Do the schools know already?

[Anonymous]

If anyone out there has experience in an admissions office, I was wondering if the schools already are pretty certain about which students they will be accepting or not, with perhaps just a few students remaining in the "maybe" pile? Or are the decisions not made until the very last week?

[Anonymous]

No! With snow days admissions visits have to be rescheduled. Breathe.

[Anonymous]

Pre-K and K are probably close to being done.

[Anonymous]

They are generally still having committee meetings. So they know some but not all of the outcomes in terms of who they will be offering to. They could also be done with subgroups (e.g. sibling admits) if they do all of those in a batch -- lots of different ways to organize.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the school

[Anonymous]

It also depends on when renewal contracts were due.

[Anonymous]

I have no inside info, but I am guessing they have a pretty good sense of most of the class for pre-K/K, as those visits happen in early February at the latest.

I also think this must be a two-step process: 1) identify a potential list of accepted students for a class, 2) decide on how to allocate financial aid to those in that class who have requested it. So, maybe step 1 is done and they have moved on to step 2.

[Anonymous]

Yes - I think they have decided on a list of full-pay admits. I do think the final financial aid packages will take longer and those play into the admissions decisions for some likely admits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If anyone out there has experience in an admissions office, I was wondering if the schools already are pretty certain about which students they will be accepting or not, with perhaps just a few students remaining in the "maybe" pile? Or are the decisions not made until the very last week?

Why do you want to know?

[Anonymous]

This has been our experience this year. DC1 goes to a big private. We are applying for DC2 for K but child is summer birthday. The deadline has passed to renew contracts, and we renewed for DC1. We got a call late last week from admissions that DC2 would probably be offered a JK spot, that DC2s application was strong but the class make up was such DC2 would be better in JK. So I guess some schools are pretty close to finalizing.

[Anonymous]

Teachers are still reading applicant files at our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has been our experience this year. DC1 goes to a big private. We are applying for DC2 for K but child is summer birthday. The deadline has passed to renew contracts, and we renewed for DC1. We got a call late last week from admissions that DC2 would probably be offered a JK spot, that DC2s application was strong but the class make up was such DC2 would be better in JK. So I guess some schools are pretty close to finalizing.

Does anyone else wonder if this sort of thing is really true? Not what OP says, but how the school is framing it. Yes, a summer birthday can mean your child is the youngest in a class and would be better off in the grade below, especially if the school likes an older class. But could it also mean, that given the high tuition, schools are having a harder and harder time filling a JK and that's why you get get the JK spot?

[Anonymous]

I honestly think the schools look at the class makeup, the playdate and the WPPSI to see how to place kids K vs JK. I'd trust the admissions officers especially because they know the makeup of the current students.

[Anonymous]

One of our schools (parochial) hasn't finished all the play dates /shadow visits due to snow days and delayed openings.

[Anonymous]

Our renewal contracts are just due now. They have to go through those, follow up with families who didn't send them back, and then see how many spaces are available.