Why do so many people find their way here (too) late in the process?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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We were guilty (“guilty”) of this. By the time I found my way here we’d already hit Send on our applications and it was too late to have any meaningful impact on our process beyond the mutual support aspect of The Wait.

We were fortunate in that things worked out for us on our particular M10. But I noticed then and again this year that a bunch of people arrive here for the first time when it’s too late to get and heed advice, most notably the “apply to more schools with higher acceptance rates” kind of advice.

I can’t recall exactly how or why I found my way here when I did. Kind of a weird pattern, no?

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I found my way here “too late” but honestly, I am kind of glad I did. This page has great advice but would have created a ton of anxiety for us. And somehow, even though we knew nothing and picked 3 HADES schools (had never seen that acronym before), DD got into the one that, as it turns out, seems the perfect fit. The other two we should never had applied to. Did we miss some hidden gems? Absolutely. But as a repeat Jr., for whom boarding school had never even been on the radar, it worked out. I can’t even imagine applying to 15-20 schools!
I actually stumbled upon some articles here through Google searches but didn’t become a member and dig in until just before M10- just in time to start panicking about how naive we had been.

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Yes that’s a good point about the anxiety. Happy to have missed that! We were also super fortunate to have had a SS counseling office in our MS, so they perhaps provided a lot of the guidance that we might otherwise have sought and found here.

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I actually often wonder how people don’t find their way here?

I don’t mean that as a criticism. I guess I am such a googler – I search on the internet every day all the time for all the things in life. That’s how I get so many book recommendations or read articles on things I care about or figure out key elements of a topic or find scholars who are digging into the depths of an issue I care about, but maybe just not enough to have spent my own life researching.
So it seems unfathomable that I would consider sending my kid to boarding school – a world I knew relatively little about – without googling the heck out of that topic. And it seems really hard to google boarding schools without coming across this board and its gazillion pages of commentary. And I am for sure a rabbit-hole-follower! (not necessarily a good thing…)

I’ll add that maybe that would indeed add stress.
But from where I sit, knowledge is power, and knowing what the odds were helped me help my kiddo(s) better in making their school list. It’s awesome when it turns out that you get at least one offer after applying to three schools. But you might feel differently if you hadn’t had that result. And I will say, as someone who cast a wider net due to heeding advice here, and then having my daughter end up getting into the “tippy top” schools on her list anyway (so one could say it turned out we didn’t “need” that wider net after all), I still fully accept that the wider net was the right way to go since going to boarding school was important to my daughter. (And I’m setting aside the fact that we ended up choosing one of the later-added schools ultimately.)

Sure, we could have saved stress, time, money by only applying to a few top schools, but it’s frankly easy for me to say that now because I know she got in. Most people who apply just to a few schools don’t get in. Just the numbers.

It’s like if I chose not to have flood insurance on my house and a big flood came along and my whole block got flooded, but my house happened not to be flooded, I would not look back at my good luck and say: oh! turns out flood insurance would have been a waste of our money! yay for us for skipping the stress and expense! I would instead look at the other houses and say: whoa! I got lucky this time. But I’m calling my agent and getting flood insurance immediately.

I truly don’t mean that as a criticism of the apply-to-very-few schools decision. There are lots of valid reasons for that approach. It does seem though that many people who take that approach are doing it out of (innocent) ignorance. And if you get lucky, then it’s easy to forget about the insurance that your neighbors begged you to buy. But many (most?) are not lucky. And for those who have a house and come here to seek advice before the storm arrives, my advice remains strongly: buy the insurance. Don’t look at the one or two houses in the neighborhood who were unscathed as evidence that you’ll have the same fate.

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I guess the MS context really is that much more important and a key cog in the privilege cycle. The SS counselors at our MS (from which about 1/3 of grads go on to BS) served as our google I suppose, as did the many parents/families and recently graduated kids, not to mention some faculty and administrators (at the MS and some BS). We definitely had the luxury of their guidance and experience. Still happy I found my way here, even if late.

I will say that in our case the Plan B had we not gotten into our small list was a year abroad immersing, though Covid would’ve put a damper on that to put it mildly.

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I guess in our case, since we had never considered Boarding school and she was halfway done with (LPS)HS, we didn’t really think it was a big deal if she didn’t get in anywhere. I guess my comment that we “knew nothing “ was an exaggeration- but compared to what I know now, it feels like not much. Also, when I said we were naive, I guess I meant about the whole world of BS that I did not know existed. How obsessed people are. We have many doctors, attorneys, PHD’s and highly educated, successful people in our family, some have attended Ivy’s. None have gone to boarding school- it just isn’t a thing in our world. We certainly knew the acceptance rates, the application process was self-explanatory. We did read some threads about her extracurricular interest and made sure the schools she applied to had good programs. I am also a type A research things to death person. I read many articles and reviews on boarding schools. I did my research about what the schools offered, and whatever I could find about their programs the vibe, acceptance rate, financial aid offered etc. Our choice to apply to 3 schools was not out of ignorance. For her it didn’t really become something she could even dream of actually doing until almost all the way through the process. She’s smart, her school here is fine, if not exciting, we would have moved on and been totally fine. But she got in, and is thrilled. She looked at it as she did some of her auditions -where there were similar odds, if they wanted her and it was a fit then great, she’s faced those rejections before. For her wasn’t about going to Boarding School just to be going, it was about the 3 specific ones she chose to apply to. She’s stubborn and would not have added to her list- in fact she removed some from her initial list. To her part of it was to just see what happened. She did not spend a ton of time on her essays, or preparing for interviews, or researching anything beyond the school’s web sites and social media. She didn’t study for her tests we submitted either (PSAT/SAT/ACT). She also knew she couldn’t go at all without a ton of FA. I guess that may be annoying to some people, and not how I would recommend going about it if your goal in life is to go to boarding school.

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Our kids pared their list as well which I think was an important part of the process (even if we wound up with fewer than the conventional wisdom would recommend).

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Would have loved to find this site earlier. However, my son didn’t want to apply to too many schools. FA and being international were two obstacles. We talked at beginning of process what our pain threshold was for tuition. we are fortunate because the public system (in Canada) has a clear path to a university education at under $10K per year…and the schools have stellar reputations.

My big surprise was the rolling process post M10. There are good schools that have much to offer that we bypassed on M10. (mostly because they don’t have recruit at our current school).

About 5-6 from our school go the prep BS route so the guidance counselor is not as focused on that path which means we are pretty much on our own.

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@DroidsLookingFor Your kiddos are the exact example of great reasons to apply only to 3 schools – because the plan is robust enough to include the possibility of zero acceptances and still be on track. (Also, I can see why you wouldn’t be the google freak I am with the super close guidance you got at your MS. sometimes you just have to trust your experts and step away from the WebMDs of the world, right?).

Which brings me to a slightly adjacent concept that is perhaps more relevant in my ballerina/dancer daughter’s pursuits, but I think valuable to consider in this context.

We don’t need “backup plans” in life maybe as much as we need more robust plans that allow for elements of that plan to fall completely apart without derailing the entire plan.

So if THE PLAN is (like you @DroidsLookingFor) :
Find something really cool to do for high school, then the options within that plan can be: a tippy top boarding school, or studying abroad, or XYZ.
Well, if you don’t get into tippy top boarding school, the plan isn’t crushed, is it?
That’s a robust plan.

But if THE PLAN is:
Go to boarding school for high school. And the only “acceptable options” in the planner’s mind are: get into to one of three tippy top boarding schools, well, the plan now is in danger isn’t it? It’s simply not robust enough.

And that’s when we start needing to use language like “back up plan.” or “Plan B.” or whatever. And by the way, sometimes we DO need to go to “backup plans” because life has its disappointments but often, in my experience, we just need a more robust first plan.

In our case, for example, THE PLAN was for kiddo to go to boarding school. That’s it. We knew we wanted boarding school specifically. So if THAT is the plan, then you really have to fill that plan with lots of acceptable options, far beyond just applying to “tippy tops.”

And I think that is my point about the insurance I mentioned above.
For many (most?) folks here, THE PLAN is boarding school. With various backup plans, like local day school or LPS. And for some, the local day school is actually part of THE PLAN – a nice robust plan that includes a very acceptable and desired outcome.
I think the truth is, though, that many people start off thinking that THE PLAN is robust because it has a few tippy tops + a local day option. So they will be fine no matter what happens! YAY, right?
Except that somewhere along the way, often between January 15-March 10th, they start to realize that what they really want is a great boarding school that offers X, Y, Z, and they realize that actually many boarding schools would fit the bill and do just that. And now suddenly, THE PLAN in their hearts has morphed into being “boarding school” and now the local day school becomes a “backup plan” and it feels yucky because now the entire plan rests on getting into one of those few tippy tops.

Which is why even when someone comes here in December and swears by their “go big or go home” plan because the local school is super strong, there will certainly be a slew of BTDT parents who will jump into the chorus of “cast a wider net” posts, because we’ve seen so many people disappointed.
So, plump up the plan. Make it robust enough to keep going.

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I agree with this, at the same time, I feel like there are a ton of kids out there driving the process themselves but they go about it more directly? I think parents are not as thoughtful as we’d like to think, lol, and its only after the fact that they go “oh crap, what kind of place AM I sending my kid to?”

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If you all tell your friends about CC, I promise to make more charts :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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This! This actually did happen. Except for the part about realizing many would fit the bill because she doesn’t read this page. Interesting that my DD and I didn’t look back at her dance summer auditions, she did great when she cast a big net. Then in 2020 she chose to go big or go home and only auditioned for 3 big ones and got 1 rejection, 1 waitlist, 1 lesser location offer. Covid happened so it didn’t end up mattering. So we should have known better. It did start out as a “lets just do this and see what happens” but turned into something that she really really wanted. I still don’t think she realizes how lucky she got.

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Well, you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

I never Googled anything about BS, or much of anything else in 2010. I found this site after A10 while I was looking up something about Choate. Pre-applications, our son researched the websites of the four boarding schools we knew about.* He took the SSAT cold once (because we didn’t know you could prep for or take a standardized test more than once, unheard of in our day) and applied to all four of them without seeing two or doing on-campus interviews. We’d never heard of “fit” or “hooks” and didn’t care or think about anything other the fact that any of the four schools smoked our local programs academically. Heck, we didn’t have a clue how competitive these schools were and that our son could possibly come up empty-handed. We could not have been more ignorant about this process.

I always post that my biggest regret is that we didn’t know there were boarding schools in CA, closer to home. I’ve learned a lot in eleven years, including Google. :wink:

*We attended a local TSAO event that was hosted by more than the schools we knew about, but because we hadn’t heard of them, we figured they weren’t worth looking into and only talked to the reps from the three schools on our son’s list that belong to the TSAO. Besides, we thought four applications was overkill.

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We were like @ChoatieMom . Only we googled but stopped with the boardingschoolreview and SAO sites. They seemed to provide the objective information needed to provide us with school options.

It was later, like choatiemom’s situation, when I looked up something about a random subject after applications were due (but before M10) and a link to one of the threads popped up. We had no clue how competitive BS schools were - we had no idea the academic rigor of these schools, even those out of the top 50. DS also took the SSAT unprepped and once. He limited himself to the BS mecca (Mass/CT area) because he wanted to continue to play hockey.

We learned so much on M10 and thereafter from CC. I can understand how people may miss this forum until too late. I am a very objective researcher - hard numbers/data are what I generally focus on. So, CC would not be a site I would normally be attracted to when doing my research on schools. This forum opened my eyes to the strength of subjective data and opinions of experienced individuals. So, not only did I learn a ton from the forum about schools and the process, I learned a lot about myself and the benefits of leaning on others when gathering information and making decisions.

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I found my way to CC August of 2020. So when I was starting the process.

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I think this is a pretty typical experience. Also why you see so many people stuck on those tippy top schools.

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If anyone lurking sees this… PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS LONG BEFORE DEADLINES!!! I cannot stress this enough. I would’ve only gotten into 1 school(the one i’m going to ha) if it weren’t for cc. Even then, I’m not sure I would’ve gotten in. Don’t apply to just the “tippy top” schools. Apply to hidden gems!

I couldn’t have done this had I signed up for CC after November. (came here in august)

I’m a teenager who managed this pretty much alone, so CC did save me.

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I found CC by googling for ideas on an essay topic. It was December. Took me a long time to read all the threads.

My biggest regret is that I only learned too late that a student can send emails to the teachers so that they have more and better things to say in the recommendations. This is important last year since most classes were virtual. I felt DD could have better rec letters.

The biggest anxiety is from reading the freak out thread on 3/8 and 3/9. People were reporting messages from UPS and FedEx. The pressure was insane. I resisted but gave in . Registered accounts and saw the message on evening of 3/9. Felt like cheating…

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FYI-- I wouldn’t let either of my kids on here because of the anxiety provoking nature of many threads. I just felt at the time it wasn’t in their best interest and would not provide any positive outcome.
I did though, quite often actually, “quote” CCC to them and so, they indirectly received much guidance from the forum as well.

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I picked posts here for DD to read, and found some helpful information about schools. She never checked CC on her own.

Not sure if it is appropriate, but we made a game out of the EC/STats thread. I would read out the information about an applicant and schools the person applied to, and DD would guess the results. Then we talked about why the results matched or differed from her guess.

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