Admission decisions are right around the corner, and some of us may get into schools, while others may not. Before all that happens, I want to make a place to reflect on the best parts of the application process, and how it has changed us. For me, I’ve definitely become more confident after all of my interviews. I’ve always been a nervous and anxious person, but I’ve found that after I had completed all these interviews, I felt much more at ease in a normal conversation. I think after having some of the most intense discussions of your life and not completely failing at them has made me much less worried about how I could ruin a normal conversation.
So, what was the best part about your application experience?
Same, I feel a lot more confident after my multiple interviews. I also feel like I know how to talk to adults and make them like me. (A great life skill. :P)
I didn’t share your boarding school application experience. I applied to four schools, Andover, Exeter, Hotchkiss, and Choate. I got into two, waitlisted one, and was rejected from one. Considering these schools’ acceptance rates, I think I did pretty well. I now attend Andover, and I love it. However, the application process was rocky and exhausting. Throughout all of the times a school asked me to list my extracurriculars, strengths, and awards I’ve received, it really made me question my worth. I think the written part of my application was actually very good. My grades were good. Test scores good enough. I knew I was applying to schools with 94% average SSAT percentiles, and I felt less than. My interview was really good. Sports were fine. I felt like I was lacking the extracurriculars that everyone else seemed to have.
Andover is great, and I don’t regret my decision to attend at all, but mental health is quite a problem here. It’s incredibly common to feel inadequate compared to classmates.
My point is that almost everything involving schools like these can put one’s self esteem at jeopardy. Taking a school’s applicants, arranging them in a list of best to worst, and chopping of the lower 87% of them off is an incredibly scary idea. Then going to school with the 13% who satisfied some board of rando, upperclass, men and women from New England is scary.
I’m a realist. Also an optimist. But I will never lie and say that getting to this point was easy or even enjoyable. You’re supposed to not compare yourself to your peers, but that’s exactly what admissions offices do. This doesn’t make me feel more confident. It’s just nice to know that I made it through, and all the hard work was definitely worth it because I’ve met the best people at Andover, and I’m learning in ways that I didn’t know I could.
Hm, my advice for all future applicants that come across this forum is simply this: Apply to more schools, don’t rule out schools just because of a bad feeling at an interview, look into safety schools and definitely apply to a few, if you can and are going to start a new school year next year in whatever grade get in extracurriculars and dont let your parents try to influence you in the application. At the end of the day just remember,it’s not your parents or your teachers who are going to be going there and spending a significant part of their life there, it’s you.
Essentially, apply everywhere that you can, set as wide a net as possible. Do your research too, and don’t just look at the big, major, perfect marketing evident in the dazzling info packages schools. I really regret not applying to Blair, simy because I thought that I had a better chance of full grants being awarded at larger schools (Andover) as well as the application being a bit more work because it wasn’t as accessible online.
Also, start the process early, well as early as you can, and try to get your application together early too. So many of us on CC freaked out because it was less than a month before the deadline and still had things to submit. Lord knows, I initi began applying to eight schools and endowed up with only one. Long story. So don’t give up halfway with your application either.
There really is no way to know where you will get in, so many things can change every year. Sports, Arts, Racial and ethnic mixes are also factors. No matter what an AO says, they matter. We all know they do. So just cross your fingers and hope that your particular fingerprint is just what a school wants that year.
Sorry for the excessively long post lol
But really, wide net.
And yes this is the exact same post as from the freak out thread;)
I have to clarify on one point that @Addie1643 mentioned: “Apply everywhere that you can, set as wide a net as possible”–to future applicants reading this, this does NOT mean that you should apply to 10+ schools to satisfy some total of schools or just so you can get in at least one school. BS is a 100% commitment of four years and each applicant should think carefully about which schools they want to attend. So yes, cast a wide net, but don’t apply to random schools blindly. Pick schools that you love, that you connect with, that appeal to you the most, and those that have excellent programs for majors/minors that you have passions for or want to continue pursuing at college. Look at ALL schools, not just Andover and Exeter and not just GLADCHEMMS. Look at the Hidden Gems–because there are just that–GEMS. They may not be as widely publicized as the GLADCHEMMS schools, but they are still top-notch schools with excellent academics, athletics, and arts and MANY have found happiness there.
Another important thing I have to say is: BS should be YOUR choice. Pick schools that appeal to YOU, that YOU love. Your parents can support you, but don’t let them influence you too much when choosing BS (i.e. your parents want Andover/Exeter, but you decided that you love Cate more). YOU are the one who will be attending BS for four years and it should be up to you to make the final decision.