Should I reapply?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Cafe
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Hello !

I recently applied to a number of boarding schools and ended up with disappointing news. If I applied again I would be entering as a sophmore.

I’ve had my heart set on boarding school since my sister’s graduation from Middlesex. So you can imagine my disappointment on March 10th.

The application process was tiresome and I did it all by myself . From FA applications to scheduling interviews. I’m not sure if I can do it again to potentially recieve bad news again.

I strongly want to attend a boarding school but the process is exhausting.Then again if I do get into a school, it would be worth it.

What do you guys think I should do ?

Also I would like to thank all the people on cc who made this process much more bearable. @Calliemomofgirls , @UltimaCroix , and @CarnegieDad for always checking up and words of encouragment. @reknihtrevo , @anon12737776 , and @lilyesh are just a few of the friends I’ve made on here. I know you guys will strive at Andover, Middlesex, and Hill!

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Thank you so much! You have helped me too. If you really want to go to BS, you should DEFINITELY reapply.

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As someone who has reapplied myself, the best advice I can give you is to forget about BS for a while.
You don’t have to make a decision on whether to reapply now and you shouldn’t. Your feelings will change from now till August, and maybe then you might be psyched and ready to begin planning now that the disappointment of March has become more distant. Or maybe you have discovered that maybe you would like to stay put at your current school. Both outcomes and anything in between is fine. At that point you should follow what your gut tells you. I understand how disappointing months of work not translating into the result you want is.
But for now you should hit the pause button in my opinion.

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I’ll start with saying that I’ve loved getting to know you through this process. I really wish M10 had brought you better results.

If you still want to go to BS, definitely reapply! Don’t let the obnoxiousness of this years application cycle discourage you. You are a phenomenal candidate that many schools would be lucky to have.

I get how tiresome the application process can be, especially when the outcome is undesirable. I encourage you to think about where you want to be in 3 to 4 years. If you reapply next year and get into a school you love, then you can graduate in 2025 with three years of an awesome BS experience. But if you don’t reapply, you’ll never know if that’s a possibility.

Take the next few months and don’t worry about BS or applications. Focus on activities that you enjoy. Maybe look for any summer programs that are still a accepting applications, if that’s something you’re interested in. By around next October, when it comes time to start school searches and applications again, gauge how you feel about the process. The time between now and then may give you the space you need to reset. You don’t need to decide if you’re reapplying right now.

If you do reapply, think of all the things you’ve learned from this year. You will rock your interviews, know how to get teachers to like you for your recs, have tons of time to perfect essays, and won’t have to do all of the tedious research on finding schools to apply too, because you’ve already done it.

If you reapply to some of the same schools as your list this year, you can reach out to AOs and ask what they suggest you do to improve your app. Not to mention, AOs have already gotten to know and like you this cycle, which will be a huge help for next year.

Whatever you decide, I’m rooting for you! And so are a bunch of others here on CC!

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Thank you so much ,this is great advice !

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thank you so much ! :heartbeat:

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Take some time to not think about it and to get over the disappointment. Then review your list and maybe look at schools you didn’t consider before. My daughter will be going as a repeat Junior this year. It is not too late for you to have a boarding school experience. I applaud you for doing it all yourself, that takes a lot of initiative. Even as an adult I found the FA application tedious and confusing and a hassle to find all of our financial information, I can’t imagine a kid doing it. I was pretty hands off besides reminders to her about deadlines, sending thank yous, and reading her essays before she clicked submit. You should be proud of yourself and after stepping away for a bit, revisit it and then decide if you want to apply again.

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thank you , I think i’m going to take a break and do things i enjoy bc these past months definitely made me miss dance more than ever due to interviews every week😭

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If you reapply, take the advice you were given in your chance me threads and broaden your search. You applied to only very selective schools during the worst year possible. Consider going over your list and adding some schools that have a higher admin rate if you go for it again.

I am going to reiterate my suggestion of Brooks in Andover MA, you fit their profile quite well.

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Thank you ! I will definitely take the advice!

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@njscholor1129
You’ve gotten a lot of great advice here. My favorite might be: step away and give this thought in a few months.
I’ll add my own advice: add Mercersburg! It really is a special place and has an amazing dance facility and program. And also: some other really great schools are out there. IMO, you just didn’t apply to the right list of schools. This has NOTHING to do with you as a human being who would make a great addition to a campus – you are awesome. Really. and 10th grade is totally great to go away to school – lots of kids do it.
Step away from the decision and see how you feel this summer. And then come back here and you’ll see lots of friendly faces who will cheer you on if you decide to apply. You have lots of support here!

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Honestly I agree, as awesome as Hotchkiss is ,I don’t think I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Since you started sharing your experience with Mercersburg ,I searched it up and regretted not applying.I only started paying attention to this site and being a consistent member after j15 which I regret. If I do make the decision to reapply Mercersburg will be on my list .

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As someone who was in your shoes, in regards to this situation, last year, I understand that sinking feeling of gloom, confusion, and downright frustration.

M10 2022 may seem like something miles away which’ll come after forever; that is what I thought of M10 2021, last year. But trust me: it’ll come much sooner than you’d think so!

Also, while doing the applications again may seem somewhat intimidating at first, trust me when I say that this feeling fades away rather quickly and is replaced with quite an ounce of confidence as one already knows, from prior experience, what they’re doing - and more importantly: know what to expect of in each stage in this process.

Albeit, my second-run didn’t go as I’d have hoped it to; however, I have come to peace with it. I am still oh-so grateful for the experiences, friendships, and knowledge I have gained in between my twenty-six months of running behind Boarding Schools, and how they have played their roles in developing me, myself. Had I not reapplied, the echoes of the sombre ‘what ifs’ would’ve plagued the tunes within the corridors in the back of my mind - something which is dearly unpleasant to have.

As @AnonMomof2 and @Calliemomofgirls have said: take some time to process, to think, and to heal. In the end of the day, only you, yourself, will know the answer to whether you should reapply. You may or may not know right now, but I promise you, you will with due time.

Either way, with whatever option you choose, just know that you are bound for success, in one form or the other. Many times, us people, spend large chunks of time, effort, and emotion, pursing one thing which sounds very attractive on paper (or, in this case, our minds), but receive something else; something which we, at the time, may not like, but not knowing that in reality, it is a blessing in disguise.

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thank you so much. I know you’ll be good when you apply to college. Your hard work over these past 2 years haven’t gone unnoticed.

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There’s a lot of valuable advice here. Sit on it and if in July, you want to reapply, don’t let anything hold you back.

If you reapply:

Mburg has a fantastic dance program. They are also so kind. Definitely the hardest school to say goodbye to. They have been the loveliest and most supportive people: dare I say more than NMH was.

My suggestion is to go to the hidden gems thread- check out some of the schools there.

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Definitely reapply. You will improve and see yourself grow the second time around. Do re-apply to the schools you still love, they may appreciate your persistence. And apply to more schools.

I think BS applications depend quite a bit on interviews - and maturity does matter. One year later, most likely you would be a more mature version of yourself. The interviewers probably would be bored talking to other 9th grade applicants after they speak with you!

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i agrée with the maturity thing. i will admit i’m not the most independent, but in person, i can have very mature conversations with adults. so i definitely think applying again will show your maturity more. it definitely helped me to wait a year instead of doing BS for 9th. so i agree with that. however, i’m not sure how important the interviews are. my absolute best interview(besides the school i’m attending next year)was exeter, but i was rejected. my worst interview(which was not bad) was choate, where i got waitlisted. i know many people who’s interviews didnt go well, but they still get into the school.

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After a difficult experience like you’ve just had, I think you should consider putting it out of your mind for a while and just focus on excelling as best you can in your schoolwork, personal health and well-being, extracurriculars and service to others. Then, maybe early summer, allow yourself to consider if you want to apply again for various boarding schools.

One thing that concerns me, however, is that in your original post you said you managed the application process all by yourself. Though I believe the applicant should drive the process, this is not an ordeal/process any fairly young teen should do by him or herself. This is deciding where you want to spend the next several years or your life. It behooves any applicant to seek guidance from trusted adults, hopefully experienced in school choices and applications, to talk everything over and help with decision-making, planning and even in review of the applications, at least to a limited degree.

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My family is aware and fully supportive of me attending a boarding school but when my sister was applying they had the help of an outside program that made the process much easier.So especially with it being online and no offense to my family but they aren’t the best with the internet :joy:.I’ve always been fairly independent but it definitely becomes overwhelming at times.

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Hi there! I thought you were accepted to Cushing. Have you decided not to enroll there?

There is nothing wrong with reapplying as a sophomore. As a matter of fact, kids from my social circles have applied as regular 8th graders (Groton) and 9th graders, repeat 9th graders, regular sophomores, repeat sophomores, etc. All of them have turned out just fine. I even have a close friend who transferred into an elite school as a junior, and he still turned out fine.

I was somewhat surprised that you took care of the whole application process on your own. With your sister being an MX alum, I would strongly recommend that you ask her to review your essays - to see how you might be able to present yourself better the next time around. Having graduated from such a renowned school, she should have become an expert of what BS AOs look for in the candidates. Better yet, you might want to ask her to connect you to the AOs at MX, so you can have a more personalized visit or informational interview - make sure you do this before the next round formally starts. That way, you can make a stronger, more lasting impression on the AOs, instead of being just another candidate out of a pool of maybe 500. The bottomline is - with BS apps becoming so competitive, you really need all the help you can get.

Another step to consider is to contact the AOs at the schools you’d like to reapply to next year and ask them for an honest feedback or evaluation of your candidacy. Would they recommend that you take or retake the SSAT? Would you consider taking a more proactive role in your ECs? Do you think your teachers gave you the strongest rec letters? Did you think you did well enough in the interviews? If not, find an adult (definitely not your parents) and do a few mock ones. Assuming you have done your best this round and are ready to move to the next round, you should start early and pick a time that the AOs are not busy, perhaps in the summer.

Other posters also gave you some great advice in terms of casting a wider net next year. Almost all the schools that you applied to have admit rates in the teens, some even single digit this year. Assuming the average is 15% and you applied to 5 of them. The probability of you being accepting to one of them cannot be multiplied by 5, and you should still think of it as 15%. Look up the “hidden gem schools” thread and pick a few from there - Mercersburg, St. Mark’s, The George School, just to name a few.

The way I see it, you already had some solid practice this year and it will only do you good in the next round. Hang in there, and we are all rooting for ya!

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