Repost from Admin public message window…
I’m suggesting the addition of a new subforum for the Prep School section to join “Prep School Chances”, “Prep School Parents”, and “Prep School Cafe”.
Many of the parents who use the site think it would be a good idea to have a new separate subforum that features lesser known schools. As it is, the more famous schools (Exeter, Andover, St. Paul’s, Groton, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Choate etc…) are already discussed by the majority of posters. These schools even have a “featured” thread.
I feel that it does students as well as the large number of not-so-famous schools a disservice to focus on the handful of “top tier” schools…which are often referred to using one of several acronyms (HADES, GLADCHEMMS, ETC). As you probably know, the admit rate for these schools can be well under 20%.
Here’s an idea for the title:
Prep School Hidden Gems
[OR]
Prep School Roads Less Traveled
Here’s a link to a thread in the main Prep Schools Admissions forum discussing this topic:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1109337-lobbying-non-hades-featured-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1109337-lobbying-non-hades-featured-thread.html</a>
Thanks in advance for your consideration!
Couldn’t agree more.
There are a large number of parents who have been, and will be, very helpful to those of us who are trying to do the right thing for our kids. It would be an outstanding move to have their comments clustered together.
The well known schools are discussed in full here - but at its most narrow, we are talking about 5 schools, with a grand total of approximately 4000 places - nothing wrong with knowing where we stand on those 5 schools, but what about the kids and families (perhaps the majority, albeit a quieter majority) who are looking for something different?
Speaking as an alum of one of the “5”, I am not sending my kids to my old school. That was a hard-fought decision - one of them applied to my old school and was accepted, but is going elsewhere. We are not rejecting my old school (I still love it - for me, not for them), but we have cast a wider net, and thought about what each of the kids needs at this particular time in their lives. It was helpful - make that invaluable - to be able to compare thoughtful and statesmanlike notes with the parents of kids who had made both similar and different choices. That certainly made a hard job easier. But I think it would have been easier still if we had been able to exchange notes in a dedicated forum rather than having to poke our heads up every now and then and say “hey, what about all the other schools that don’t already have their own “pinned” thread at the top of the forum”.
Equal opportunity for a lot of outstanding institutions - my old school is a great place, but it’s not the only one, and I think it will help everyone - including this alum - to be reminded of that.