What Factors Should I Weigh?

Prep School Admissions
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After getting all of my decisions, I’m not out of the water yet. It’s time to make some hard decisions.

I received full FA and Loomis, SPS, and Thacher, but I’m currently torn between Loomis and SPS right now and I don’t know how to make that decision.

What factors should I weigh when making a decision? I know that I should look for the right “fit” but what in terms of fit should I look for?

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The same ones you used to determine which schools to apply to.

Only you and your family can determine which school feels best for you based on the criteria that is most important to you and that I’m sure you discussed when applying. What were you looking for in a school to begin with? For example, if you say the dance program and the ability to perform are important to you, then that is a clear benchmark to measure schools against. No one here can tell you what YOU should look for. If you want constructive replies, be more specific with what you were looking for when you were applying. Otherwise, all you’ll get here are what other people looked for when choosing their schools. Although those replies may be interesting, they may not be relevant to you.

I’ll begin, though. The only criteria we used was were the academic programs better than what our son could get at home? In our case, every school met that criteria, so our son looked for schools that were good with his ECs. He waited until revisit days when he could step on those campuses for the first time and decided based on what he saw and felt in those communities.

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@ChoatieMom gives wise advice.
I’ll give a slightly more detailed version of that, and I’ll include an extra step.

Step 1: Go BACK to your original criteria, and now that you are only looking at two schools, take a deeper look at those same criteria and see which really nails them better. Dig deeper than just the website. Really get the nuts and bolts info…what is the daily experience of your criteria.
Step 2: Assuming both schools meet your criteria, then I would consider setting those aside for a moment, and just breathe the air and see which fits better.
And by “breathe the air” I mean either a revisit, or a set of zooms, or some phone calls with parents, connecting with kids, faculty, etc. READ THE STUDENT HANDBOOK!
So whatever “breathe the air” can mean for you, I might do that and then make final decision.