Hi! As you might know from my previous forum, I decided to reapply to few schools including: Choate, NMH, and Peddie. In addition, I added schools that might be a good fit for me which is Blair and Mercersburg (Possibly Andover). What are the acceptance rate for each school for the sophomore class and how many do they usually accept?
Good luck as you reapply for next year! I don’t have any answers but I think that would be a legitamate question to ask the schools. You may be able to get some insight by looking at the typical class size per grade.
Agreed. Nobody here will have the answers. You might get opinions, but since no school AFAIK, releases admissions data by grade, so anything you see here will purely be guesses.
For Andover, there are ~75 new 10th graders each year. The total yield rate (percent of accepted students who choose to enroll) is ~79%. So assuming that the yield rate is constant by grade, about 95 applicants are offered admission to the 10th grade.
For other schools, if the data does not exist on the websites, you can certainly ask the school.
I recall PEAs acceptance a couple of years ago for 10th was around 90–I think. (they gave out a sheet with all of the numbers: total applicants by grade, gender etc and the accepted numbers etc) The numbers probably fluctuate a bit every year
@skieurope @Center @carpoolingma Would you consider “rude” to ask the typical number of accepted students in 10th grade during the interview?
IMO, it’s a valid question, so not rude at all.
absolutely not rude whatsoever. In fact I was visiting schools this past season and some schools advised repeating 9th grade because they thought it would be easier to get in and the applicant was on the young side.
No, I don’t think it would be rude. If you don’t want to ask during the actual interview, you could also just give the admissions office a quick polite phone call.
I think that it is a fine idea to nicely inquire about the typical # accepted. In fact, it lets the school how genuinely interested you are.
Thank you everyone! If you do have any tips regarding the application process, it would really help me, if you could mention some of the points below. 
We asked this question at every interview last year, and it’s not rude or unexpected. The numbers for 10th grade admission will vary year to year, depending on current enrollment. So, if the current 9th grade class is very large, they might be planning on adding fewer students in this admissions cycle. I’ll echo what @Center said above: 9th grade is generally considered to be a transition year and Freshmen are given quite a bit of help with study skills, dorm life etc. - how to live & study on your own. As a result, a few admissions officers told us last year that they are looking for maturity and independence in their 10th grade applicants, because they have to “hit the ground running”. Another good question to ask/consider is where the new 10th graders are housed. Some schools put them with the new 9th graders, which was a deal-killer for my son.
I believe NMH enrolls approximately 50 new sophomores most years - a larger number than many schools. However, lots of schools significantly increase their class size sophomore year. My daughter who graduated in 2016 started as a sophomore at NMH. Sophomore dorms are mixed grades vs freshman “cottages” which are exclusively freshman. Good luck! I think it’s great you are reapplying - lots of CC kids have gone this route and met with success.
@Bantisse , not to muddle your process, but you may want to ask at each place where you are re-applying if you would be better off repeating 9th rather than applying for 10th. This obviously involves a lot of different issues – from whether you would be willing to do that to whether your parents are willing to pay for an extra year. It isn’t unusual for kids to be holding acceptances in March, some for 9th and some for 10th. How the school answers this question – provided you’re open to it – may also be telling. Of course, if you’re committed to 10th, don’t bother, but for some re-applicants, this makes a big difference.
Just one families experience - across 3 different kids and 4 admit cycles. We had substantially better results when applying to 10 grade.
There are many schools that admit very few sophomores and there are schools that admit a larger amount. At Berkshire School, they double the class size sophomore year and add 60-70 kids on average. If you have any questions about Berkshire or the application process, feel free to pm me and I can answer any questions!
This year at Peddie, 10-15 got accepted as new sophomores
Andover admits a whopping 85 sophmores.
@gwckoeda Thank you for the information! Do you possibly know how many international students are as a new sophomore?
@potterpoints Thank you as well!
@Bantisse are you an international sophomore applicant? I am too!
PEA has a similar number for 10th/sophomore