With the recent discussion on SPS, just want to bump this thread as it has a wealth of info on SPS.
Whoa, 216 pages? This is putting my M10 Freak out thread to shame. 
Thanks for bumping, I’ll be glad to read through all of this information.
From the SPS website (that is a huge yield):
Record Yield for Admissions
4/21/2015
Seventy-nine percent of the 238 students admitted to St. Paul’s School for 2015-16 have decided to enroll at the School in the fall. The 187 new students include 96 boys and 91 girls.
“That is our highest yield ever,” says Dean of Admission Scott Bohan ’94. “I believe it speaks to the process; admitted students feel like they have a connection here, that St. Paul’s is the right fit for them.”
Consistent with numbers collected from the last few cycles, 1,524 students applied to St. Paul’s for the 2015-16 academic year. Of that number, only 15.6% were offered admission to the School in a pool that featured 30% of applicants who registered grade-point averages of 4.0 or above.
Among the 238 admitted students are 120 girls and 118 boys from 33 states and 19 countries, including Vietnam, Turkey, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Bahamas. A total of 995 students applied for the Third Form, 377 for the Fourth Form, and 152 for the Fifth Form. New student enrollment includes 113 Third Formers, 57 Fourth Formers, and 17 Fifth Formers. Included in the SPS enrollment numbers for 2015-16 are 77 (41%) new students of color.
Total enrollment for the Fall Term is expected to be around 539 students.
Bohan says the School had particular success this year with reaching students domestically. That is due to additional efforts recently to attract students from non-traditional American markets and also because of the availability of opportunities through several regional scholarships. The Hunt Scholarship for students from the El Paso, Texas, region, will bring two new students to SPS, while the Greene Scholarship (Alabama) and Meyer Scholarship (South Carolina) have encouraged more students from those states – scholarship recipients and non-recipients – to enroll at the School than in previous years. Nine out of 10 candidates for the Ross Scholarship (Northern New Jersey) have enrolled at St. Paul’s, regardless of whether they received the scholarship. New students will also attend SPS on the Burke (California/Wyoming), Cook (Montana), and Heinz (Pennsylvania) Scholarships.
Thirty-eight percent of all students enrolled at St. Paul’s will receive some form of tuition assistance during the 2015-16 academic year.
Bohan is pleased to see the diversification of enrollment both domestically and internationally. He notes that the SPS admission staff continues to meet students with special interests in math and science, particularly engineering, adding that prospective parents see St. Paul’s as a place where their children can pursue a wide variety of subjects and activities. The two spring visits for admitted students confirmed for many, says Bohan, that St. Paul’s is the right place for them.
“I think people walked away saying that we have nice, smart, talented kids at St. Paul’s,” he says, “and they want to be a part of that.”
College matriculation data from the SPS Class of 2015:
Form of 2015 Heads to College
6/17/2015
Members of the Form of 2015 will attend 74 different colleges and universities – the most of any previous form – indicating the focus on finding the right fit that has long been emphasized by the SPS Office of College Advising.
“Our goal is to use the college search experience as part of the educational process,” says Dean of College Advising Tim Pratt. “We want them to figure how they can be best prepared to succeed wherever they go.”
Eight members of the form will attend the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, and Georgetown, while seven will attend Boston College. With some uncertainty due to unusually active wait-list activity this spring, at least five form members will attend Harvard and Princeton, while five each are committed to Dartmouth and Northwestern. So far, 16 Sixth Formers – 10 percent of the form – have received wait-list offers, about twice as many as usual.
Thirty-nine of the students, says Pratt, will be the only member of the SPS Form of 2015 enrolled at their respective colleges. Only 19 colleges will enroll three or more members of the SPS Form of 2015, most of them large universities with wide offerings.
This year’s Sixth Formers Applied to more schools – 198 – than any previous form. Brown, Georgetown, UPenn, Columbia, Yale, BC, Berkeley, Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, NYU, UCLA, Cornell, Princeton, the University of Virginia, St. Andrew’s, and the University of Southern California each received at least 20 applications from St. Paul’s students for the Class of 2019.
College admissions remained ultra-competitive in 2014-15, with more than 30 schools completing the admissions cycle with acceptance rates below 20 percent. Those included Amherst (12%), Bowdoin (15%), Brown (8%), Claremont McKenna (10%), Columbia (6%), Cornell (15%), Dartmouth (10%), Duke (11%), Georgetown (16%), Harvard (5%), Johns Hopkins (12%), Middlebury (17%), MIT (8%), Northwestern (13%), Pitzer (13%), Pomona (10%), Princeton (7%), Rice (15%), Stanford (5%), Swarthmore (12%), Tufts (16%), UChicago (8%), UPenn (10%), USC (17%), Vanderbilt (11%), Williams (17%), and Yale (6%). At least a dozen others featured admit rates of less than 30 percent.
Pratt said this year, perhaps more than in recent years, cost was a significant factor in many Sixth Formers’ college decisions. Many SPS students earned merit scholarships to help fund their college educations. Pratt also noted a greater attention to program offerings at colleges in the decision-making process of the graduating form members. Personal choice, he says, continues to factor into decisions on college destination.
“We continue to stress the individuality of this process and work hard to help each student find a set of schools that will provide the very best match,” says Pratt. “Criteria can vary immensely from student to student and our list is, appropriately, growing more and more diverse. This year was one of the best in recent memory, by any measure, and our students are headed to a wide array of outstanding colleges and universities.”
Sounds like at leas this year, the cross admits of Andover, Exeter and SPS are fewer? Not sure about the exact yield rate of Exeter, but in another thread over-enrollment was mentioned. Andover’s being 84% and SPS 79%, and assuming Exeter is around 80% as well, it means the cross-admit rates among these three are lower. Or did I miss anything?
Just to add this detail - Exeter’s yield is 76% this year, a record (?) high. These are real peer schools. I used to think there’re a substantial number of cross-admits among them. Maybe they have “improved” their processes to prevent that from happening? Otherwise, all of them have high yield in the same year would be hard to explain.
I’ve never seen much evidence of cross-admits, particularly between SPS and Andover or Exeter. The schools have different vibes to them. There will always be some applicants who apply to all because of their recognition and status as being more elite. But, for families who spend the time to seek out a particular fit, I think you’d see less applicants applying to all three.
^^ Are they all that different? Sure SPS is half of the size of A&E, but I can see many similarities as well. They are all rich schools (ie large endowments), intense on academics, big on sports, trying to diversify their student body, holistic in admission, generous in FA, less structured and have similar variations of “independence with responsibity” philosophy, and they are in the same geographic area… So if a student applying A/E wants to add other “top schools”, what would they choose? Deerfield instead of SPS? Idk. With no “hard data”, I’m resting my case here.
“There will always be some applicants who apply to all because of their recognition and status as being more elite.” — that is not necessarily true.
I know some kids applied to these schools mainly for their academic rigorousness and also the activities matching their interests very well. They were accepted to all the schools they applied. Actually those kids were invited by personalized letters to apply.
These schools call themselves peer schools for many good reason, and one of them is that they are seeking the same smart, motivated and independent individuals to train them to be leaders of tomorrow and at the same time to expect them to contribute to the school community. For applicants, cast a wide net not only means one should apply to an array of schools with different sselctivities, it also means when feasible even the strongest candidates should apply to a few more highly selective schools to increase their odds because as someone pointed out earlier in the current admissions climate, there are very very few candidates who actually hold a “golden ticket” for any given school.
It is very possible some kids are attracted by different things these school offered. My DC was attracted by Exeter for its math competition team, was also fascinated by SPS’s Freedom with Responsibility and we all like Andover’s food and its idea of bringing Youth from every quarter. And on and on. When there is no clear best choice, it is natural to apply all possible ones. No prestige ever taking into consideration.
@skitahoe - Selective reading on your part. Notice my use of the word “some” in my statement. It is not a blanket statement. Of course, it does not apply to all or even a majority but “some”. It’s naive not to to think that “some” folks apply to schools based on prestige, one because they are often the schools they are familiar with and two because we see evidence on it here on this forum.
Having had a connection to the school for close to 10 years and knowing where many students applied, quite a few do not apply to either Andover or Exeter when applying to SPS. One of my children applied to only 2 schools not including Andover and Exeter. My other kid applied to 5 schools but chose not to apply to Andover after visiting. Got into all 5 so definitely not one of those helping the yield rates. I also know many legacy students who only apply to the legacy school. There is no concrete study I can point to but my remarks are made based on my real life observations and knowledge. Some apply everywhere, some are looking for a certain type of school (smaller, larger, more traditional with sit down meals, etc.) Those students coming from feeder private middle schools are often encouraged by their private middle school to apply to a mix of selectivity and limited in the number of schools they can apply to so are unlikely to apply to so many “reach” schools. Some only apply to one school (legacies, day students). Based on my own observations, I know very few who chose to apply to Andover, Exeter and SPS.
@doschicos, I see your point now that some not all of the applicants are for the prestigious reasons. My bad misreading your statement. But I believe those fame chasers are not limited to Andover, Exeter and SPS applicants.
I happened to know a group of kids who are cross-admit of these schools and each school offers something attractive and thus they applied to these three which happen to have good reputation.
@doschicos, it is also possible from your world, that families familiar with the BS world know better of each school, especially legacies, thus only apply to the best fit schools. For us, it is a brand new world which is also three thousands miles away. When my DC visited the campus and had the interviews in January, the applications were almost done. Before that, we did not have chance to experience different vibes of these schools.
Valid point, @skitahoe, and in explaining high yield rates, probably one of the reasons that those familiar with the process often face better odds of a positive outcome in March. Legacies get accepted at a higher rate not just because they are legacies but because they are often better groomed to be a desirable boarding school candidate, whether its test prep, good academic preparation, knowing why and being able to get the message across as to why that school is a good fit for them, and a multitude of other little ways. Same holds true from kids coming from private schools of which there are decent percentage at any boarding school. These kids receive guidance from their current school on how to take the ssat, write good essays, apply to a range of schools, etc.
My universe of experience is kids who were successful in the process and enrolled in the school so they often, but not always, reflect some of these benefits.
Just for the sake of argument - Even if one goes about it mainly by name recognition, The “beauty” of it is that over time a group of schools different in size and feel but nonetheless share important commonalities have gained the name recognition. So, as long as you include enough of them and at least one “safety” you are happy to attend, you’d naturally have that diversity built in your list. In the end, whether you can actually attend your “best fit” largely depends on whether you have that as an option or in certain cases whether financially it’s feasible. In a sense, the New England Boarding School is a brand name. If you buy in that name, you will still have a lot of choices but certainly not “unlimited” choices.
From the SPS website:
SPS to Expand Financial Aid Policy
7/15/2015
SPS will extend its financial aid policy to include more American families, beginning in the 2015–16 school year. In the first change to its financial aid guidelines since 2012, the School will award full tuition and mandatory fees to students demonstrating strong academic ability and leadership potential and whose families earn $125,000 or less annually. In addition, families earning between $125,000 and $250,000 will be expected to contribute no more than 10 percent of the family’s household income toward their child’s education. The move was made to address the impact of rising tuition costs and slowing income growth and their effects on the affordability of education.
“This increase reflects our continued commitment to providing a St. Paul’s School education to all qualified students, despite their ability to pay,” said Rector Mike Hirschfeld ’85. “By remaining as accessible as we possibly can, we are able to enrich the overall quality of our education by creating a dynamic community of individuals who bring their diverse experiences and perspectives to the School.” Currently 38 percent of all St. Paul’s School students receive some form of financial aid.
At the School, where all students live on the grounds, this financial support includes room, board, and other expenses. The cost of attending St. Paul’s School in 2015–16 is expected to be $54,290. The aid under the revised policy will come entirely in the form of grants; the School will require no loans to be repaid.
The policy is similar to those available from some of the nation’s most competitive colleges, including Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton, where income thresholds help families more easily calculate their financial responsibilities. “We want our financial aid philosophy to be clear for prospective families,” said Dean of Admission Scott Bohan ’94. “It recognizes that $54,000 per year is a lot of money, and it outlines what one’s actual contribution might be. This is a very logical next step that underscores our intention to increase the range of families who can take advantage of all St. Paul’s School has to offer.”
According to Financial Aid Director Tim Caryl-Klika, the new policy also means that there is no income cut-off for financial aid eligibility, so families with incomes higher than $250,000 per year may still qualify for aid. “We have been a leader in independent school financial aid for some time now,” he said. “We want students and their families to determine if St. Paul’s is the best school for them based on the quality of our programs and our commitment to living in community. Financial considerations are of course important, but finding the right fit should be paramount.”
Building on a policy announced in 2006 that awarded full tuition to families of admitted students with household incomes of $65,000 or less, the policy was expanded in 2008 to offer full financial aid to families with household incomes of $80,000 or less. In 2012, families earning between $80,000 and $200,000 per year were asked to contribute no more than 10 percent of their yearly income.
Do people wear rompers at St. Paul’s?
Here is something basic to understand that make the yields high at Andover and Exeter in the context of high yields at St. Pauls: St. Pauls does not have a PG year. Andover and Exeter do. Thus, anyone seeking a PG year will necessarily never be a cross-admit candidate for St. Pauls; further, I believe that PGs have very high yields, thus skewing the numbers upwards for Andover and Exeter. Admittedly, the numbers of PGs aren’t substantial (about 25 or so each in A & E), but nonethless a point of reference to explain why each school can have high yields even if they seem similar ( and thus seemingly “lose” cross-admits to one another that would deflate yield).
I was told by a retired faculty member (or 50 years!) at one of the top schools, that such a policy is becoming a necessity for these schools. No, this does NOT mean their applications are down! He said that they could fill his school wall-to-wall with the VERY bright children of hedge fund managers who have enormous wealth, but if they did so, it would totally change the character of the school to one of the very poor and the very rich. They are actively courting children from upper middle class families who, even with a salary of $250,000 a year, cannot afford $57,000 a year tuition and fees for multiple children, out of their after-tax income. They particularly want ones who come from areas where they could go to a highly competitive public high school. Selling those parents on an elite boarding school is VERY difficult due to the enormous expense.