<p>It may be that what Jonathan's mother really wants is to keep him home. She is only human, so she may not relish the idea of having him so far away. It is a big sacrifice to ask her to make. For all we know she may see Jonathan as too young to survive at b.s. or too mercurial really to know his own mind. Who knows? I think Jonathan's best hand is to focus on his three schools and to write the very best application he knows how to do. The process itself will confirm to him and possibly her that the place he most wants to go 'fits' him for all the right reasons and that he will thrive there. If Jonathan himself is certain, his mother more likely than not will be certain enough to let him go if he gets in. The surest way for Jonathan not to get in is not to apply. The second surest way is to be diffident about why you want to be at Andover/Deerfield/SPS (all of which have acceptances in the 5% range for FA applicants) and to signal that you might not be coming if you are admitted or are worried/fretful about your ability to stay the course. Jonathan is facing long enough odds as it is. Stay focussed.</p>
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your mom sounds..idk..like she can't make up her mind. i'd be really irritated.
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<p>I am.</p>
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all of which have acceptances in the 5% range for FA applicants
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<p>Are you serious? Then why is 35 - 40% of the students attending those schools on financial aid? </p>
<p>prepparent, my mom is one of those people who doesn't know ANYONE who went to boarding school. On the other hand, my grandmother (on the other side of the family) went to a private school when she little, and wanting to send her son to Upper Canada College or a boarding school in Switzerland, but he didn't want to go. My mom said it wouldn't be right to send me to boarding school because she wasn't brought up like that, which I think was pretty selfish for her to say...</p>
<p>JK, I wish I could personLLY SPEAK TO YOUR MOTHER. JK, look for local dog and pony shows, bs that come through your area. That's what we did in the beginning. We found them to be quite imformative and much more secure to at least begin to entertain the idea. Of course I spent countless hours researching.</p>
<p>lol I wish you could too. Maybe you could email her or something... idk</p>
<p>JK, let's make it happen!</p>
<p>OK, I'm gonna jump in here with a crazy thought.</p>
<p>I'm thinking that JK's mom is not too familiar with BS's. I wonder if she has ever been to one before. JK am I correct here?</p>
<p>I'm thinking, not that you are considering the place, but if my understanding of where you live is correct JK (I used to live in that region BTW), you are about 3.5 hours from Culver Academy in Northwestern Indiana. You might consider a trip there to get her (and yourself) a feel for what it is like to be at one of these places. Culver is probably a closer feel to a NE prep school than a place near you like Cranbrook (also a wonderful school) which does have boarders but is primarily a day school.</p>
<p>I think if your mom got the feeling of a secure place where her son is well looked after, it might help, even if it isn't the school you want to go to.</p>
<p>Just a thought.</p>
<p>Jonathan: for what it is worth, cut your mother some slack. Letting a child go to boarding school is a major sacrifice for parents. Prepparent spoke quite eloquently about how hard it was for him and his wife. We sent one of our boys off quite early, probably too early, and it worked out fine but sometime we still wonder whether it was the right thing to do at that time. I have reason to believe in retrospect that a good boarding school can and will provide a nurturing environment but that being said I would still feel a lot more comfortable about St. Paul's than about Exeter just to name two that are at the extremes of my perception. From your mother's perspective every place would look to her as Exeter looks to me. You need to persuade her to take the risk that you can function on your own. You won't do this by fighting with her.</p>
<p>As for the odds you are facing. I had occasion to figure out the odds on the basis of my own experience with the process. For what it is worth, I came to the conclusion that an UNHOOKED FA applicant like yourself is looking at about 5% at Deerfield, St. Paul's and Andover which are the most competitive of all the schools. So focus on distinguishing yourself from the pack.</p>
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I'm thinking that JK's mom is not too familiar with BS's. I wonder if she has ever been to one before. JK am I correct here?
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<p>Yes, you are correct.</p>
<p>Culver Academy doesn't seem THAT great. There's a day school in Ann Arbor that's pretty nice. I think I rather go to that school than Culver.</p>
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I came to the conclusion that an UNHOOKED FA applicant like yourself is looking at about 5% at Deerfield, St. Paul's and Andover which are the most competitive of all the schools. So focus on distinguishing yourself from the pack.
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<p>Five percent seems like it's really not even worth applying. I don't think I could do sometihng me that could "distinguish me from the pack" this late in the process. I thought I had good EC's, grades, sports, etc. Now I guess I don't...</p>
<p>I thought that being from Michigan would be pretty helpful. When I was looking at the viewbooks, they had comments from students and their locations. I'd say at least 80% of the comments were from students from New England.</p>
<p>JK, I think you misunderstand me about Culver. I think your mother needs to see a working school just to get over the stereotypes of them being either those "places where bad children are sent" or "places where the offspring of the rich and shameless party all night".</p>
<p>She needs to see that they are places where normal kids go to get better instruction and a full life experience.</p>
<p>You don't seem to be the type who would desire to go to Culver, but the facility, the type of kids who attend, the order with which the place is run is more like an eastern prep. It is cheaper and faster than flying east to look.</p>
<p>My wife was VERY nervous about sending my daughter to the school where she is now. She had not seen the place (I went with my D for the interview). She had seen another school (Gilmour) which is in many ways more like Cranbrook - a day school with a few boarders, so she had a very different idea of what the boarding experience was like. And she had a very strong bias towards Gilmour for our daughter, being familiar with it. </p>
<p>Fortunately, we did end up at the correct place. After spending a couple of days there while dropping her off, my wife got a much better feel for the school and now agrees that we made the correct choice for our daughter. And our daughter is enjoying it and getting terrific grades too.</p>
<p>With this strategy, I am trying to help with one POTENTIAL issue that you mother may have. There may be others that keep her wanting to keep you at home. </p>
<p>Those issues may be how good is the supervision - not that you are a troublemaker, but how well will you be looked after. There are many schools that are not as attuned to this concern of parents, including some of the top schools. </p>
<p>The school my d is attending is more along these lines - attuned to the social development of the students equally with their academic and physical development. The features you find at these schools is more structured lifestyle (fixed/supervised study hours) and more staff living in the dorms (the ratio at her school is about 1 staff for every 6 or so boarders in a house).</p>
<p>Point here is JK, you need to understand your mother's concerns and find strategies to alleviate them. It may require a different school selection. It may require a trip somewhere to demonstrate these things. No amount of begging and pleading will make her any more comfortable with sending her son away to school.</p>
<p>There aren't any magic answers here. Just suggestions for strategies to change the status quo which sounds like a no-go at this point.</p>
<p>Thanks. I'll try to sit down with her this weekend and seriously talk about it.</p>
<p>Jonathan: I did not mean to suggest that YOUR chances of getting in to St.Paul's/Andover/Deerfield were necessarily only 5%. What I meant was that the chances of the random average FA applicant was about 5%. To improve your odds there are only two things you can do at this point to distinguish yourself from the pack: be in the top third academically and write a strong application in which you say why you need to be at a particular school. Obviously if you make the first cut, for practical purposes a 1400 equivalent SAT your odds improve to about 15 % and if you write a stand out essay to about 30. Those are still long odds but means you should be applying to about 5 schools if you want to be reasonably sure to get in somewhere.. You need to branch out from just 1st tier school to some 2nd tier schools. Peddy would be a very good bet.</p>
<p>I'm applying to Greenhills School, which some say is one of the top three private schools in the state. It's relatively small, with about 75 students in each grade. I'm going to an open house in October. From their website, the school looks really nice. It's certainly not in the same category as SPS or Andover, but it's good nonetheless. </p>
<p>If you wouldn't mind commenting about it yourself, here's the website. <a href="http://www.greenhillsschool.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.greenhillsschool.org/</a></p>
<p>Boarding school seems amazing, but I think Greenhills would be challenging enough for me (hopefully), I would need some serious financial aid to attend bs. (around $22,000) </p>
<p>So what I'm trying to say is that not getting into boarding school wouldn't be as huge of a deal if it was my only option. Now that Greenhills is there, I could still get a great, challgening education.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help, paleozoic. </p>
<p>P.S. - Greenhills' acceptance rate is 70%. I don't know what it is for FA applicants, though. The average SSAT score is 1306/1600, which is pretty good IMO.</p>
<p>That seems like a good idea, Jonathan. It sounds like you'd get a outstanding education there, if you don't get into boarding school or your parents don't let you go.</p>
<p>That is an excellent option Jonathan. Greenhills seems to have excellent academics as well. Have you taken a look at their courses? I used to live in Farmington Hills, Michigan; lived there most of my life. :)</p>
<p>I think my parents want me to go, far, far away.. :D</p>
<p>Yeah, I've taken a look at the courses. They have a class in Middle Eastern Studies, which I am really interested in. They have 16 AP courses, I believe, which is a lot for a school with only 75 students per grade.</p>
<p>If the curriculum isn't challenging enough, I'm sure I could take a few courses at a community college, I emailed the school and they said they do not allow dual enrollment, but I don't know if that means I'm not allowed to take courses at CC at all or what. lol I would just take them for personal interest, and I wouldn't care if they gave credit or not...</p>
<p>but anyway, Farmington Hills is pretty nice. I some of the Detroit suburbs...pretty much the complete opposite of the city. They've got great schools (Detroit Country Day, Greenhills, Cranbrook, Roeper, etc. have you heard of any of those? lol) and troy is pretty nice too. Have you been to a mall called Somerset? The inside of it is SO BEAUTIFUL. They've also got pretty cool stores, too. lol.</p>
<p>I've heard of all the schools you mentioned, as I used to live a couple of miles from Somerset Mall.</p>
<p>You will be able to get a terriffic education at Green Hills, as much as you put into it. And in 4 years, if you have a hankering for an eastern LAC or Ivy education, you should be well prepared.</p>
<p>I wouldn't try to compare the matric percentages at a Green Hills with Andover/Exeter/etc as the student population in Michigan doesn't have the same affinity for the top eastern universities as the New England boarding schools. The top students from Green Hills should have every bit the same opportunity for a top eastern university, if that is what they want.</p>
<p>And there is a lot to be said about being close to mom. She needs you too, JK. I wouldn't be sending my daughter so far away if there was a functional equivalent near home.</p>
<p>If Jonathan goes to Green Hills in Ann Arbor, he will be in close proximity to one of the great universities of the world. In my opinion the honors college at U Michigan is as good or better than anything available on the east coast.</p>
<p>While I share goaliedad's view that there is a lot to be said to be close to mom and that Jonathan probably underestimates how badly she may need him ( is that why the Canadian day school dropped from the agenda?), in my heart of hearts I believe that Jonathan may already have outgrown the languages/humanities offerings at Green Hills. On the other hand if he is happy and if his mom is happy maybe we should leave well enough alone. There is of course an excellent summer language programme he will have access to at the university and I believe it would be in his interest to discuss this with the Green Hills principal. Green Hills sounds like a wonderfull humanistic school. Good luck</p>
<p>Hey, somewhat off topic, but are Exeter's online forms up yet? And are all the forms to be filled out online; if not, how can I receieve hard copies?</p>
<p>Paleo, I don't often disagree with you, but, The University of Texas, just might have the very best honors program (TrackII) in America. I believe track II program is what it's called.</p>
<p>Paleo, Ashbury is off the list because I don't think I could stand living with my dad. He's just... jdhsklfqatrf. I wouldn't be able to handle it.</p>
<p>If I got into a boarding school with enough aid, I would probably end up going. If don't, then I will go to Greenhills. </p>
<p>I'm just worried that if I go to boarding school, I will be too homesick, and if I stay here, I would be SO sick of her mom and her boyfriend. </p>
<p>So.. I don't know. I think my best bet is to apply to Andover, Deerfield, SPS, and Greenhills. I'll decide after March 10.</p>
<p>Now I just have to work on my mom... lol It looks like I won't be able to visit the schools. I would have to meet with an admissions officer or whatever for Andover and Deerfield, and have a phone interview with SPS. (I wish I could meet with someone from SPS. I am SO much better talking to people in person).</p>