MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I know I told the offender this before, but for the benefit of others, Do Not Feed the TroIIs. Just flag the post and let us review. Responding to them in addition means I now need to delete the response since it makes no sense out of context.
Does SPS send emails to confirm that your application is complete? My school mails documents instead of using Gateway and though I know they sent the transcripts and recommendations, I worry that they are received on the other end. Tx!
Yes we got an email from SPS about two weeks after submitting saying “Great work! your application is complete!”
My school did the same thing. My principal had my transcripts/recommendation sent via mail instead of using the Gateway portal. We called the SPS office and they said they likely have it and if they don’t, they’ll call or email us.
Thanks for letting me know! I hope they will confirm.
By the way, I appreciate the email sent to the applicant community that the board issued a tuition freeze for the next two years!
Update: As it turns out, SPS had my principal recommendation, but not the transcripts as I had recieved an email from SPS advising my application was incomplete. I contacted the office at my school and they sent the missing info right away. The same day, SPS sent me an email saying they’d received the missing info and my submission was complete. Have you heard anything further?
It took about two days for SPS to notify us that they’d received the missing info.
Due to another school informing us of a missing document. I had DD school email all the schools we applied to said missing document. Few days later we received a ‘application complete’ email from SPS.
SPS is spreading the love on V Day! Two very nice kids that I know got their interview invites for one of the regional scholarships today. Good luck to all!
@GoatMama I have been following many of your replies as our children seem to be similar (as much as I can tell on CC). My daughter is a competitive club volleyball player and in the class of 2024. The BS process has been great with the coaches but I am not sure what to expect leading up to and after M10. I would prefer not to reply with too many questions. Do you mind sending me a PM? Thank you!
Hi everyone! I am new to this community. My daughter was admitted to SPS for this coming year as a 9th grader. She also got into Lakeside (Seattle), where we live now. I am having a really hard time deciding what to do; keep her in Seattle or send her away. She really wants to go to boarding school. It’s such an odd concept. This whole private school/boarding school thing is so foreign to me!
What were your major considerations for sending your kids off to the other side of the US at the age of 14? I know what is best for her and she’d be great at SPS or Lakeside. But I’m feeling selfish in thinking that she’s going to be missing out on our family growth together as she will have a new family at SPS! She has a younger sister that is in public school in Seattle (her choice). So many questions. Any advice would help.
@DuckDuk Congratulations to your daughter!
Check out this recent thread for insights from others who have struggled with this: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/2174461-thoughts-on-boarding-school.html#latest
Four years ago, I too let a 14-year-old daughter go to the other side of the country. Now she is about to graduate from SPS. The major consideration is always them - their growth, their opportunities. Yes, she found a family at SPS, so now she is richer with two families. And so are we! It’s not easy to let child go away earlier, and it’s a decision that each family needs to make for themselves. It seems that at some point you considered BS a good option for your daughter, as you let her apply. Now that this option is becoming a reality, you’re having the “What have I done?” moment. It’s a common emotion. Here are a few threads dealing with it, courtesy to @ChoatieMom:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1569894-empty-nest.html
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1689420-first-year-reflections-p1.html
@DuckDuck: The short version is that it is akin to sending one to college at age 14.
With local schools such as Lakeside in Seattle or Westminster in Atlanta, there needs to be a solid reason to send a young teen across the country to boarding school, in my opinion & experience. Why does your daughter want to attend boarding school ?
Thank your for your reply @Publisher. It really is like sending her off to college early- minus all the years of arguments about curfews and who gets the car.
You make a good point. My daughter is pretty sure she want to go to boarding school. It’s hard for me to pull from her more solid reasons other than she would love the independence and responsibility. She says she thinks she would do well with some structure. And she would like to have the challenge. All of that you can argue, she would get at Lakeside.
I think the hardest part for me is that she is going to be “raised” in her teen years by another community/family. A really good one at that! And I worry that I won’t get to be a part of that growth. If she were to be at Lakeside, she’d probably get annoyed at me asking her about her daily activities and if she had lunch (what she interprets as nagging). @GoatMama summarized this well - thank you for the links!
There is also a worry that it won’t be a good fit. We can’t visit the campus because they are on Spring Break and this whole COVID-19 thing. So really, we will not know til day 1. Websites for all the private schools look great and it’s hard to tell.
I can’t tell, but it seems like there are formal parties and dinners. Do all the kids "have to " attend? Is there generally any pressure to conform to some of the events on campus or do you think there is quite a bit of room for everyone to do their own thing?
Because you have an outstanding local option–Lakeside–in a highly educated community with a booming economy, there is less reason to consider a boarding school option.
As parents, you will miss out on her activities as well as with connecting with successful, influential families in your area.
With respect to your daughter’s desire for increased independence and responsibility, that can be accomplished in other ways. For example: Your daughter can attend summer programs at various schools or athletic camps throughout the country and throughout the world.
Lakeside is a member school of SYA (School Year Abroad) (if I recall correctly, St. Paul’s School is a founding member of SYA) where she could spend her junior year abroad in Spain, France, China or elsewhere.
At age 16, your daughter will have a driver’s license which develops independence & responsibility.
It is common to enter boarding school in the 10th grade although less so than for 9th grade.
You will lose important years that you can never regain. Although St. Paul’s School is easily among my two top boarding schools–probably number one–I just do not see the need for boarding school in your daughter’s case. Of course, the counter argument is that it is sufficient to be a “want” rather than a “need”. In my opinion, the early & mid-teen years are just too valuable to sacrifice.
SPS is great because it is 100% boarding, 50/50 male female overall, no PGs, offers excellent academics, very healthy endowment & outstanding facilities.
Summer programs, school year abroad, college & graduate school offer students an opportunity for independence & increased responsibility.
In the end, I cannot advise you, your daughter & your family on the best course of action; I can only make observations & offer an opinion.
To further complicate the matter, if I were to send a child across the country, I would want it to be St. Paul’s School over any other boarding school with which I am familiar–although I love Exeter’s location & setting.
P.S. No need to worry about social activities at SPS as it is a very inclusive community due to its location & status as a 100% co-ed boarding school.
I will chime in to add that if we had had a strong local option, we never would have considered boarding school. I always say on this board that although we missed a lot due to the BS decision, our son missed nothing. However, if he had been able to consume a similar education from home, neither of us would have missed anything, and that would have been the best of all worlds.
@DuckDuk, if a current SPS parent from your state hasn’t reach out to you yet, they will, soon. See what they have to say, since you may have shared local experiences. Of course, feel free to PM with any questions.
I decided to post today’s letter by Rector Kathy Giles in its entirety as it may be informative to more than just current families.
March 16, 2020
Dear SPS Students and Families,
I hope this email finds everyone well. Campus is still beautiful and perhaps less quiet than it was last week, as yesterday the Governor of New Hampshire mandated school closures and the child care center closed as well. The faculty kids are out and about! That’s good news in a place at which the sound of students’ and children’s voices gives us all reasons to smile.
As our understanding of the COVID-19 situation continues to develop and local, state, and federal decision-makers adjust their requirements in the face of changing conditions, I write this afternoon to let you know that because of the current public health crisis, and on the advice of public health experts, we need to move our return-to-campus date back to Monday, April 27. This date, six weeks from today, hopefully, provides public health authorities enough time to implement a national testing program that will take some of the uncertainties out of the current situation, allow us to develop more refined isolation/quarantine policies, and allow us to resume school activities on the grounds for the remainder of the school year.
To that end, yesterday, we encouraged all international families that home is the best place for students right now, particularly as some countries and cities are imposing state-monitored quarantine situations for travelers returning from the US. We are in touch with our international families and helping them plan accordingly, and we have assured these families that we will help our international students complete their academic work throughout the end of the year. Because of the issues around social distancing and public health requirements, the buildings and grounds of SPS are largely closed and will remain so until we are advised that we can welcome people back onto grounds and to our buildings and facilities.
It is important to emphasize that April 27 is our hoped-for return date; however, should we not be able to reopen campus this spring because of ongoing public health concerns, our plan would be to complete the year with online instruction and, when possible, reschedule our Sixth Form’s graduation to a date to be determined. Our Board of Trustees met last week to come to this decision and will meet again next week and in the weeks to come to monitor the situation and respond accordingly.
On Thursday, March 19, you will receive information via email regarding this upcoming academic endeavor – schedules, how to access materials, how we are proceeding with grades and credits, the logistics on online work, etc. We are at work on all of those aspects of the program, but we look forward to launching the Spring Term on Tuesday, March 24. We know that our students around the globe live in different time zones, and our schedule will take that fact into consideration with staggered meeting times and faculty office hours. Students can expect a balance of in-person class meetings, recorded tutorials, independent and small group project work, office hours, and video/phone conferencing. Most of our arts offerings can make the transition to online teaching and learning, and we will review and adjust students’ programs to make sure everyone has the credits needed to move forward and, in particular, for our Sixth Formers to graduate this spring.
We are also planning to take our Chapel and community life programs online as well, with scheduled times for advising groups, LINC meetings, student activities, and more. I hope everyone can be patient and flexible as we roll out all of these programs. Dean of Students Suzanne Ellinwood will be in steady contact with more student life information; she can be reached at sellinwood@sps.edu.
There are many questions to be answered, and we will continue to organize and communicate in the days ahead. I’m sorry to have to delay our students’ return to the SPS grounds. While I realize that some schools are already making decisions about the rest of the spring on their campuses, we believe that it is early to make that call and want to hold out some optimism for a good May here together. And we are also confident that we can adjust as necessary to help our students have a successful spring.
As I was reviewing materials last week prior to our sending out our congratulation letters and enrollment contracts to newly-admitted students, that enrollment contract list of all-encompassing circumstances – “war, civil strife, labor unrest, extreme weather conditions, pandemics, or other events” made new sense to me. Many people around the world face these terrible conditions every day; many generations have confronted such challenges and emerged stronger. We will indeed make more than a “good faith effort” to make this spring a successful, if “modified,” educational experience for each of our students. It is our great hope that as of the end of April, much of the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic will be resolved; safe and reasonable ways to conduct life on our campus will be possible, and we will move forward with the rest of our spring plans on the grounds. So, caution and confidence are the order of these days as we move ahead.
Please look for the next round of information on classes, schedules, and SPSpring2020 on Thursday, March 19.
Sincerely,
Kathleen C. Giles
Rector
SPS reported a 15% acceptance rate and 71% yield this admissions season which I thought was pretty impressive given all the pandemic uncertainty and weirdness.
I graduated from SPS more than 20 years ago. However, a lot has changed since then! I read online that there are only six seated meals/year. Is that correct?
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