Schedule for Visiting Schools

This discussion was created from comments split from: School Visit.

I have found this thread very interesting. My daughter and I will be flying from CA to the East Coast and touring and interviewing in September at one school a day, in this order: Lawrenceville, Peddie, Choate, Loomis Chaffee, and NMH. Then in November, she will be touring and interviewing at Thacher, Cate, and Stevenson. She will be an in eighth grade this fall, so applying for ninth grade in 2017. Comments?!

Hi @CAClover, this is a great list. We did the opposite a couple of years ago (from NY, DD is now at very happy at Cate). If you wanted to see more schools, you could visit Choate & Loomis on the same day as well as Peddie and Lawrenceville. It depends on the tour schedule and day of the week, but it’s possible. My only other thought is that your East Coast schools are large compared to the West Coast ones. If you wanted to add in a smaller East Coast school, maybe consider Middlesex, Groton, St. Andrews, St. Marks.

Thanks for your suggestions, GMC2918. I have looked carefully at Middlesex, but not so much at the other three because my daughter would prefer a nondenominational school, she thinks, and one with a more casual dress code. Personally, given we need full or almost full financial aid and given that I’m not sure how high my daughter will score on the SSAT (we are thinking of signing up for the October and December tests and I have been going over review books with her this summer), I’ve been thinking more about casting a wider net and looking at somewhat less selective schools than the ones you named to balance out Lawrenceville, Choate, etc.

If you are in CA, need FA, and prefer a school with casual dress code, you may want to check out SPS, which offers the Burke Scholarship for students living in California and Wyoming: http://www.sps.edu/Page/Admission/Regional-Scholarships/Burke-Scholarship-California-and-Wyoming.

Even without the scholarship, SPS is one of the most generous schools, offering full FA to students with a household income of $125Kper year or less. Families with an annual income of less than $250K do not pay more than 10% of their income toward tuition per year: http://www.sps.edu/Page/Admission/Affording

How about Blair and/or Berkshire?

Thank you, @GoatMama. I didn’t know about that SPS scholarship for CA and WY students! But again, SPS is one of the most selective schools. I will have to see after the October SSAT results come back how competitive my daughter might be. She is an URM and a straight-A student.

@soxmom, thanks for your suggestions, too. I have looked at Blair quite a lot. We have family who work at Lawrenceville, so . . . I was looking for schools that are strong and nearby but maybe not quite as selective as L’ville. I picked Peddie because it is closer.

Logistically it will be easy to visit two close schools each day. We visited two schools per day last year, and I kind of regret that now. Since dd was not experienced in interviews and was not always comfortable, etc, I think we should have visited only one school per day, and used the remaining time to relax and prepare for the interviews.

Peddie, Hun, and George are all very close to L’ville. Hun’s boarding population is small -probably too small. George and Peddie are both known for strong community. George is the most diverse - probably the most different vibe from the ones on your list. Peddie is probably the closest.

Thank you, @SculptorDad and @gardenstategal for your helpful comments. I’m embarrassed I inadvertently “hijacked” a thread, but you’ve given me something to think about. At this stage, I have hotel reservations and interview/tour times scheduled, so I’ll stick with what we’ve planned. I should have tried participating in this thread a while ago, but ultimately I feel good about the five East Coast schools my daughter will tour and interview at.

You might want to check out Mercersburg, even if you can’t visit on this trip. It fits your criteria.

Just want to echo @SculptorDad’s advice: one school a day is the best approach. I realize that can be difficult to pull off with work obligations etc, but having a whole day gives you the chance to go through the official activities and then do unofficial things like go to games, concerts, art shows etc that often do more to reveal the school’s vibe/character that the structured activities. Good luck with the hunt!

Considering that we got one Acceptance and one WL from Skype interviewed schools, and two WLs from visited schools, and many seem to be accepted with Skype interviews as well, I think it might be better to have best visits with fewer schools (i.e. one school per day) and Skypeing the rest rather than trying to visit them all, if logistics is an issue.

That makes a lot of sense. I thought we’d just stick with our interview schedule that we set up. However, the St. Paul’s School scholarship for CA and WY kids sticks in my head, and a couple other names keep coming up, like Mercersburg and St. Andrew’s, so maybe we will consider Skype interviews for those, especially if one or more of the ones we visit in person don’t appeal to my daughter. I appreciate all responses because I’m getting more ideas.

@CAClover many schools have alumni interviewers across the country. With our first child we didn’t visit or interview on campus at any schools. We lived on the west coast and he interviewed with an AO for Exeter- who was in town for interviews, and alumni interviewers for Andover and Choate. We did a few Skpe interviews as well. We didn’t visit schools until after admission results.

@vegas1, can I ask the results for the applications with Skype interviews? Do you feel they were comparable to the applications with on-campus interviews?

@CAclover we did find Skpe interviews awkward. I don’t think admission results were skewed by interview method for us. The bigger factor for us at that time was heavy financial aid need. We actually had schools wait list our son based on financial need (they reached out to let us know why he was wait listed). He ended up at an awesome school that he loved and it was a perfect fit for him.

Related question on this topic: Do most schools offer Saturday interviews?

@heartburner many schools do offer Saturday interviews. Most schedule interviews/tours “when classes are in session” so it may be that on Saturdays there are only time slots in the morning.