Catholic High School Admissions

[Anonymous]

Do the DMV Catholic high schools only rely on the admissions documents (i.e., transcripts, teacher recommendations, HSPT score, etc.) to make a decision, or do they speak with the point person at each Catholic elementary school as well?

My concern is that with the dramatic increase in public school kids applying to Catholic high schools this year due to Covid, it will be even harder for a Catholic school kid to get accepted. I am afraid that being Catholic and having attended Catholic school your whole life will not mean as much as it used to. Plus non-Catholic high schools are usually very reluctant to admit a Catholic school lifer, so hoping the Catholic high schools don't pass on my DC. I understand that applications are at an all time high this year.

[Anonymous]

I don't think you have to worry. The Catholic high schools always prioritize students coming out of parish schools. I would be more worried coming out of public school frankly.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Catholic high schools always have and will continue to favor graduates of Catholic grammar schools for some very good reasons.

First, because the Catholic high school has a long-standing symbiotic relationship with the grammar schools, the can trust what they are told formally and informally about each candidate.

Second, the high schools know that Catholic grammar school kids and parents know much better what to expect at the Catholic high school. So they end up being happier campers and that benefits everyone. And they are much more likely to be practicing Catholics.j

Third, the Catholic grammar school parents have shown a continuing commitment to Catholic education and the high schools think that ought to be rewarded. These kids are more likely to become part of the alumni community that supports and nourishes the school after graduation.

So all other things being about equal, your DC’s have a significant advantage in the Admissions process.

The high schools aren’t unaware of the reasons for any surge in applications from public schoolers. They also know the short and long term benefits of sticking with the side of the bread they know is buttered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Catholic high schools always have and will continue to favor graduates of Catholic grammar schools for some very good reasons.

First, because the Catholic high school has a long-standing symbiotic relationship with the grammar schools, the can trust what they are told formally and informally about each candidate.

Second, the high schools know that Catholic grammar school kids and parents know much better what to expect at the Catholic high school. So they end up being happier campers and that benefits everyone. And they are much more likely to be practicing Catholics.j

Third, the Catholic grammar school parents have shown a continuing commitment to Catholic education and the high schools think that ought to be rewarded. These kids are more likely to become part of the alumni community that supports and nourishes the school after graduation.

So all other things being about equal, your DC’s have a significant advantage in the Admissions process.

The high schools aren’t unaware of the reasons for any surge in applications from public schoolers. They also know the short and long term benefits of sticking with the side of the bread they know is buttered.

Nailed it.

[Anonymous]

There are more 9th grade seats in Catholic high schools than there are 8th graders in Catholic schools. Not everyone gets their first choice, but there is room for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

Is that your guess, or do you have first hand knowledge of these conversations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

Is that your guess, or do you have first hand knowledge of these conversations?

Well, I’m neither a K8 principal or a high school Admissions person.

But my spouse was on the staff of one of the high schools and I have seen the process work as a parent at one of the K8’s that supplies a lot of kids to the most desired Catholic high schools. Besides, how else would you expect this to work?

Do you imagine the K8’s would sell their students hard and leave it up to the high schools to figure things out (caveat emptor)?

Outplacement success to these Catholic high schools is very important to the K8’s. They aren’t going to jeopardize this long term relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

OP here -- Thanks very much to everyone for your thoughts. Yes, that is what concerns me -- I don't know the relationship between my K-8 and the high schools. Do the K-8 schools get any feed back from the Catholic high schools about the strength of their applicants BEFORE decisions are released? Or are the K-8 schools learning about the decisions at the same time as the applicants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

OP here -- Thanks very much to everyone for your thoughts. Yes, that is what concerns me -- I don't know the relationship between my K-8 and the high schools. Do the K-8 schools get any feed back from the Catholic high schools about the strength of their applicants BEFORE decisions are released? Or are the K-8 schools learning about the decisions at the same time as the applicants?

Not as a matter of course. If there is any discussion around particular candidates, the K8 people may have a clue as to what’s going to which applicants the high school is particularly interested in or have concerns about. But the high school’s process for selecting a class is complex and sometimes produces surprises as they fill the needs and concerns of the various constituencies on campus.

You might want to ask your high school about the admissions history to the high schools you are particularly interested in. They might be willing to give you an assessment of you DCs chances based on history and even the conversations they have had with them. You may even want to look at the archives of the Parish Times in May and see what schools are represented and how many go to each from your K8.

All of the above is influenced by the number of students from the various K8’s that attend each of these high schools. A school that send one boy a year to Prep isn’t the same as BS which send a large group of girls every year to Visitation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

Is that your guess, or do you have first hand knowledge of these conversations?

Well, I’m neither a K8 principal or a high school Admissions person.

But my spouse was on the staff of one of the high schools and I have seen the process work as a parent at one of the K8’s that supplies a lot of kids to the most desired Catholic high schools. Besides, how else would you expect this to work?

Do you imagine the K8’s would sell their students hard and leave it up to the high schools to figure things out (caveat emptor)?

Outplacement success to these Catholic high schools is very important to the K8’s. They aren’t going to jeopardize this long term relationships.

This sounds about right as someone with a daughter coming out of a Catholic K-8 and just finished up with the process. Our principal was intimately involved in the guidance in the application process. A lot of discussion about fit and she was clearly guiding DD to specific schools -- namely the ones that were the most academically challenging. We are assuming that she feels DD would easily be accepted at these schools. She steered us away from the other schools but said it makes sense to apply as safeties. So just through these discussions, you can gage your chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have thoughts on the other part of OP's question? Do the high schools call the K-8 principals and say, Principal Jones, 5 kids applied who are qualified to attend our school, how would you prioritize them?

It's not that formal and it is more likely to occur in years where the number of applicants is much higher than usual. And, it depends on the relationship between the schools, including the personal relationships between the players.

What the K-8's do not want to happen is to have the high schools coming back them asking them why didn't the K-8 warn them about academic, behavioral or family problems.

Conversely, the high schools do go back and tell the K-8's how pleased they are with some of the kids the K-8 school recommended.

That's part of how the long-term relationship of trust between the schools is built.

Is that your guess, or do you have first hand knowledge of these conversations?

Well, I’m neither a K8 principal or a high school Admissions person.

But my spouse was on the staff of one of the high schools and I have seen the process work as a parent at one of the K8’s that supplies a lot of kids to the most desired Catholic high schools. Besides, how else would you expect this to work?

Do you imagine the K8’s would sell their students hard and leave it up to the high schools to figure things out (caveat emptor)?

Outplacement success to these Catholic high schools is very important to the K8’s. They aren’t going to jeopardize this long term relationships.

This sounds about right as someone with a daughter coming out of a Catholic K-8 and just finished up with the process. Our principal was intimately involved in the guidance in the application process. A lot of discussion about fit and she was clearly guiding DD to specific schools -- namely the ones that were the most academically challenging. We are assuming that she feels DD would easily be accepted at these schools. She steered us away from the other schools but said it makes sense to apply as safeties. So just through these discussions, you can gage your chances.

Exactly.

The principal goes through this every year, if she has any significant tenure in the job.

They’ve seen what has happened in the past and they may have gotten a general sense of this year’s “lay of the land”. She or he not only knows what kind of applicants have been accepted or rejected in the past, but also what the high school seems to. Be most interested currently.

It really isn’t too much difference from the support or guidance experienced college counselors give. And the safety schools are a good idea because you never know what’s going to happen when the high school looks at all the applicants as a group.

This process is much more unstructured and capricious than many of the parents might think.

[Anonymous]

This sounds about right as someone with a daughter coming out of a Catholic K-8 and just finished up with the process. Our principal was intimately involved in the guidance in the application process. A lot of discussion about fit and she was clearly guiding DD to specific schools -- namely the ones that were the most academically challenging. We are assuming that she feels DD would easily be accepted at these schools. She steered us away from the other schools but said it makes sense to apply as safeties. So just through these discussions, you can gage your chances.

Which schools, if you don’t mind sharing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This sounds about right as someone with a daughter coming out of a Catholic K-8 and just finished up with the process. Our principal was intimately involved in the guidance in the application process. A lot of discussion about fit and she was clearly guiding DD to specific schools -- namely the ones that were the most academically challenging. We are assuming that she feels DD would easily be accepted at these schools. She steered us away from the other schools but said it makes sense to apply as safeties. So just through these discussions, you can gage your chances.

Which schools, if you don’t mind sharing?

Georgetown Visitation
Stone Ridge