Regarding PG year at boarding school

one parent changed contact info on my app without telling me or the other parent, so i imagine thats why they only contacted the one. Also, the parent who did this wasnt the one paying anyway.

If finances were an issue at your first boarding school and the top 25 university, how will you pay for a post grad year? You’d be better served putting that money toward college. You may have to submit a transcript from the first university (it depends on when you withdrew), so you may be considered a transfer student. They don’t get much aid.

I think if you have a high school graduation on your transcript followed by a few months at college then a PG year at another high school you’re going to have a difficult time getting into the prestigious colleges you seem to want. If finances are an issue your focus needs to be on finding an affordable college so you can get your degree.

should have read the entire reply before replying myself, sorry. To address the other points:

i wouldnt want to go back strictly to use it as a stepping stone to ivies… im well aware thats not what boarding schools are for. Id just want a taste of the exp i should have had and for the opportunity (again i guess) to attend. Even if i ended up paying double and not changing my college matric, id be quite happy with it (just using this ex to illustrate that stepping stone to ivies isnt my end goal… i was at a good uni as you said and one thats considered a target for ib anyway which was my career goal).

i left after a week, so no credits and no w’s, just a clean state… afaik i can go back.

finances are no longer an issue like they once were.

finances are no longer an issue.

If your parents were divorced the school shouldn’t have allowed one parent to change the address of the other.

How long were you in college? Your stats sound very good. Did you get merit aid?

If your parent is willing/able to pay $70k/year then apply to whatever colleges you want. There are plenty of great ones. But I’d be careful not to undermine your chance of acceptance by chasing after the wrong things.

true, but idk if there were any systems in place for them to have known. I actually believe it or not (not sure what this says about how i already viewed this parent at the age of 14 lol) thought that something like this might happen so gave specific instructions to the other parent to not ever, ever give the password to the duplicitous one. Unfortunately he did anyway (the parent who did it was my mom, idk why i think it behooves me to keep talking about them in gender neutral terms so ill stop) and of course she did what i thought she might, but he never told me he did this so i was completely left in the dark. Wish i could meet with adcoms at bs and tell them all this and explain to them that they wouldnt be dealing with either parent anymore, almost verbatim to the scene from breaking bad where walter has to convince gus that jesse wont serve as an impediment (you wont ever see him, wont interact with him… forget he even exists) LOL.

like i said i was in uni only a week.

stats were ok i guess but with real effort could have been a lot better. I think phillips would have been the ideal environment for me (pressure cooker is exactly where i imagine i would have thrived… i always enjoyed sink or swim atmospheres).

@austinmshauri ill pm u dont idk how. cant find a pm button and i thought the threshold was 15 posts which i have.

If you’re ready to go back to school and your dad is willing to pay, why aren’t you considering applying to colleges? If your mom won’t cooperate with financial aid paperwork you’ll have to construct your list wisely, but you should have great options.

open question to students both current and prospective, as well as parents ofc.

A child getting into andover/exeter off the waitlist but they contact one parent w/ the offer and he/she says no on the childs behalf w/out consulting the child or even making him/her privy to their acceptance… said child discovers this the following year during an interview at the school (reapplying).

Has anyone encountered this happening or was my exp. bizarre?

MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I have merged the OP’s 2 threads, since the discussion was shifting (correctly) to focusing on advising OP on steps going forward.

Wow. Your posts are incredibly difficult to read. Punctuation, capitalization, grammar, use of vague pronouns makes it very difficult to follow. And then you chastise the readers who try to come to your aid for not reading carefully?

From what I gather, your dad intercepted your acceptance to Phillips (Andover/Exeter), and declined on your behalf. This is actually quite common. Schools that don’t have enough financial aid to go around will call the parent and ask if they can afford to send the student without any aid. If the parent says no, then the child gets a rejection letter. Like it or not, this is done to avoid the situation where a kid is accepted but there isn’t enough money. As you can imagine, this is an embarrassing situation for the parent. I can see why you are so bitter. But you need to move on.

But in all honesty, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything. Would that have prevented you from dropping out of college after the first week? Probably not. Sounds like whatever issues you had were going to happen anyway, regardless of where you went to HS.

As others point out, stop focusing on the past, and instead move towards the future. Figure out how to get back into college and pay for it. You sound like a good candidate for one of the non-traditional students. There are very good programs: Yale Eli Whitney, Brown RUE, Columbia General studies, etc.

Have you found boarding schools who will consider taking a student in his/her mid 20s, given most of the students in that setting are minors, children?

You have a high school degree , even some college at this point. If money is no object, and you really are motivated to go to school right now, taking courses at a selected college as an unmatriculating student for a semester or two would be a good way for you to gain entry into a program. It can be a local school, or you can select most any school with a general studies program open to non traditional students. That is what you are at this point. You’ll find yourself in good company.

Or you can find a part time job and take an on line course or combo program like Harvard Extension . You have a myriad of possibilities. Going back to highschool makes no sense at this point

If I understand correctly, you want to apply as a PG to boarding school at age 24, 25 or 26 ?

You were given an opportunity to study at a top 25 university but withdrew after one week ?

If correct, you should consider counseling rather than obsessing over a non-event that occurred in your teenage years.

Life is about making the most of opportunities & in being resilient. Living in the past is neither healthy nor productive.

Thats unfortunate given that the intent was to quicken both my writing and the reader’s ability to understand the text in a timely manner. Given what comes next, i suppose im forced to confront the reality that in fact the casual texting-esque style of writing hindered people in understanding what i wrote.

It was my mom (she didnt inform me or my father) and she was never going to have anything to do with the finances of boarding school, that role was always going to be my father’s.

My mom , many years after, told me they simply called her and told her i got in off the waitlist as a day student and that she had a couple hours to call back with a decision. She decided right there during the call, said no, and that was the end of it.

It might have seeing as how there were many issues that came up during and after secondary school. Im not convinced those issues would have ever materialized had i gone to phillips.

I dont know why i would consider a non traditional route when , afaik (i hope this butchering of the english tongue doesnt act as too strict of an impediment and prevent me from coherently translating my thoughts to text), i can go back to the uni i withdrew from.

I assumed the thread was dead, but thank you for your thoughts and feedback.

Just realized i can quote. I wondered why clicking reply didnt make it clear which post i was replying to.

As i said before, if i went back id simply go back to my university. While ive mostly abandoned the idea that started this thread, i still dont see why age would be a strict barrier to entry. All post grads are no longer minors.

agree as everyone else already said that i should move on, but vehemently disagree with your attempt to trivialize the event in question, seeing as how it could have changed my whole life trajectory.

Your feedback is appreciated

@hadesinquisitor “seeing as how it could have changed my whole life trajectory”.

You remain in control of the trajectory of your “whole” life. Three things stand out throughout your posts; 1)You are extremely smart and thoughtful, 2) you are fixated on an event that took place more than 5 years ago (I am not trivializing it but talking time line), 3) this fixation on the event (and the irreparable damage done to your relationship with your mother) is negatively impacting you emotionally and adversely impacting your capacity for future growth ( dropping out of college).

You are smart enough to know you would benefit from talking to a professional counselor. CC is not a great support network for you.

I won’t patronize you by being subtle…get some help!! You obviously have great potential but some issues to work through so you can look forward with a positive perspective and stop thinking about the past and what could have been. With the proper help your options and future are limitless. Get help, regain and seize control of your path.

If your mom wasn’t paying why did she say no? Were you having issues then? “Many issues” don’t generally just materialize out of nowhere. Is it possible she thought that the competitive environment wasn’t the right fit for you? The fact that you only lasted a week at a Top 25 university seems to support that. It doesn’t sound like you were ready. There are issues that come up in the high school/early college years and where the kid is doesn’t matter. Attending Phillips wouldn’t have prevented those types of issues.

You really need to deal with the whole “my life trajectory could have been different if only I’d gone to Phillips” attitude. Your assumption is that it would have been better and you have no way of knowing that. Every choice means a road not taken. You can spend your life pining after what might have been or choose to move forward. It sounds like you need professional help to be able to do that. I hope you get it.

divorce related issues from what i know. I also reject your theory regarding competitive environments. If you read back i wrote somewhere itt that ive always thrived in a sink or swim environment. I spent 1 year at a tier 2 boarding school where i got a 3.8 with 1-2 hours of work per school night id say (to my knowledge i was among the top there with that gpa). Then in public school there were many issues (financial, moving a lot, family, the boarding school ordeal, and others) and i just coasted without taking rigorous classes and without an iota of effort. Got a 4.0 core unweighted gpa and something like a 3.85 overall due to gym class. Ssat was top 6 percent without any studying or preparation, sat was about top 3-4 percent without studying or preparation, during that rough time, and only taking the test once. Once at the uni i withdrew for non academic issues during the first week (hadnt even done any assignments yet). Someone from the tier 2 boarding school with the same grades as me later did a post grad year at phillips and graduated cum laude society, so I think I would have done fine lol.

Of course its all speculation, but based on my performance at the tier 2 school paired with looking at someone who performed the same and then checking how he did at phillips , Id be willing to bet that had i gone , I would be fine grade-wise. College matric. would just be pure speculation.

As i mentioned earlier i already arrived at the conclusion that moving on would be best. Worst case i could always bring my mother to court over this, lol.