Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the gds application takes the most work. Several more obscure essays from both parents and the student plus SSAT and extra-long interview.

GDS doesn’t accept the SSAT. Sidwell and Flint Hill also have “obscure”’essays. Extra long interview is a good thing.

GDS now has an SSAT or other standardized test requirement (started again this year). Sidwell has obscure parent essays. No kid essays.

Anonymous wrote:I think the gds application takes the most work. Several more obscure essays from both parents and the student plus SSAT and extra-long interview.

GDS doesn’t accept the SSAT. Sidwell and Flint Hill also have “obscure”’essays. Extra long interview is a good thing.

I think partially what adds to the stress of the process is that a lot of families are applying to schools that maybe aren’t a great fit for their kid. We are at a small school and know everyone very well. I have worked at a couple of area privates and have a good sense of who does well where and this fall I’ve been biting my tongue a lot in convos with fellow parents. There are a few families who are opting to apply to a bunch of schools (that aren’t necessarily good fits for their kid but have the “right prestige level”) and then figure it out once they see where DC gets in. That approach by a few is what seems to be driving the tension in our class.

Anonymous wrote:Everyone keeps saying “we are so lucky to have so many good options here” but we are not feeling like that’s true. DS wants coed so that wipes a huge chunk of “options” off the table right out of the gate. We are applying to six because the competition at some is so fierce that it’s laughable. We have 6 gives from our class alone applying to a school that will likely only add 20 kids total. Competing with kids from our school feels really awful because everyone is analyzing everyone else’s odds to try to gauge their own chances. So it’s a lot of work for a bit of crapshoot, it’s creating tensions in the class (maybe that’s more on the parent side), and we aren’t crazy excited about any of the options. Looking forward to being on the other side of this process.

Agree with you that it doesn’t always feel like there are a lot of options. We are in VA and DC has a learning difference that doesn’t need a specialist school but we did want a mainstream school with a good academic center, so geography and circumstance really narrowed the choices. We only applied to two. I really wanted to add at least one more and we started apps at two others but ended up pulling/not completing them because the schools were just not a good fit.

DC is an excellent student and I knew they had as good a chance as anyone at getting in, but everything kept stressing how many students apply for how few spots and it felt like a roll of the dice, which was nerve wracking. We are just starting to explore the college process and while it’s daunting it doesn’t feel as stressful because there are so many more options.

Anonymous wrote:Applying to 9th at four selective boarding schools. It’s a lot of work.

I guess they want to know you are committed? And chasing the recommendations is a trick. I console myself by knowing that these schools have dedicated college counseling offices, and that they will step in the next time DC is undergoing this process. We are a financial aid family, so having that service included is a big bonus as we would never pay for a private counselor.

If your kid wants it, you show up and do the work. That’s just the way things are.

Do boarding schools require more recs? The teacher recommendations were the one thing that felt straightforward to us. Although it helped hugely that DC was coming from a private k-8 so they had the routine down, because the same few English and math teachers did all the recs for all the 8th graders. The school collected the HS names and forms from each student and then just handled it - the kids didn’t have to ask anyone or stay on top of anyone to make sure they were completed, which was great.

Everyone keeps saying “we are so lucky to have so many good options here” but we are not feeling like that’s true. DS wants coed so that wipes a huge chunk of “options” off the table right out of the gate. We are applying to six because the competition at some is so fierce that it’s laughable. We have 6 gives from our class alone applying to a school that will likely only add 20 kids total. Competing with kids from our school feels really awful because everyone is analyzing everyone else’s odds to try to gauge their own chances. So it’s a lot of work for a bit of crapshoot, it’s creating tensions in the class (maybe that’s more on the parent side), and we aren’t crazy excited about any of the options. Looking forward to being on the other side of this process.

Applying to 9th at four selective boarding schools. It’s a lot of work.

I guess they want to know you are committed? And chasing the recommendations is a trick. I console myself by knowing that these schools have dedicated college counseling offices, and that they will step in the next time DC is undergoing this process. We are a financial aid family, so having that service included is a big bonus as we would never pay for a private counselor.

If your kid wants it, you show up and do the work. That’s just the way things are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applications… for 9th grade..? LMAO

You won't be laughing when OP's kid is your boss.

LOL. More like when OP’s kids gets Bs like this sucker in another thread

Anonymous wrote:First report card is out. Straight Bs.
Kido says they always give only Bs to everyone in the first semester. Then good performers get As the end of year.
Why are they making it so hard for the kids.
Are private schools all the same in this practice (artificially deflating)?
Never a single B in public school, quiz, test, hw, whatever.

Applying to five schools and we're still in the thick of it. We only feel like we're about halfway through between interviews, essays, projects, and testing. All this juggling on top of sports has caused the grades to be less than stellar this quarter too. Looking forward to be on the other side of this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are going through it but I truly wonder whether these essays are really important. Do the admissions officers ever include or exclude an applicant based on the essay. Or do they make us do these essays to weed out those who really want it versus those who are just casually looking.

But are there people who are just casually applying or mailing it in? I would have thought the process itself weeds those people out, so I imagine every family is submitting well thought out essays - and I hope the school is reading them and has thought about what it wants to see in the answers, otherwise there really is no point!

Based on some of the stories I have heard from our admissions people there are definitely families who get to interviews (which means your application is very close to done at our school) who really have no idea what the school is all about. I'd consider mailing that in.

Anonymous wrote:We are going through it but I truly wonder whether these essays are really important. Do the admissions officers ever include or exclude an applicant based on the essay. Or do they make us do these essays to weed out those who really want it versus those who are just casually looking.

But are there people who are just casually applying or mailing it in? I would have thought the process itself weeds those people out, so I imagine every family is submitting well thought out essays - and I hope the school is reading them and has thought about what it wants to see in the answers, otherwise there really is no point!

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the character max. Just write enough to answer their questions.

+1 I think writing to the max character count might actually be frowned upon. Sort of feels like they are giving you enough rope to hang yourself with 4000 words.

We had one interview before submitting the essays, and the interviewer asked some of the same questions that I now know are part of the application. The interviewer took notes, and the interview was fairly lengthy. I feel like I'm being tested on my writing vs verbal skills, e.g., can these people write as well as they speak?

For another school, we submitted our responses to the essays before the interview because the school stressed the importance of doing so. The essays for this school were much more straightforward "tell us about your child's strengths and weaknesses" type questions. It was clear, however, that the people interviewing us had not read what we/our DC had written.

This process is more stressful than older DC's college process because it requires our involvement and we are geographically limited in a way that we were not with our older child. And with the college option to apply ED and EA, we had an answer before the end of the year; with these HS applications, we won't know until March.

Ignore the character max. Just write enough to answer their questions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are going through it but I truly wonder whether these essays are really important. Do the admissions officers ever include or exclude an applicant based on the essay. Or do they make us do these essays to weed out those who really want it versus those who are just casually looking.

At our school it was very clear they cared a lot about fit and had read the parent essays before our parent interview. Things I had written came up.

That's nice and thoughtful! At least your time was worth it. In our case, it was clear they had not read them and I was left wondering why we had wasted our time on multiple revisions. (It's our first choice so I was very intense about it.) Maybe other interviews will go differently...