximately. I said earlier I am in the pre Ib program which is supposed to be pretty hard considering it is preparing us for the full IB diploma program. Last year I also asked my teachers for more challenging work and they said no you should just go to boarding school if you want a challenge.</p>
<p>If kids come from all over the world, are you already in a boarding school? Where do these international students live? Applying for 10th grade makes the competition even greater since a much smaller number of kids are accepted for 10th grade. I find it hard to believe that your current school is rigorous and you skip class because it is too easy. No one on this board can tell you whether you will be accepted other than the AO of the school you are applying to. In addition, part of the admission process is also evaluating the character of the applicants which brings you back to the issue of skipping school. There is no skipping school in boarding school, you are either in class or you are in the health center. Like I said before, that will be a big obstacle for you to overcome and there is no way around it. Your attendance record is now part of your permanent record and it is included with the information your current school provides to the admission committee.</p>
<p>A couple of points:</p>
<p>It is not necessarily harder to get into 10th grade compared to entering as a freshman. At my D’s school, the class size approximately doubles from 9th grade to 10th and then is pretty stable till graduation. The numbers will be different at different schools.</p>
<p>The missing puzzle piece is, how many applicants are there for 9th grade and how many are there for 10th? It can be hard to get firm statistics from each school about that, so keep your mind open and I wouldn’t really worry about that aspect very much.</p>
<p>As to your absences, I suggest that you not bring up the subject. I’m sure it’s reported somewhere on the application or transcripts, I’m just saying don’t go writing an essay about it or bring it up during an interview. </p>
<p>Questions about your absences may never come up as your grades seem fine. But I strongly suggest you think about how you will answer if an interviewer does ask you about your attendance history. Minimize any excuses and try to put a positive spin on it such as how being challenged is a great motivating factor for you, you are looking forward to a school which has so much to engage you, and how you’ll dive into this or that extracurricular activity, etc.</p>
<p>You might want to retake the ssats, 80th percentile is kinda low . . . normally schools want at least an 85</p>
<p>80th percentile is fine for the schools on your list</p>
<p>My apologies @GMTplus7- I’m just panicking due to my own admissions process. Good luck funnygirl1200! I skipped several days in middle school, it probably won’t hurt that much.</p>
<p>as in 3 days off for “relaxation” 1 in each trimester though, at home with my mom because I had no friends then and couldn’t bear to go to school</p>
<p>Funnygirl1200: You should attempt to slightly twist the situation. Explain that you were doing well in all of your classes and saw opportunities to help the community, which seems to be a passion for you. Make it clear that if you are at a more rigorous and challenging school, you will stay at school and do community service on different occasions. Try showing in the request, yet denial for more challenging work. This shows that love hard work. Don’t lie though. Be honest, but show the information in a positive way. Hope this helps :)</p>
<p>I agree with prepschoolhopes, definitely don’t lie about it, but telling them you didn’t go because you didn’t feel like it is not a good idea. You still have really good grades though, so as long as you do well on your interview, then I think you have pretty good chances.</p>