No. Hell, no. For both schools (and their peers), the reality is that there are far more qualified candidates than there are seats available. There was likely nothing “wrong” with your application. But sending a letter as you propose will either come across as whining or making excuses; neither is a positive. @2003ARD
Yes
What is CA? If it’s Concord Academy - my daughter was rejected.
does anyone know that chances of getting off a waitlist at Milton? (I didn’t get accepted anywhere so I’m just wondering if I should just give up)
If I was to contact the admissions office about their school being my first choice, when should I do it? Early as possible, or around April 10 when mostly finalized class will come in (or several times)? Also, what should I say to the other schools that I was waitlisted from?
I was wondering why schools would put you on the waitlist if they know they won’t be able to provide FA for you. Is it just so that they have a better chance to reapply next year?
Hello! My daughter was waitlisted for NMH. She is a straight A plus student, plays Varsity Tennis, is active in theatre and chorus, volunteers at the library and is a STEM robotics/engineering student. She has beautiful letters of recommendation and interviewed well. Her ISSE scores were in the high 80’s for percentiles. My neighbor who works at NMH thinks it’s a financial aid issue, plus we are a local family and she’d be a day student. Any feedback?
@sciencegirlsmom High 80’s for percentile may have been a slight problem- though I doubt it. Like your neighbor said it could be a financial aid issue, but also an issue of being unique to the school. How were her essays? Schools take the quality of applicants’ essays quite seriously.
@sciencegirlsmom It could very well be financial aid. However, you should ask the school directly. If there is a chance that you may need less aid or none at all, you should inform the school.
Unless you are willing to call a school directly and ask why your child was not admitted, you will never, ever know and anything posted here is just a guess. Because you may or may not get a direct answer from the school either, you just need to let the “why” go. Easier to say than do, I know, but the exercise is futile. Only admissions knows the reason, so they are the only place to go for the answer.
agree with ChoateMom and it could be anything. So she was in the day student pool. Maybe they had more female applicants and the competition was stronger than males. Who knows? She may not have been the racial group needed. Other day student females may have been legacy.
A few years ago, my daughter really wanted to go to Hotchkiss. She was invited to a local parent/student/administration get to-gether at a local golf course/club. We were shocked to learn that almost every family in our area was legacy. She was not. She is being compared against other girls in the applicant pool. It’s hard to be a girl. Girls tend now to have very good stats, and competition is rough for these spots, ivy and esp LACS.
Is there a thread where people post where they were waitlisted and if they’re staying on or declining?
It doesn’t work that way and there’s more to it than gender. If a student doesn’t accept an offer and that kid plays X sport or excels in Y instrument, the school will make their decisions in that fashion. FWIW, and this year may be completely different, two girls were pulled from the wait list at Deerfield. This was well into the summer and at least in one case, the girl was slated to go to another school. I believe it doesn’t hurt to stay on the list but you should determine plan B as the chances are very small.
@DCmom2018 : Sorry to read that your daughter was waitlisted by Deerfield Academy. It is understandable how DA could be someone’s dream school. But there are other outstanding schools–both boarding & day. It was not wise, in my opinion, to apply to just one school as it sets one up for the possibility of devastating disappointment.
I hope that your daughter gets admitted from the waitlist.
@sciencegirlsmom It may be a FA issue - NMH typically has many more qualified applicants applying for FA than they have FA to give out, and the “spikey” kids who fill a specific need will be given priority over what our NMH AO called “the sticky kids.” - kids who lack a hook but that the school would love to have in the community. The same can be said at nearly every school. NMH was very forthcoming with us when we were in your same shoes. Wait a few weeks maybe, but if you call and ask for a frank assessment of chances, many schools will be honest about it. If you can possibly forgo FA, let them know that asap as it may make a big difference especially for a day student.
DD was wait-listed at Deerfield last yr. She applied (10th grade) again this yr; & wait-listed again. Since Deerfield is her dream school; she didn’t apply any other school this yr. We were devastated, especially her; after 1 yr hard work; she ended up in the same spot. We decided to remain on the waiting list & try to figure out how many (actually should be how little) chance by staying on it. So if any of you girls accepted by DA but decided not to go; please let me know. I know schools admit more kids than they expect to enroll, but we don’t want to give up yet. Besides, we didn’t sign the contract with her current BS, we lost her spot too. It’s a desperate situation, and your help will be greatly appreciated.
@MAandMEmom and Publisher, Thank you for your good advice. Our original thought is to apply DA, and if she cannot get in, she’ll stay with her current BS. We were very naive at that time. We didn’t know her current BS wasn’t happy about we applied DA and made it very clear that if we didn’t sign the contract by 3/1, we would lost the spot. They pretty much made it impossible for us to apply other BS, and we had no idea how good or bad the rec letter from the school counselor. Since we were eager to find out DA’s M10 decision, we decided to take a risk, and we knew then we were in a bad situation if she is not accepted by DA because it was too late to apply other schools at that time.
If we knew her current BS’s attitude or policy regarding the renew contract earlier, we would do things differently. The back up plan is for her to go back to local public school, which she is not happy about it either. So, we kind of screwed up.
@sciencegirlsmom She has an amazing profile, perhaps it was merely a small day student availability pool? I hope you get some insight when you call the school.
^^I think you mean a large day student availability pool (to choose from). If it were small, depending how small, all would get in.
@DCmom2018 I bet a moderator moved your post as they would like to keep all wait list related posts together. I’m sorry you are in this predicament. My daughter was wait listed at Deerfield as well (and has a sibling there) but in our case, we knew she would be best to stay at home in the short term so we applied to day schools as well. Are there good day school options near you?
@MAandMEmom We have passed all BS & Day school’s deadline. Even if we apply now, it’ll be on their waiting list. Public school here actually is nice, but DD somehow feel embarrassed to go back, and she likes boarding school life.