<p>My #2 will start 8th grade in the fall.
2 years ago #1 applied to about 10 schools, was accepted to three, and decided to stay at LPS where he is now.
With #1, I had called around in August, visited schools in September and October, and was done with interviews by mid October.
I started calling and emailing a few days ago for visits during our school off days in September and November, (was pleasantly surprised to hear that they would book visits in November! I knew some schools would not start interviews until 9/20) booked Southwest (no change fees!), hotels, and rental cars so we are all set for the interviews. </p>
<p>Who said BS is the organized person's paradise? </p>
<p>Good for you! I’ve gotten as far as making a spreadsheet of the schools I think our #2 should consider looking at, but that’s it. And making a spreadsheet was just my way of procrastinating – I could feel like I was doing something useful, though really the usefulness could be only marginal at best.</p>
<p>Good for you! This is quite an over whelming process. I went to a private high school (a very long time ago) and I remember it was a little bit of a challenge to get in but this process is even more work than getting into college or my grad school. </p>
<p>I intend to record our journey here. Hopefully it will be useful to others.
We live thousands of miles from NE so visiting schools require planning. With #1 2 years ago and a relative during last application cycle, I have visited and driven by about 20 NE boarding schools. No overlapping schools between the two. And of course few overlapping schools for #2 to make it more interesting. Kids differing in interest, talents, personality. </p>
<p>As with #1, I had #2 take the (upper level) SSAT on June 7th.<br>
If one registers it as a 7th grader, the lower level test gets selected. We checked 8th grade to take the upper level test. The result came out reasonable to send to schools but #2 will take it again in October as some schools require current school year’s scores and there is room for improvement. </p>
<p>I’m not aware of any place administering practice tests around here. We are fortunate to have a testing site within short driving distance. It is actually a house. I’m not joking. About 10 kids huddle around a long table to take the SSAT test at someone’s basement. I suppose very few kids take SSAT around here. Other testing sites that are private schools are more than a couple hours of drive. </p>
<p>We also spent an evening (a long one) submitting Admission Inquiry web forms for each school.
Important to have three ECs or interest areas to click.</p>
<p>Most schools won’t schedule interviews until you are in their system.
One school had a broken web form so we had to submit the screen shot PDF to the school by email.</p>
<p>I’m champing at the bit to get going. DC #1 will be applying to prep schools as a day student. We’ve made a list of possible schools, drove by the campuses of each. I made a OneNote notebook to organize the project, with to-dos, links to websites, app deadlines, questions, parents to talk to, etc. We’re starting some SSAT prep. DC is attending a camp at one of the schools on the list this week and next.</p>
<p>At this point, we have 8 schools on our list, expecting to narrow that down to 4-5 along the way. Next step is to complete the online inquiry forms, but I’ll need DC’s help with that, to make sure EC/interest areas are correctly reflected. Then, to schedule interviews. That was on my list for early fall, based on conversations with school counselor, but I may move it up, based on what I’ve read here. They are all local, so that gives us some flexibility, but then again only certain days are considered “excused absences” for school interviews, so we need to try to get interviews on those days.</p>
<p>Reading CC is both helping and hurting. lol. It helps me feel like I’m doing something, but OTOH it makes me feel like I’m behind, and slightly inadequate. Haha.</p>
<p>The truth is, CC can be helpful in terms of experience, especially from families and kids who have been through the process and can point to results. But there’s a lot of angst and anxiety during the process, so it gives a sense that everyone is doing more than you are and you are behind. There are a lot of different ways of applying, and not everything you see here at CC necessarily leads to success. For example, there is consistently way too much emphasis put on very specific SSAT scores, as if a certain number alone will get you into every school, and other specific scores will keep you out. That is total nonsense-- NO school admits solely (or usually even primarily) based on a specific number. Anyway, it sounds like you are doing everything you should be doing, and more than many (like doing the camp-- your DC will have a better sense of that school than most kids get, although the regular year will of course feel a LITTLE different). So relax-- but you’re right-- you did pick up a good pointer about timing from CC: don’t wait to set up interviews if you need specific days. Call now, and if they aren’t scheduling interviews yet at the specific schools you’re interested in, they’ll tell when they open up their calendar. If some of the schools you’re looking at are purely day schools, they may open up their calendar later than many BSs. Good luck-- and try not to be too stressed. You sound very organized.</p>
<p>@momonymous You seem to have a good plan. No need to change unless you need to.
During last cycle with a relative, all our visits were done in January in snow storms. I expected green scenery on the revisit day in April but there was snow on the ground and we had freezing rain. Oh, well. I’d like to avoid repeating that, that’s all.
Let’s remember to breathe ;)</p>
<p>We’ve finally submitted all the online inquiry forms, with the exception of a couple that seemed to have glitches in their websites. I’ve sent emails to those two, hoping to get them done this week. Also added a couple of boarding schools to our list, so we’re up to 10 schools. Not sure how we’re going to get that down to 4 or 5. Really don’t want to do 10 campus visits / interviews, even if they are all in driving distance. </p>
<p>Finally got our interviews scheduled. We’ve narrowed the list to 5 schools. Dropped some good schools from the list, but I think we have a good, broad range for DC#1. Decided to also apply DC#2 to those that have a middle school. It will just be easier all around to have both at the same school, but DC#2 is not at all happy about that. Hopefully, the school visits will help turn that around. Also planning to attend some open houses.</p>
<p>We toured and interviewed at a few schools. I know this is VERY early but our public school had a long weekend so I had to take advantage of it to minimize absences. Also, our Strange district starts school VERY early so it’s been over 4 weeks since school started and the kid is not in "summer"mood. The rest of visits will be done in November. Since we are thousands of miles away we can’t do separate tours and interviews. All tour and interviews will be done in one shot. We did visit a couple of schools during the summer trips but the campuses were dead silent so didn’t get much feel of the community. October SSAT is scheduled but the weekend is also BS Parent’s weekend when I have to leave town to attend it. (Not my kid but my responsibility.) It will be interesting October next year. </p>
<p>I’ve been poking around the SSAT SAO Application and Gateway to Prep Schools Application websites. SAO App has gotten better since two years ago but doesn’t allow preview before submitting and navigating back and forth deletes the data entered. argh. Only one set of essays and profile form can be created and sent to all the schools with SAO. With Gateway2Prep each school has their own Essay questions and different Profiles can be sent to different schools if necessary. </p>
<p>That’s good information. If you had a choice, which would you choose - SSAT or Gateway?</p>
<p>Three of our 5 schools take the SSAT app. The other two have proprietary apps. Of the 3 that take the SSAT app, only 2 take the Gateway app. So, if we used Gateway for one or both of those, then we’d still have to use SSAT for one. I had thought we’d just use the SSAT for all three, but now I wonder if that’s not smart. I can imagine wanting to customize the essays to each school, for example to express interest in a particular EC that one school has but others do not. Interesting dilemma.</p>
<p>Is it possible to see the common apps before deciding? I opened an SSAT account, but you have to pay for at least one school in order to see the app. Not sure I want to do that before we visit.</p>
<p>Yeah, I figured highlighting an EC which one of the schools doesn’t offer may not fly well. </p>
<p>The choice depends on your child and you.
If the kid absolutely hates writing multiple essays, then SAO is for you.
If you can help managing multiple apps and the kid doesn’t mind customizing essays, then I’d choose Gateway.
I’ve used Gateway before.
I created shared Google docs for each school. Grabbed and pasted essay questions onto the google docs and had the kid work on the essays. Google docs have word count too. (I was pasting the essays into MS Word for word count, oops )
Once writing is done, I pasted the essays into each school App and paid w my credit card and submitted. With Gateway, you can see the essay questions before paying. </p>
<p>The reason I’m looking into common app is mainly for recommendation letters. I’d hate to give multiple forms/websites to the teachers. For us, it looks like this is unavoidable.
I made a spread sheet of schools and app forms. The Venn diagram shows zero overlap. </p>
<p>Previously, I asked the teaches 1) do Gateway first and 2) save the letter in PDF and then 3) email it to the schools that are not on Gateway.
It sort of worked. Except one of the teachers did only Step 1. so we found out in mid February the letters from a teacher were missing. Also, email gets swamped in mid January so even important pieces of Application can go missing. I don’t know how can an email go missing.
I think I may send the hard copy by postal service if I have to send something in mid January or later.</p>
<p>You can open a Gateway account too and see if the two schools on Gateway have the same questions or not and decide.<br>
In Gateway, if you add the Loomis Chafee school, the application is very close to SAO. The essay questions are the same as SAO app.
After you see the questions you can remove Loomis from your school list ;)</p>
<p>Thanks @payn4ward, I opened up a Gateway account. My motivation to keeping to fewer apps was same as yours…teacher recommendations. But one of the schools we’re looking at is an arts school and one is a single-sex school, so I could see how we may want to have different responses to different types of schools. Not radically different, I mean, not reinventing ourselves, but just recognizing the different audiences.</p>
<p>Our school counselor told us 5 schools would be a good number to apply to, so I’m assuming they’re okay with completing 4 sets of recommendations if we decide to go that way. (2 school apps, 1 SAO, 1 Gateway) I’m sensitive to the work load for the teachers in a school where nearly all the 8th graders are applying out (a pK-8 school).</p>
<p>I was worried about this issue last year, but in the end decided that we had to pick the right schools and the right number of schools, rather than get too anxious about the logistics. Yes, it would have been easier to only apply to a short-list of schools on Gateway, but it just didn’t work out that way for us. It’s a lot of paperwork to manage, for the kids, parents and teachers, and despite everyone’s best intentions something may get neglected along the way. Strangely, my DD’s teachers had an easier time with the old-fashioned paper forms than they did with the easy (IMO) on-line forms. So, you never know! I guess the point of my ramble here is to keep your list “smart”, with safeties and reaches, and schools that make sense for your DC. The admission odds are already rather daunting, so I wouldn’t let the additional paperwork stop you from including a school that may help improve your odds. Especially if you’re at a school that ends in 8th grade - writing recommendations is part of what those teachers are hired to do!</p>
<p>Interview season has started for us. We did our first one last week. This was at a school that was a little further afield for us. It was low pressure, and was actually quite enjoyable. There was a lot to like about the school, even if it’s not one of the household names in our area. It was a good way to start the process. We have another one scheduled next week, and then we’ll get to the ones that are highest on our list. Wanted to have a couple behind us before going to our top priorities.</p>
<p>Funny thing happened: While my oldest was in the student interview, I got a text from my youngest that it was a half day at school, a fact that I had somehow missed. Fortunately, I was able to arrange a ride home for my youngest before we went in for the parent interview. We just didn’t let on in the interview that we had neglected our youngest. I swear it’s not normal for us. I don’t know how it happened.</p>
<p>@payn4ward, I hope you don’t mind me tracking our process here as well. I realize I never asked. Don’t want to impose, but I enjoy sharing the experience with you and others, and this seems like a good thread for that.</p>