hi!
I was accepted to Cushing but with no Aid.
I did have teachers and my sister look over the essay and make tiny edits.
Thank you for your great advice ! I will definitely take it if I reapply.
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I’ve been thinking about you, @njscholor1129 , and while a lot of people have given you great advice, I wanted to reach out.
First off, as others have said, you don’t need to decide now whether to re-apply or not. That decision can be put off until next fall. Right now, you need to re-focus all your energy on everything you need to do to have a great freshman year at your default school which I am guessing is your LPS. Make sure that you are signed up for the classes you want – that your teachers have given you recommendations for honors classes and/or that you are signed up for the placement tests for them. Find out what you can in advance about ECs so that you’re excited with your choices and prepare yourself for try-outs for fall sports (if relevant). In a nutshell, go all in on making next year a great year! (And that’s not always so easy if in your head, you’ve not seen yourself at the LPS.) If you DO decide to reapply to BS, it’ll be important to show that you have made the most of what’s available to you. And if you decide to stay put, you’ll be off to great start and creating opportunities throughout high school and afterwards. But most of all, you’ll be setting yourself up for happiness if can feel like you’re making this investment in yourself.
When you start to think about BS again, I would first urge you to think about why you applied this time. You mentioned that you’ve been thinking about this since your sister graduated from MX, so one thing to ask yourself is why you felt that way about it then (looking up to your sister and wanting to be like her? Liking the way the family perceived her? Liking the campus etc.?) and how you feel about it now. I think most of us in life, at some point, get involved in chasing some goal and lose sight of why we set the goal. I have a friend who had gone to college (HYPS) as a pre-med. She got into med school (HYPS). But she needed a little more money in the bank to do it and she took a job in business to build up her savings. And for the first time in AGES, being off the “I’m going to be a doctor” train, she realized she didn’t want to be a doctor! She went to a top B school and had a great career. I’m not saying that you don’t want to go to BS or shouldn’t go to BS, but the process itself can become so all-encompassing that NOT getting in this year will give you a little space to think about what you really want out of your high school years and why and whether BS is the only or best way to get that. And at that point, if you want to apply again, you absolutely should. All the schools that WL you are ones to try again. Lots of students have different results the second time around, especially if they have shown growth since the first time. And you should definitely expand your list to schools where what you bring is unique and/or valued so that you get the FA you need.
I would also suggest that you look into programs like Jack Kent Cooke Questbridge, etc. to understand eligibility and expectations and to see if they offer you a way to connect with other high-achieving peers without BS. You are clearly intelligent and resourceful, so there are a lot of paths to success. And again, this may not be the path you take, but it could be an option and one you may not have considered if you were focused on BS.
If you wanted to do anything about re-applying, you could prep for the SSAT again. Even if you don’t take it, the work will help with the PSAT and SAT when the time comes. But I wouldn’t do anything specifically about re-applying right now. Really truly wishing you the best
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Thank you , I will take some time and reflect on this whole process and in the likely case that I do reapply I will take your advice !
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If you apply as a rising sophomore, some schools may accept you as a sophomore while others might accept you on the condition that you repeat your freshman year = enter boarding school as a freshman.
For acceptance as a rising sophomore looking to repeat freshman year, would you have to indicate that you are willing to repeat or would they come forward and offer it?
You need to speak to each admissions office separately and ask their opinion and advice. Each school might give you a different answer. A few might say “hey you should repeat” without you asking but you should bring it up and not wait for schools to mention it, or not.
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The schools will not be in a position to ask you whether you’d like to repeat - that decision is ultimately the applicant’s decision. Repeating is quite common at boarding schools. It gives you extra time to settle in, assimilate, and potentially get better grades which will help both your self-esteem and college applications.
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In terms of repeating, @one1ofeach is right. You should bring it up. The answer may differ from school to school. I can think of one that some years back was a tough place for ANY “young” freshman and that frequently recommended repeating.
I’d strongly recommend that you think through your own personal pros and cons on this beforehand so that you can frame the question well – for both yourself and the AO. Benefits of repeating include 4 full years of the BS experience, an opportunity to be one year bigger and stronger for your sport (if it matters), more maturity, a potentially easier transition to ninth, and a chance to do more academically in high school (and hence more in college. ) Negatives include cost, possibly being on the high end of age with classmates (mostly an issue for students who were held back for a K), an additional year with more rules (BS have far of the freedoms colleges do), repeating some material, and in some rare cases, exhausting the material available at BS. These may apply to you and some may not, but it could be helpful as well to address these in your question. And are you simply open to repeating or do you have a preference one way or the other? I know of students who have applied and whose acceptances indicated the choice the school made for them (which wasn’t the one they wanted) while others have been able to use their flexibility to their advantage.
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The answer will vary from school to school.
Some athletes receive offers of admission conditioned upon repeating a grade, while some applicants offer to do so, and other applicants simply apply as repeaters.
If one wants to apply as a repeater, then that applicant’s SSAT score should be scored with entering 9th graders, not as current 9th graders rising into the 10th grade.
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Hey! I want to let you know, I was completely in the same boat as you!! Last year as an 8th grader, I applied to several boarding schools and got waitlisted at each one of them. I know exactly what you feel, and I also didn’t know if I could go through the whole process again just to get the same result. But this year as a high school freshman, I decided to reapply to some of the schools I resonated with the most, and got accepted at Phillips Exeter Academy–my top choice! I’m now enrolled there as an incoming sophomore and I couldn’t be happier!
So I say definitely go for it - I’m rooting for you!!
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