<p>Hello,
I wonder if somebody got an experience transferring between boarding schools? He is in grade 8 now and will be starting grade 9 next year.
My son got accepted by a backup school, while being waitlisted in the school he really likes. We dont want him to stay in the public school system for another year. While he seems to be liked by his teachers in the Middle School, and teachers/director gave him great references this year, nobody would know him in the new High School hell have to go to. As a result, who knows what marks/references he might get at the beginning of next year?
So, my question is did anybody ever transfer from one BS to another? I understand that there is a lot of rivalry between these schools. Asking teachers to complete recommendations for another BS will rise questions is your child not happy with us? Will he be considered a potential traitor and treated as such?</p>
<p>Look, if you’re really not happy with the school your son’s been accepted to, then don’t send him. (The question arises, though, as to why you even bothered to have him apply to that school . . .)</p>
<p>If you do like the school, then embrace it, and encourage your son take advantage of the opportunities and activities available to him there. Treat it as his “forever” school. Chances are that he’ll settle in quite nicely. If he doesn’t, and really is unhappy there, despite you ALL giving it your best shot, then you can revisit the idea of transferring when he’s home for Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>And, yes, it’s possible to transfer, and the staff at School A are not going to consider him a “traitor.” And he will, by Christmas, certainly know his teachers well enough to be able to ask for recommendations.</p>
<p>But if you send him off to School A with a plan to get him out of there just as soon as possible, then you’re setting him up to fail. At that point, why bother?</p>
<p>Keep in mind also that there’s no guarantee he’ll ever be admitted by the school “he really likes.” Which is why it’s so much healthier for all of you to learn to “love the school that loves you.”</p>
<p>It happens - occasionally. But as one parent on CC can attest, attending the “back-up” school and immediately reapplying to the desired school resulted in a second rejection from the desired school and strained relationship at the current school. The family had absolutely NO leverage after that and had to repair that “burned bridge.”</p>
<p>If you didn’t love the “back-up” school why apply to it? I know, I know - we were in the same boat - lousy school district that was dragging the one successful school down with it.</p>
<p>Still - many people have “safeties” but the options are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>you go and love it</p></li>
<li><p>you pay a deposit and then send notes to the desired school expressing your continued interest and if you get off the waitlist you lose the deposit and switch. </p></li>
<li><p>stay home and try hard for the next year with no guarantees of admittance anywhere (including the back-up school which is no longer going to consider you an option.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But the least attractive option is to attend a school knowing you’re going to try to switch again immediately (you’ll need fall references). It takes a place from a child who really wanted the opportunity at the “back-up school” and it sends a message to both schools that you don’t “commit.” It also tells the Adcoms who spent a lot of time pouring over the application and reading essays that they wasted their time. </p>
<p>Again - a few have transferred - but in those cases there were extenuating circumstances (bad fit, or a lot of connections that made it happen). Almost everyone I know who switched was a connected full-pay child.</p>
<p>Which is why we say “love the school that loves your child.”</p>
<p>Families that are unhappy with back-up schools also need to remember that colleges are coming up. </p>
<p>Since colleges could be more competitive than boarding schools, think of embracing your back-up boarding school as a way of preparing yourself for the idea that instead of Princeton or Columbia, you might very well have to make peace with going to Middlebury, or Georgetown. Some people even have to go to Hamilton, and NYU.</p>
<p>So who knows, but maybe this is an opportunity to experience life and opportunities in a whole, new, counterintuitive way. Just something to think about.</p>
<p>We have a child who transferred between B schools after 9th grade, partly due to poor fit, partly because of some odd developments at the school once there. I agree with the above posters: if you and/or your child don’t love a school going in, don’t do it. There is little worse than knowing your child is miserable but stuck in a situation away from home (thousands of miles in our case). If you are speculating now that the “back-up” won’t work out or isn’t ideal, straight out of the gate, then your child has a one-foot-out-the-door cloud hanging over his head as he’s trying to adjust and establish himself academically and socially during fall term. Sounds awful to me - and doesn’t give him or the school a fair shot. If you’re that sure about the “back-up” now, I’d wait. Tons of kids apply fresh for 10th grade - it’s a perfectly valid option and will give your child time to make his/her stats and application even more attractive to his first-choice schools.</p>
<p>If you go forward with the “back-up” now, bear in mind the timing and logistics of a potential transfer. Fall semester clips along pretty fast. Yet it takes awhile for a child to get into the groove and really know whether a school is a solid fit - and, again, maybe the “back-up” will surprise you and prove an excellent fit - he applied there, after all, for some reason, right? October, with parents weekend, etc., was too early to know in our case. We had a sense by Thanksgiving that our child wasn’t completely in love with the place, but we certainly felt it reasonable to encourage him to stick with it, keep an open mind, and see how things progressed with new teachers, winter activities, etc. Of course, then we were already into December. When he came home for break, we all knew for certain that this wasn’t going to work. But at that point our child faced a very compressed schedule for transferring. He spent his entire December break registering and studying for the next SSAT offering in January (for which he had to skip classes and take a costly private taxi from his school), researching schools and contacting coaches, writing essays and filling out apps, pestering the office to fed ex official transcripts, politely contacting teachers over their holiday break to write unexpected transfer recommendations on tight deadlines, setting up interviews at schools on short notice (some couldn’t accommodate given the late date and he had to miss more school to travel to the ones that could mid-January), and more. It was a terribly chaotic and stressful time (not to mention expensive!) and impacted our entire family’s Christmas holiday. Even if you’re able to start the process earlier (and, again, why would you want to or know you’d need to?) I would think long and hard about a transfer mindset going in. Our son had a few friends who wanted to transfer out come December, as well, but just couldn’t get it all together in time. It was a daunting process, though I will say he is beyond thrilled with his new school so we are glad to have supported him through it.</p>
<p>Lastly, I agree that teachers generally won’t (shouldn’t) hold it against the student but, in our child’s case, there was some awkward discomfort. Even worse, the head coach of his fall sport actually refused to look at or speak with him for the rest of the year once he got wind of it. When the teams faced each other on the field this year, he was the only coach and player who didn’t shake our kid’s hand or give him a hug. Oh well.</p>
<p>@Escribiendo: As a Hamilton grad I am a little surprised that some of us even had to go to Hamilton or Georgetown or NYU. I know that many if my friends from Hamilton were admitted to other highly selective schools and made the decision to attend Hamilton. I know I was admitted to of the IVY league schools you mentioned and made a decision not to accept because I did not feel comfortable there. I loved my experience at Hamilton and I have been very successful as a professional. Boarding school is a lot like college in the sense that fit is as important as academics and reputation because I truly believe that students perform better at a place they love!</p>
<p>Thank you everybody for your very valuable feedback.
I fully realize that “out of the door” attitude will not make our kid any good. And I do hope that he will love the school he was accepted to.
With this being said, our kid had a chance to experience his “first choice” school first hand, when he went there for a summer session. He really loved the place, did very well academically, got great references from his summer teachers, and made friends. Obviously, this did not help much when it came to being accepted into grade 9. He still stays in touch with his summer session pals, and some of those kids will now attend the school, while he will have to go somewhere else. Will he be able to love the school that accepted him? I hope so, but who knows.
I understand that staying in his home public school is an option, but he’ll probably hate it. He is in an international exchange program right now, where he goes to a very strong school. He went to the summer camp I mentioned above. Coming back to a very mediocre public school might be very depressing for him. Not only he is not challenged academically, but he is extremely bored. He is a year or two ahead of the class in the subjects he is interested in. We’ve tried to jump a grade, but got no support from the school.
We are outside of the US, so some of the opportunities available in the US, e.g. magnet schools, are not offered here.</p>
<p>Given your circumstances, it seems the best thing you can do is really embrace the school that’s accepted your son. As Valdog noted, your son must have applied to that school for a reason.</p>
<p>And, yes, his summer school friends will go elsewhere . . . but he’ll make new friends. If this school has the curriculum your son needs, then you should all do your best to make it work. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>Summer school is not the same. It’s not. I asked my daughter to attend Access Exeter when it was clear she would not shake loose the idea of going to boarding school. She had a blast and their was no going back. But there was a big difference between Exeter summer school (which was hard but fun) and Exeter fall/spring environment (harder, much more rigid, much more sink or swim mentality). Summer school is not often taught by regular faculty - but guest teachers and part-timers.</p>
<p>Summer schools serve a purpose, helping students become independent, have fun, decide if they can love a boarding experience. But in many ways it’s just an academic “camp.” So the school your son fell in love with may not be the same one he will get during an academic year.</p>
<p>Staying on the waitlist is fine - but honestly - things happen for a reason. (And my D is still friend with many of her summer school classmates - even after all this time - and many of them scattered to other boarding schools around the world).</p>
<p>Oh, Alley, please understand that that was the most tongue-in-cheek thing I’ve ever written. Hamilton is an absolutely brilliant school. That’s why I chose it as an example of a safety that no one in their right mind could complain about attending. </p>
<p>My point is that as I peruse these boards I see people feeling glum about stunning options, and it really makes me wonder what the family reactions will be a few years from now when Junior doesn’t get into Harvard, and has to go to ho-hum Hamilton, Georgetown, Bates, etc. It’s just amazing how much the world opens up when you throw prestige anxiety out the bloody window.</p>
<p>I was approached this year by a student who wanted me to write a recommendation for transfer out of our boarding school and into another one. Last year we had two students who transferred at the end of the year. (In all cases, they went to peer schools, not better schools.) I just want to present a counter example to the wacky coach in the earlier anecdote, in that I wrote a glowing recommendation and continued to support the student in my class and in my sport/activity. Very few teachers are weirdo grudge holders. Yes, I teach at what some consider a dream school, but other sneer at as a backup. Late at night, we quietly weep into our teapots and shake our fists silently at the moon wishing that unicorns ran across our campus like they do at Andover; wishing that our faculty weren’t all so imperfect–</p>
<p>Oh, wait. Sorry. None of that happens. Ever. I happen to teach at a “back up” school with a lot of great teachers and great students. I’m always amazed at how quickly people write off a school with lower SSAT averages as if the quality of the teachers at a school equals the school’s rank. </p>
<p>Any kid who knows that he’s going to a school that he and his parents call a “back up” is going to be looking for things to confirm that the school isn’t good enough. Why apply to a school you aren’t happy to attend?</p>
<p>Thank you for your comment, Albion.
I love your sense of humor.</p>
<p>Am loving the wisdom of Albion and Escribiendo :)</p>
<p>We went through an internal struggle of this sort a few years ago. Kid2 applied to a top 10 BS (for repeat 8th grade) and was waitlisted (and devastated). Local public option was poor so Kid2 ended up being a late admit at a less famous BS for 9th. Come fall the top 10 BS contacted Kid2 and asked us to reapply (they didn’t know Kid2 had gone elsewhere – BSs DO NOT recruit from each other). Kid2 wandered around for weeks feeling torn. I was so impressed with how patient current BS was with all this. In the end, he chose to stay put and has never looked back. We can’t imagine that Kid2’s attendance at top 10 BS would have afforded him the opportunity to shine that current BS has. </p>
<p>Another vote for loving the school that loves you.</p>
<p>Also please, please, please make sure that you are not conveying to the child that the school which has accepted him isn’t of sufficient quality (whatever that means anyway…). You need to be a cheerleader (yes, even if your heart isn’t completely into it…). Do everything you can to get your child excited about where he is going. Often that will be enough to get the emotional closure needed to move on.</p>
<p>The above posters have written about the frayed faculty/coach relationships --and while I think that happens much less than imagined–what does happen is that the transfer is not successful-- and then the student feel a double sting of rejection, and most problematically has internally alienated himself from where he is–and other kids can sense that a million miles away and unlike teachers are much less likely to overlook or forgive this “disloyalty” or perceived sense of “superiority” to the rest of the student body. </p>
<p>How horrible to waste the amazing resource that is the boarding school (of course if it a bad or harmful fit-- then get him out–NOW–and do what you need to do-- public school, homeschool if you must) because of the green monster of envy that alas never leaves some kids. Also from a practical point the child will be applying to college before too long-- who gets a better set of rec-- the involved and committed student/community member or the morose alienated kid? That is pretty obvious-- so it isn’t in the kid’s short or longer best interests in most cases to encourage such speculation. </p>
<p>Think of this in many respects like a suitor carrying a torch for a rejected love. How often doe that suitor return back into a healthy relationship with the former s.o. and how often does carrying the torch make the kid less able to move on and meet someone wonderful. I’d say much more the later than the former. It is the same with schools.</p>
<p>I second etondad. I got so mad when my Dad insisted on calling Taft and St. Andrews DE “only okay schools” when I was applying, not considering that they both reject 3/4 of their applicants and that his son was a potential student. He also said if I didn’t get into my top choices, I could always reapply from the “safeties.” The idea infuriated me because no way was I going to leave a school that loves me and takes me in for one he deemed “more worthwhile.” The funniest part is, he made me visit the school he considered “better” at the start of this school year, hoping me to consider transferring later, despite the fact that I had already been enrolled at my personal top choice. </p>
<p>In short, making your child feel like he’s going to a lesser school is the worst thing you can do for him. I wouldn’t recommend transferring because 1) it could take a child a long time adjusting to a school 2) if he failed, he would most certainly be estranged by his peers. His being waitlisted at his first choice (which I assume is a highly selective school) proves that he’s a qualified kid that meets the school’s standards, and kids like him will succeed no matter where they go.</p>
<p>Embrace the school that accepted him and get the most out of the experience.</p>
<p>MBVLoveless makes a good point: it can take a while to adjust to a new school. And that “while” can last a week or several months. And if you assume that this temporary settling in period is a sign of a bad fit, you’ll be doing both your son and the school a disservice. Do your best to remain loyal to the “backup” school if he enrolls there, even if he has a rough time at first. That settling in period is common . . . and once it’s passed, it will quickly be forgotten.</p>
<p>Hello, </p>
<p>Sorry for using this post to reply to a private message. I got a really interesting personal comment from one of the people on this board, but cannot reply via PMail as I have not posted 15 times. </p>
<hr>
<p>Dear A,</p>
<p>I really appreciate your answer, I encourage you to publish it in the public area, I’m sure there are many-many families in this situation. You had a very interesting experience other people can learn from, and you write really well. 
</p>
<p>You indeed confirmed our thoughts. I personally was in a similar situation about 20 years, when I moved from one public school to another. Schools were great rivals and many kids/teachers simply stopped talking to me. It looks stupid 20 years later, but the situation was very uncomfortable for me at that time. Although, I have absolutely no regrets about the move. I ended up in a better school, and this experience taught me a great deal about human nature. </p>
<p>In our case, kid will be going to the school that accepted him. He will not be trying to transfer, unless something unexpected (bad) happens. </p>
<p>Once again, thank you for your response and good luck!</p>
<p>Hey, MBV, what’s your dad’s number?!!! I’d love to have a martini with him in the Green Room of the Hotel du Pont to chat about the minors.</p>
<p>Hi 2beOrNotToBe! I’m glad I could help! I would rather not post on the board about this, but if anyone has any questions about transferring between boarding schools, feel free to PM me (I am a current student who has done it).</p>