<p>Oh come on. While the overall admissions rate may be 20%, someone with a 4.0 from a great school and a 98 SSAT certainly has a much better chance than someone with a 4.0 from an average school and a 80 SSAT.</p>
<p>I think the vast majority of kids who apply are in range. But like for colleges, I think the first step is meeting the stats cutoff before they even look at ECs, recs and essays.</p>
<p>Ok suze, your right. That is definetly true, however these 40% of kids on finacial aid at these schools do not go to fancy private "really good" schools. There is nothing wrong with private schools, heck I'm applying to them, but these admisions people definetly understand that public schools, even really good ones like mine, are absolutely dreadful and negatively effect grades.</p>
<p>Also, after reviwing posts on this website, everyone who ahs an "amazing" chance goes to Grenwich country day or other excelent schools, not public schools. And 35-40% at these kids come from public schools and are on finacial aid. I understand my SSAT scores are bad, trust me I was disapointed in them, I scored high 90's on all practice tests when ther's no pressure, but these schools SSAT scores below average have to come from somewhere, and it is not the people at private school.</p>
<p>... what are you talking about? how does public school negatively effect grades?
admissions office wont give you any pity on your ssat score because you come from a public school. Many of these kids come from public school and have 90+
your school wont account for a poor ssat score</p>
<p>You're wrong prep. A huge % of those on aid are URMs with programs like ABC and Prep for Prep. Then there are lots of athletes who are fed into preps by certain schools like Canadian hockey players.</p>
<p>Interesting Suze. "stats" cutoff. I'm wondering then why don't the schools just publish the "cutoff" and save everyone, (including the admissions staff) a whole lot of effort. Why? It'd be so much easier, kind of like a driver's license test. Either you pass or not. It would be much more efficient. They could say, “Under 90? Don’t bother...”</p>
<p>Ok. I believe you guys. I guess I'm wrong. Suze, everything you've said so far seems to be accurate so your probably right. Sorry if I seemed outlandish. I'm just having a hard time admitting to myself that my chances are slim at AESD. Do you think having a faculty reccomendation at Groton will help?</p>
<p>Do you think I have a good chance prepparenttoo? You seem to think I do?</p>
<p>preparenttoo, I believe it's because they are caught up in the US News mentality and want to reject as many people as possible to become the most selective.</p>
<p>It would be pretty hard to emerge with their average if they were taking unhooked candidates with low stats.</p>
<p>That's rediculous, if you have the reputation as the most selective school, like Harvard, then you will discourage great applicants from applying. Besides, people in the BS community know which schools are "in" and which are out. A silly single figure of acceptance rate won't say anyhting, expecially of it's only one point above or below antother schools, or in this case all four of these schools.</p>
<p>Absolutely! Everyone is an individual. Everyone brings uniqueness and distinction to the table. If that were not the case, schools could save a ton of money on admissions staff. I think these discussion board chances questions and concerns arise because really the schools don't publish enough information about the academics/stats for the students accepted. It would be nice to see all the statistics and in that way you could, relatively speaking, calculate your own chances of acceptance.</p>
<p>When I say additional statistics, I'm talking about specifics such as out of all of the applicants for 9th grade, male/female, from my state, with my ethnicity, here are the breakdowns for gpa/ssat for those that applied and those that were accepted over the last 5 years. With that kind of data you'd be able to determine where you stand. Unfortunately, that data is either not recorded or made available for public analysis.</p>
<p>Good Luck Prepyhopeful -- I think you'll do just fine whatever the outcome may be...</p>
<p>wrong....................These schools are intensely competitive. For Deerfield and SPS to be more selective than Andover and Exeter is just the ticket to get alum to donate.</p>
<p>Thank you prepparenttoo. I agree with you on this one. Suze, I think you seem incredibly intelligent and I usually agree with you, even if it goes against me, but I think these schools really do look at each applicant as an individual. And although some public school kids have 90's SSAT, not many of them have the opportunity to do anything alse but study, like one of my best friends, and in his case, he has failing grades because he can not keep his priorities in order, so basically their are not enough public school applicants with high scores to meet finacial aid quotas at these schools.</p>
<p>Not saying I'll get in though, just making a piont, that these below average applicant have to come from somewhere.</p>
<p>Prep, I know you're wrong. My brother is applying from a public school with SSATs in the high 90s. Even as a URM he is well aware that he may well not get into the top schools because competition for financial aid is fierce. Most aid goes to bringing diversity (inner city, low income URMs) and athletes. White and asian candidates without a hook have very few aid dollars to help them. Nor do upper middle class URMs. The programs like Prep for Prep alone place several kids at top schools each year. And as much as people want to believe numbers don't matter, run the numbers yourself. How many can you take with an 80 or below and still come out with a 90 average?</p>
<p>I'm not really sure if that makes any sense Prepyhopeful. I think applying from a public school is harder because most of the boarding schools don't really know whether the school's A's count for as much as a well known private day school. But then I guess they do want diversity, not just wealthy, well prepped private school kids, so I'm sure you still have good chances. Also, about the thing with kids with 90 ssats but no opportunity to do anything else, I don't know if thats quite correct since a lot of students from excellent public schools do manage to play travel soccer, peer tutor students, work on the school newspaper, and be nationally ranked in tennis/squash/other sports. </p>
<p>Oh,I went from a public school to a top ranked private day school, so I'm not just rambling about a subject that I don't know about.</p>
<p>That being said I do think you have some chances. Amazing chances? Probably not. But you do have a few great things about your application and seem like a nice person, hopefully those will be more important than others think.</p>
<p>Prepyhopeful, I think you have a mistaken idea about the competition for aid dollars at prep schools. There are way more deserving applicants from public schools than prep schools can accomodate. A candidate must really be exceptional to win aid at these schools. That means top grades, SSATs and talents.</p>
<p>I won't get any aid.....My mom makes, well alot, and I get money from my dads disability ensurance that the SSS says can pay my tuition. I'm just saying most kids from public school do need aid, I just missed the cut off cause my mom got a raise. </p>
<p>I just get think kids who do need aid have an equal chance, but I can see how that will be false. Did you guys think I would get aid? Honestly if I needed alot of aid I didn't think I would have a chance. I think I said in the begining ogf this forum I wasn't able to get any? I probably explaned it wrong.</p>
<p>Soccerprep92 thank you for your nice comments, and you to kirkum. As well as everyone else.</p>
<p>In my opinion, these schools prety much assume kids from public need aid, heck, i didn't know how much my mom made until she told me and I thought we needed it, still do infact, but my mom says she will try to swing it. This will be hard because my moms a single parent and my dad is on disabilit, as I said before, and doesn't work.</p>
<p>Many of the public school kids that apply to preps from come from wealthy Boston suburbs, Westchester County NY, and upper middle class towns in the south and widwest too. Many of these kids have had educations equal to or better than private school educations. If you come from a top public school district, you will be deemed to have had equal opportunities to all but those who went to really exceptional private schools. Many, many do not need aid.</p>
<p>Prepyhopeful; first of all let me commend you on your tenacity.. tone of this discussion got a bit mean at times (at least I thought so) but you kept your cool, and kept coming back with your side of the argument.</p>
<p>Here are my two cents on the subject:
Yes we dont have enough data to make a valid judgement about any one's chance at any school.
Being a URM or coming from an under represented geographical region also helps
BUT
at the end of it all, schools want the following, in no particular order
Diversity
Kids that will be able to pull the academic load
Type of kids that they want their own children to be friends with
Kids who will make the most of the opportunities that these schools give them
Some one who shows a desire/willingness to do good in life and contribute to the society
YES
They ask for SSAT for a reason..... it makes their life easier, but a Low SSAT by itself may not be a tool for exclusion
Fin Aid does make it hard to win admissions (I think Milton is most open about it)
As a parent I can tell you Upper Middle Class is the worst class to be in America, "You get no respect" as Rodney Dangerfield would say :)</p>
<p>My advise will be to TRY, heck if you dont try and apply... you have already admitted defeat... so why not, give it a shot.. what is THE WORST that will happen?? these schools wont take you??? so what... you will live to fight another day.....</p>
<p>Apply Apply Apply... and if you dont get in, you will know what to do better next time around</p>
<p>Best of luck, and do keep us posted...</p>