The BS Class of 2016 Thread

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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I have re-read some pages from the Class of 2015 thread and been reminded how helpful are those parents and their input regarding all sorts of questions and issues. Have to admit, as a 2015 “groupie”, I’m a bit wistful about these folks moving on, literally “graduating” with their children and probably on CC/Prep much less, if at all. There are some with younger siblings still in school, so we’ll see how the ranks thin.

I’m not even sure how many of the posters I’ve been reading are '16ers, or how many from other years will be interested, but I thought to give this thread a shot. Our boy recently said goodbye to this year’s graduates and is now settled into exam week. He has a busy few weeks after, at home, as he gets a driving permit nailed down, preps for SAT IIs in June, sees friends for a few days, and prepares to leave for a month-long immersion school in his foreign language. He did study Spanish through elementary and middle school, but decided on his own to start Mandarin in ninth grade. Which brings me to . . .

We are well into the college search process as he’s seen ten schools in the past year. Not so sure if he knows what he’s looking for academically, but we’re hoping that by the beginning of August or so, that will be more clear. The $64 question is whether Mandarin has ceased to be a meaningful factor, is a low-level necessity, or has become a major driver (with career implications?) that could distinguish the offerings of one college from another. We’re also beginning to see that one strategy envisions merit aid by targeting schools where he’ll be in the top 15% or so. We filled in the SAS parent questionnaire, on paper, but know that the students use Naviance for much of the process. We’ve yet to ask boy for the password or to find out what the kid has already done online. Not clear whether we want to go there or not. Discussion about the visits already made seems minimal to me, which is frustrating, and I don’t think that he has any of his own written notes. Again, I’m assuming he’ll fill us in during August when the Common App should get serious attention. That will be the month, too, in which we’ll probably make the last visits to colleges, as I don’t see how the fall schedule for an athlete at boarding school allows for enough time off beyond one or two close-by campuses.

At the end of the summer, I’m wondering if he’ll consider getting the “mix” of schools on the short list sorted more reliably with Naviance scattergrams; and I’m aware there is a service called Parchment that makes projections from the student’s data. At that point, we might still be waiting on a third sitting for the SAT, though the superscore seems unlikely to move much, and perhaps a third subject test in November. October is when I imagine the college counselor will enter the picture in a big way.

Commiseration and Celebration; it’s our own CC for one more year, '16ers!

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@Charger78 It seems almost yesterday that we we going through the process with GG… and yeah, now she’s about to be a “rising senior.” We’ve already visited an awful lot of schools, learned lots about (and with) Naviance, filled out that LONG parent questionnaire, met with school college counselor… it feels like we are tumbling forward unbelievably quickly. GG will say a tearful goodbye to this year’s seniors next weekend, then it’s exams and a summer of music. For her, because music is still a driving force, we started the process early, and she has her list of schools fairly well in hand, though the occasional school comes off or gets added, sometimes as a result of things we learn on visits, sometimes for other reasons.

One thing GG’s college counselor made really clear about even the somewhat more reliable stats on Naviance (because they’re based on actual students from your school), is that your student is not a statistic. As parents, we hope to stack the odds in our kids’ favors. For our children, it is authenticity that will get them into a school where they can continue to grow. We also have heard that the less of a reach the school, the more likely merit aid. It makes perfect sense and would explain why most of the Ivies give “need only” aid, albeit at a higher level than many schools’ merit-based aid. In addition, we learned with the boarding school process, that, though schools may say they only give need based aid, merit plays a part in the distribution of that aid. Some schools are clearer about that then others.

As for visits, GG’s school allows seniors time off to visit colleges, though they do encourage summer visits (and many colleges, from ivies to regionals, have summer visit days—by now you have probably received plenty of junk mail with invitations to these) and visits during vacations. I know the sports schedule is an issue; however, unless your kid is an athletic recruit, wouldn’t they let him out of practice for one or two school visits? Is there a clear policy for senior college visits at SAS, or are they flexible? Our strategy for the last few fall visits will be Sunday travel and Monday missed school (for the most part) to minimize time away from the regular school schedule. Our schedule is somewhat more compressed than many’s, as it will include auditions, applications are due generally by December… for RD—because of pre screens and audition scheduling (which happen during second term… so performing arts kids in general don’t even get a break after January, because audition season is Jan–March, sometimes nearly up to April 1).

I’m for commiserating and celebrating as well…bring it on!

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@charger78 - Your son should drive the process, but you should definitely be involved and help him manage the process. Does your son’s school not give parents naviance access? If not, yes, get the password from him. IMHO, this is too important of a process not to have some degree of oversight. Have you been in contact with the college counselor? You should be at this point.

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@Charger78 I have nothing to do with the class of 2016, but I want to thank you for using the same title treatment as 7Dad. It makes my heart happy. Thank you.

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@stargirl3 , lol, I have another, younger, kid and could also start a BS Class of 2017 thread!

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Thanks for the messaging, @girlgeekmom . I once worked at a school with a college counselor named Joyce Slayton Mitchell, who I’m pleasantly surprised is now well published in this area. Joyce says that once a student hits 650-650, the SATs won’t be the reason keeping them out of any school, even the most selective. Though the SATs won’t get them in, either, not even if they were bumped up to 800-800. (Which is to say, everybody between 1300-1600 has a chance everywhere, given a correspondingly strong GPA and appealing profile.) It is, as you write, all about the authentic human in the application that will really determine the outcomes. So that is the actual demonstrated body of work, not just listed on paper, but as it comes out in the writing of the kid and her adult recommenders. Also, the visual or recorded evidence of the recruited athlete or artist/musician.

We as parents, I think, won’t know how this written part is going to help (or not) until late in the game. Perhaps we’ll get an objective take on our kid’s essays, accounting for our own bias and halo effect. The recommendations we’ll never see (unless the Stanford Fountain Hoppers have nine lives). This crucial part of the application, then, adds to the uncertainty in trying to distinguish the “unlikely but possible” schools from the “unlikely but more possible” – what I think of as falling into the roughly 25-45% admit rate as projected “by the stats” of an individual kid. Is this where the college counselor, from their knowing perch above all of the high school’s applicants, guides the student/family to a more realistic “mix” of appropriate schools, a step or two beyond the Naviance projection? I’m hoping so.

Thank you for your advice, too, @doschicos . Our school seems to have changed its policies in the past year or two in regard to which Naviance functions it makes available to the students and to the parents (could they be separate, even?). I’m trying to get a clear statement from the CC office about what their position will be going forward, which is complicated because the Director of CC recently announced her departure for a famous NE acronym and the internal replacement just assumed the helm in the last ten days. Fortunately, we did get a half–hour speaking with him the weekend before graduation. So, yes, we are lurching toward the level of oversight that we think is right for us, learning more about what that is as we go, and benefitting from opinions of those more experienced such as yourself.

Flabbergasted that the first three years of high school are nigh done. Applying to BS in 2012 was really a critical moment in our family’s “history”, with consequences large and small, still unfolding, and likely to be with us always. This round has many more moving parts and seems rather different. For that, I’m so glad that we’re not doing it alone.

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I like messaging, @Charger78 — it allows for a bit more candidness without revealing too much personal info as our kids enter the college process. I have found parents will reach out with such valuable insight on the messaging side that is more specific to an individual situation. I think these public boards are great for sharing strategies, successes and failures, challenges and hopes… but maybe not the best place to splatter individual kids’ stats on the boards (sorry, @stargirl3 and others who love the chances boards. They are a big jar of crazy-making imo, and the college “chance me” board is the worst. GG’s college counselor said "stay off them. You don’t know who is actually posting. And YOU. ARE. NOT. A. STATISTIC.).

The above noted, Naviance stats are useful as general information. One of the things I like about them is that they give a good overall view of how students from YOUR kid’s school have fared with admissions at colleges, and with what stats. One of the things I do NOT like about Naviance is that it color codes test and GPA statistics, so that if your kid has a lower test score than other students from their school’s mean scores who were accepted to a particular college in prior years, your kid’s (possibly quite high) score will show up in red. It is needlessly anxiety-producing and not particularly illuminating. I have a friend whose son was in this situation — he was a stellar student at a tippy top boarding school. Drove himself crazy on the Naviance stuff. Got into Ivy, despite “low” (not) stats.

As for the Naviance access, parents and students have different logins at GG’s school. It provides a good picture to the school’s college admissions folks, and I think it’s good that the students can’t read the parent questionnaires, and vice-versa. I think it allows parents to be candid about family situations that may be sensitive (there is a parent question that asks about life events or illnesses/accidents etc. that might have affected grades, for example. If there was something big, a parent’s take on it might provide some perspective; it is not always necessary for the student to relive it or read about it). It also helps provide some insight for a guidance counselor who may be dealing with anywhere to a few dozen to a couple hundred students…and who has to write a recommendation for each one. The more qualitative info they have, the better. @Charger78, have you been asked to fill out the parent questionnaire yet? If not, it’s worth asking the school about.

On the recommendation side… we’ve now visited about a dozen colleges/universities, attending tours and admissions visits. At every one, the presenter or discussion leader stressed the importance of teacher recommendations. I understand from parents who’ve been through this before, that they need to be teachers from junior or senior year. I would counsel all to put a bug in their kids’ ears about lining up references as early as possible (ask now—avoid the fall rush!)…

And here we go!

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FWIW, one of my recommender’s was from sophomore year. While colleges often state what they’d like to see in an application, that’s not often the reality of what they will see. For example, some colleges state that they want to see 4 years of each of the core subjects (English, math, science, history/social science, and foreign language). All that is well and good, but at my boarding school, it’s physically impossible to do that and complete the arts/music/PE requirement without going into course overload.

I offer that up as an example only to show that the “advice” that is often given here may not be applicable in your/your DC’s case. I am lucky (as most boarding school students are) to have a strong college counseling office, which many posters do not. My college counselor said it was fine that I has a recommendation from a sophomore year teacher and that I was “missing” a core science, and I think I did pretty well in the admissions round.

Good luck to the class of 2016; if you thought the BS application process was challenging, you ain’t seen nothing yet. :slight_smile:

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@girlgeekmom I do not like the chances board!!!

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If you’re talking about my stats threads… I like those. But not the chances boards.

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The stats threads make me a little queasy. This falls under the category of TMI, at least for me. And you still don’t know how honest people are being. I realize your threads are for after the fact, @stargirl3 , but still. You are not a statistic. Nor are others who post. My concern is that the same people who lurk the chances boards will see the stats threads and glom onto something else to make them anxious/crazy/obsessive…if they weren’t already. Anyway, YOU are definitely not a statistic :wink:

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I’m not a big fan of What Are My Chances threads, either on the Prep School Forum or the College Forum. However, I find @stargirl3 's stats thread useful in that potential applicants can see what type of students are admitted (or not) to various schools and can weigh their own credentials against that.

Having said that, assuming that the prospective student has an open mind (which is not always the case), posting one’s stats does allow other, more experienced members to provide some alternative suggestions that the OP may not have realized.

But yeah, 13-year old’s chancing each other - total waste of energy :wink:

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^Plus the vast majority saying how wonderful their essays and teacher recs are. They can’t all be good.

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Thanks for starting this thread @Charger78. I’m finding that I have no interest in checking out any of the college forums so I will stick with my Prep School Parents board friends. Applying to college from prep school feels like it will be very different than the experience of most who are applying from day schools.

They jump start college stuff pretty actively in spring of junior year at friendlydaughter’s school. She has her list and she has good enough scores on the SAT I at this point to be done with it. We’ve seen a bunch of schools and will look at more over the summer.

I feel like I’m already “over” the college race before it has even really begun. Perhaps I’m fooling myself but I feel confident that friendlydaughter will do just fine. At the moment she’s most interested in a school that her CC considers a solid “possible” so I feel good that she’s not pining after a huge “reach”.

Meanwhile, I get my kid back in 2 days, hooray!

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@friendlymom , we are in a pretty similar boat, in the sense that there is nothing much to look forward to testing wise and there is the most interest in a “solid possible”; or, actually, more a “likely”. Have to agree that these BS prep kids really do have their tickets already punched, which our head actually told us at the parent introduction to the process before Thanksgiving last year.

We are finding that our “feeling” about the business is definitely evolving as time passes. I’d like to think that we’re “over” some sort of hump too! Resignation that we’re letting a youngblood make the big decisions that are unlocking the treasure chest, no?

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Yay! Very glad someone started this thread as I have been lurking on the 2015 thread and yet I still feel we are behind schedule for our 2016 dd. We visited a bunch of schools but have yet to see a school that my daughter feels is “the one.” Hoping to gain clarity over the summer. Her list is still all over the place too. Not her bs’s fault - we had a family situation at home which delayed her cc meeting.

Also is everyone’s child taking subject tests and will you submit them when they are recommended but not required? We have been told it would be ok for our dd to skip subject tests ( and they are unlikely to help our dd as she is a top student in her class but a crummy SAT taker) Everything I have read suggests every kid takes at least 2 subject tests including our bs counseling page so any insights from parents on this is helpful. She will not be applying to any Ivies but will apply to some of the next tier down/little Ivies.

Finally a heads up - if you are applying to any test optional schools, make sure your student saves some graded papers from junior year! Our dd threw some very good graded papers away in her end of the year packing frenzy, and I realized the next day that some test optional schools were requesting graded work for portfolio applicants. Oops!

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@chemmchimney - No need to take practice tests unless schools on your D’s college list require them. Also, no for a “that one” or dream school. Honestly, I think its better that way, unless she really wants to apply ED somewhere, which has its benefits.

@Charger78 - I’m really surprised that a BS head would stick his/her head out to say this: “these BS prep kids really do have their tickets already punched, which our head actually told us at the parent introduction to the process before Thanksgiving last year”, because of increasing competition each year and the fact that I don’t think BS grads carry the same cachet in the admissions process that they have in the past, at least not for a good chunk of the graduating class. But maybe the experience is different at your child’s school…

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Sorry, @doschicos , I may be putting some words in his mouth. He specifically was referring to the graduates of our school. He means that they are all going to fine schools and that the process is going to work out fine for all of them. He says this on the assumption that a kid will have eight first choices that they would be happy to attend (of mixed selectivity, naturally, and appropriate to their profile), and that all kids will get into at least one of these schools, if not more, based on their comprehensive body of work and their formation as a person at the BS and home.

He is not saying that all have their tickets punched at the super-selective schools, or their #1, or even their other reach schools. Because that’s not realistic, as we all know here on CC.

I think that, in general, more students, at more of the BS across the land, do fine when this is the perspective that is taken. And I think that our head would probably agree with me. I regret my miscommunication on that last point. Boarding students are not privileged by colleges in the admissions process, as a group, but they are viewed as uniquely prepared for college work, and their “realistic” prospects are favorable, as a group, with the assumptions given above. They generally get as good, or better, counseling than the majority of public, parochial, or charter kids do, if only because the case load is more reasonable per counselor.

So, sure, there are some BS grads who get diplomas but certainly seem lacking in whatever respects, but most come out of this transformational holistic experience, and education, with as good advantages in getting on with life and college as any, imho.

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Thanks for adding the color. I probably read too much into your initial comment and agree with what you’ve said above. :slight_smile: @Charger78

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Yep, GG’s cgc said pretty much the same as @Charger78 's. CGC said that, as expected, ivies are a reach for even tippy top kids, just by the numbers, and that it doesn’t hurt to apply as long as you don’t pin your hopes on a particular one. If you have a few or several great choices and grades, EC’s and esp. recommendations to back up your apps, you are going to get into at least one of them. At GG’s school, cgc’s are also familiar enough with the faculty members that they can give good counsel on whom to ask for recommendations, if a student has more than the requisite two in mind.