Are there any schools your child did NOT apply to that you now wish had made the list?
I wish I had succeeded in persuading our child to apply to Blair, Chatham Hall, George, Millbrook, Brewster, and Ethel Walker. Maybe Tabor and Santa Catalina, too.
No. Our son applied to three boarding schools & to one day school & we were pleased with the resulting options.
Nevertheless, I, as a parent, found the revisit days to be interesting & enjoyable, and would liked to have attended more.
I ran across a parent a few months ago who bragged that his son is applying to 35 boarding schools. I suspect that it may be more for the enjoyment of the parent, than for the student. Wealthy, full pay family.
Lawrenceville - because its 3 hours closer to home and I miss him!
At the moment I don’t have any regrets that my son only applied to 3 boarding schools and one private day school. As a full pay family we felt that we needed to stay within a 3 hour radius of home so we could drive up and back in the same day. Adding in regular hotel expenses, flights and etc would push us over our budget limit. Our local public high school is also highly regarded, so if that is our ultimate back-up plan, so be it. While our list of schools is not large, I do consider it at least somewhat wide, as the schools vary significantly on admittance rate and average SSAT scores. Since we started the touring process last Spring we ended up visiting almost 10 schools by the time we were done with the process. If a school didn’t feel right to him, he didn’t apply. No need to write out extra supplemental essays and pay the application fee if its not somewhere he really wants to go.
I will say that I think there is a great variety of schools in New England and I wish that we lived closer to have considered them as options. Tabor, Berkshire, St Marks, St George and a few others come to mind as places we would have considered if they were closer.
I really regret not applying to more of the west coast schools like Cate or Webb, I only applied to Thacher over there. I come from the southeast, and it is an extremely warm and subtropical climate, which would be a huge adjustment if I were to go to New England. I did use to live in the midwest, so it may not be as terrible if I were to have lived in the south my entire life, (my local interviewer had talked about the large adjustment he had when he went to boarding school), but it’s still going to be a huge adjustment if I were to go to those schools. I also regret it because the community in California is extremely different from that in New England, and I enjoy having a more relaxed, (well relaxed for boarding schools) community.
I also regret my decision on not applying to Concord because of its extremely strong program in the sciences, (I recall they sent a small book saying that the most popular job of all of their graduates was an engineer, which is a career that I am quite interested in doing in the future),
Though I have regrets about the schools that I didn’t apply to, I can’t go back now, it’s just two short weeks until decisions day (also spring break for me).
@keystosuccess: Great point. Forgot about Cate School. Episcopal High School in Virginia also seems to get overlooked.
We never looked at Concord Academy or Middlesex. Hadn’t heard of them, but if I could go back in time, would definitely take a look.
Eons ago when I was going through the admissions process, I was considering UW-Madison, Minnesota-Morris, Beloit College and Dartmouth.
I had a 3.75 and a 30 (no studying, one attempt) as stats. My HS in northern Wisconsin didn’t offer AP courses, but i took most of our toughest classes.
So – I was considering an elite private university, a top flagship, a public LAC and a private LAC. Unwittingly I had checked all the boxes.
But I only applied to UW-Madison. As an in-state student it was probably a low match in those days, but it certainly wasn’t a safety. Thank heavens I got in. Mine was a terrible application strategy, but you guys (and my GC…) weren’t around to tell me any different.
I never would have chosen Morris or Beloit over UW. Dartmouth would have been a reachy reach, but if i had applied and been accepted, I wonder now if I would have chosen it.
Had I gone to Dartmouth, I probably would not be here, or married to my wife. I may have ended up on Wall Street, or working at a newspaper, or… well who knows? Things worked out well, but D probably would have made my life different. There are a lot of big decisions like that that twist our paths and set us on the courses we’re on.
(annnnd I just realized this thread is in the Prep School section. lol)
Thacher and Cate. We did not know there were boarding schools in California, so much closer to home. Heck, we didn’t know there were more than the five or six boarding schools we could name.
I applied to nine schools this year. I wish I had applied to Middlesex, but I was too burned out from writing essays and applying to other schools. Looking back, I wish I had applied.
Why do you wish you had applied to Mx?
I wish that DD had applied to Berkshire. We didn’t even look, and it’s only an hour from our house. (Maybe that was too close for DD but I would have loved it.) I’ve heard it’s a beautiful campus, and the new(ish) math and science building would be of interest to my math-loving kid. It seems Iike a similar size and feel to where she is going. She’s happy where she is, but when I’m putting in hours on the Mass Turnpike, I have those what-if moments.
Where where did your Math-y girl end up?
We visited and applied to 12 boarding schools. My daughter was matched with most of these schools by our consultant (Lawrenceville, Hotchkiss, Berkshire, Governor’s Academy, Milton, Middlesex, Concord, Wilbrahim & Monson academy, The Master’s School, Cushing Academy, Emma Willard & Westtown School). I also did some research and added a few schools of my own. My consultant appeared surprised that I was not impressed by “Brand”. My main concern was fit and feel. I have no regrets. She is happy, she is thriving and I just can’t imagine her being anywhere other than where she is, at Cushing Academy. You hear next to nothing on these boards about it but wow…what people are missing out on. A school where everyone knows you as a parent and knows your child by name even if they are not in their class. People who notice who your child hangs out with, yet does not have your child as a student. Positive up lifting, encouraging, caring environment where they study your child and work accordingly. Haven’t met one unhappy parent yet!
I only applied to five schools, and they are all good fits and somewhat a wide range, but five is a pretty small number. I wish I had applied to Tabor for its marine bio program, Lawrenceville, but it’s too far and my parents wouldn’t let me, Berkshire, for the science program, and Mx because it’s only 30 mins from my home.
@CaliMex Daughter is at Pomfret, is doing great, and we are all very happy with her decision.
I only applied to three schools (which is a very small amount, I know). I wish I had expanded my list a bit, and had also done Lawrenceville, Deerfield, Grotons, Hotchkiss, and Choate.
Asheville! It’s very close to my sister in Durham, and it seems like a great school.
Applied to 7 schools, and feel he would be happy at all of them But I do wish we had applied to NMH and St. Mark’s.
Brentwood College Prep @ Vancouver Island- but don’t know how FA works or if available to non-Canadian students- amazing campus, outdoor programs, athletics, and great college acceptances.