Now that it's over, tell me about the good and bad experiences you had with admissions offices

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Saw someone posting about a lousy experience with GDS, unclear why. Can anyone elaborate? What was your experience with other schools and for what grade?

We applied last year but had great interactions with the GDS admissions staff. The only things that could have been a tad better was their Peerpal application to chat with parents. I found it difficult and time consuming to set up chats in a timely fashion.

[Anonymous]

Great experience at NCS. Loved the virtual open house, very well organized virtual information meetings, great interview that was in person (friendly and informative), and lovely, well spoken tour guides(high school students) who gave our family a personal tour around the campus. The staff are very responsive via email.
My daughter feel in love with the place and is very excited about next year.

[Anonymous]

We applied Potomac (only) and got WL x2. Found them to be helpful and communicative throughout the process. Only thing that surprised us quite a bit was the 1:1 session with our K was extremely basic, with exercises on the order of drawing a shape using the right color crayon. I know it wasn't supposed to be an entirely academic evaluation, but still it was just surprised they weren't asking at least SOME questions to get a better handle on where DC was at in terms of math, reading, writing, etc.

[Anonymous]

Being a confirmed Episcopalian and active in his church youth group made no difference to SAES, which offered DS a place on its WL for 9th grade. (Bullis accepted DS). SAES should just rename itself as The Andrews School and be done with it.

[Anonymous]

Primary day admissions officers were unfriendly and didn’t seem to know anything about our child. After the interview we no longer wanted to send DC.

It was disappointing as many friends had recommended it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being a confirmed Episcopalian and active in his church youth group made no difference to SAES, which offered DS a place on its WL for 9th grade. (Bullis accepted DS). SAES should just rename itself as The Andrews School and be done with it.

We also had a very lackluster experience with SAES admissions. Not responsive, seemed uninterested, emailed with a question that went unanswered, etc. Left little to be desired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great experience at NCS. Loved the virtual open house, very well organized virtual information meetings, great interview that was in person (friendly and informative), and lovely, well spoken tour guides(high school students) who gave our family a personal tour around the campus. The staff are very responsive via email.
My daughter feel in love with the place and is very excited about next year.

Same. It was great. They also connected us with several families.

[Anonymous]

I really liked the Bullis admissions team. Very personable.

[Anonymous]

For all the people who felt unloved by the private school admission process, better build a thicker skin for college!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all the people who felt unloved by the private school admission process, better build a thicker skin for college!

NP college admissions has 0 parent involvement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We applied Potomac (only) and got WL x2. Found them to be helpful and communicative throughout the process. Only thing that surprised us quite a bit was the 1:1 session with our K was extremely basic, with exercises on the order of drawing a shape using the right color crayon. I know it wasn't supposed to be an entirely academic evaluation, but still it was just surprised they weren't asking at least SOME questions to get a better handle on where DC was at in terms of math, reading, writing, etc.

Agree it was pretty basic. Maybe it was a screener? Like make sure the kid passes the bare minimum and then they’ll take who they want based on wealth, status, etc. (can you tell I’m bitter lol)

[Anonymous]

The contradiction between virtual and in-person admissions with Bullis being one example. Bullis did not offer an in-person Open House or shadow days for prospective students. At the same time Bullis suggested that interested families could come on to the campus to see the Fall musical. (We went to see the musical). Mixed messaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maret admissions acted as if they could not care less (we ended up not completing our application, we were so put off), both in group info sessions and one-on-one. GDS and Burke admissions were wonderful and engaged.

We had an amazing experience with Maret. By far the best experience for us.

+1

[Anonymous]

I found SAES to be involved, responsive, and helpful during all parts of the process. They had read our application before the interview, were warm and open in conversations, presented a great virtual open house, and gave multiple opportunities for parents and kids to come onto campus.

[Anonymous]

Lowell admissions folks seemed super disorganized -- after we submitted our initial application, we got multiple emails from the same person with different requests on different days -- about 4 or 5 different requests, really felt like I was scrambling to keep up with them all. Really wish they would've sent one email with a list of all the things they needed from us (parent interview, school tour, family photo since we would all be masked, PCR tests prior to any in-person events, etc).

Every single request they sent was important, but the disorganization and scattered emails just made it really stressful to go through the process with them.