congrats !
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awesome! iām happy for you. iām also happy you decided to enroll at kent. honestly from talking to you i think youād fit in there. they have 3 post calculus classes, very rigorous academics, along with great extra curricular offerings.
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For what it is worth, Niche has removed negative reviews of mine and other people I know in what I think is in response to complaints from schools. They definitely donāt post or keep everything.
This is interesting
Out of curiosity, I looked at the Niche ranking of US boarding schools and they are all graded āA+ā - clearly grade inflation orā¦ they are all excellent schools so as others have repeatedly said, find the right fit for you and you wonāt go wrong.
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My son was WL at all of the schools to which he applied as Iāve said here before. Weāve made many rookie mistakes but we are still hopeful that something will come through with the support of our current school, which has been nothing short of phenomenal.
That said, I think the biggest mistake we made (other than applying to only 5 schools) was not getting my son in front of enough of the admissions folks during the process. We didnāt submit any video of him doing sports or debate because we didnāt know it was necessary. My son is a strong student and has many things going for him but his best asset is himself. His interviewers all had glowing things to say about him but that doesnāt translate unless others see him, too. His file just didnāt stand out enough.
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Donāt feel bad. We feel exactly the same way. Our son did the process from A to Z and we helped as he needed. He only applied to 4 schools. His grades are top of his class and he plays 3 sports at the highest level. Yet, it was not enough. Two things hurt (FA and he being an international- Canadian). His interviews went great, he attended all the zoom meetings, reached out to coaches with videosā¦etcā¦We were honest and ourselves throughout.
Found out he was competiting with kids who were promoted by paid advisors etcā¦who lobbied going back 2 years.
End of the day, there are a lot of good schools. We did have a plan B and C etcā¦
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Yikes, paid advisors? Boy were we naive!
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You pay someone to run your childās application process say $10-15Kā¦and they work on getting your child in plus play the FA game where you save $20Kā¦Guaranteed there are those getting FA who donāt need it.
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i feel as though FA should really go to those who need it. Many people are on the border of FP and FA and apply for FA seeing if they can get away with it not realizing they can be FPā¦Iām not a parent, so I donāt know what itās like, but Iāve heard @ChoatieMom say people make adjustments. I guess thatās part of the sacrifices of BS.
What will you do now? Will you reapply for next year? The thought of going through this again makes my stomach turn but at the same time we are so much better informed now.
The good news is that there are so many ways to narrow by objective info: size, location, coed (or not), presence of a particularly important EC, cost, etc.
100% the same process we used. We just happen to live near the most āprestigiousā schools.
I think rankings are basically silly but I would also be an idiot to claim there was no academic difference between #1 and #100. But between #1 and #10 there is almost no differenceā¦and if you have a kid who can get into #1 and chooses to go to #50 they are still going to find great teachers and super smart kids. It is just highly likely they wonāt have to work as hard to get an A.
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While it is true that some people are using advisors I have a very hard time believing that US citizens are getting FA who do not need it - based on the school criteria - maybe international students can fake financial info more easily but I really doubt that in the US. You would be surprised at how generous some BS actually are with FA. I know many families at our school who are shocked by how much colleges expect them to contribute because our BS is so generous with aid.
Maybe you are talking about a different category of schools but the ISL and TSAO schools are not screwing around with their FA.
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Is it merit based scholarship you are referring to? Need based FA should be based on hard numbers and an advisor canāt do magic right?
I wasnāt aware there was much FA for Canadians unless a kid was truly a varsity game changer.
Also, having a waitlist of 800 is absurd - I think schools are realizing that.
@mom2boys123
I think videos are critical. We submitted a video, applied to 3 schools and the video was viewed about 25 times. Also, during revisit zooms, the director of the program my daughterās EC is in was so happy to meet her and gushed about her video. If we had not submitted a video I doubt she would have gotten in.
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Very smart and awesome result.
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There is a smaller pool of FA for internationals. But one still exists.