Anonymous wrote:Or alternatively, they’ve misplayed their hand and overestimated the draw of the Brearley “brand”. It’s also possible that no peers will follow and they will lose a lot of top applicants who prefer the certainty of a Chapin/Spence indication over rolling the dice on a chance at Brearley.

The majority of “top applicants” aren’t actually playing this little game and I suspect Brearley will easily fill its kindergarten classes with strong candidates from that group.

We are at a public PK, and submitted a FCL to Brearley, so feel pretty out of it. When did people know about this new direction? Do we think the letter was just discarded? We feel pretty lost and unsure about what this means

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like Brearley’s model is probably where a lot of TT/2T admissions are going to end up, something more akin to college admissions; there are more strong applicants than ever nowadays, coming from a wider range of backgrounds, and the relationship/legacy/PSD-heavy admissions approach of the past is going to leave schools with academically weaker and less interesting student bodies.

Or alternatively, they’ve misplayed their hand and overestimated the draw of the Brearley “brand”. It’s also possible that no peers will follow and they will lose a lot of top applicants who prefer the certainty of a Chapin/Spence indication over rolling the dice on a chance at Brearley.

I’m not sure that I understand the game theory of Brearley here. How does this benefit them?

Anonymous wrote:(from what I can tell, Trinity, with its closed culture and heavy emphasis on legacy admissions, is going through the academic equivalent of the Hapsburg decline)

Is this going to change things this year?

Anonymous wrote:I feel like Brearley’s model is probably where a lot of TT/2T admissions are going to end up, something more akin to college admissions; there are more strong applicants than ever nowadays, coming from a wider range of backgrounds, and the relationship/legacy/PSD-heavy admissions approach of the past is going to leave schools with academically weaker and less interesting student bodies.

Or alternatively, they’ve misplayed their hand and overestimated the draw of the Brearley “brand”. It’s also possible that no peers will follow and they will lose a lot of top applicants who prefer the certainty of a Chapin/Spence indication over rolling the dice on a chance at Brearley.

(from what I can tell, Trinity, with its closed culture and heavy emphasis on legacy admissions, is going through the academic equivalent of the Hapsburg decline)

I feel like Brearley’s model is probably where a lot of TT/2T admissions are going to end up, something more akin to college admissions; there are more strong applicants than ever nowadays, coming from a wider range of backgrounds, and the relationship/legacy/PSD-heavy admissions approach of the past is going to leave schools with academically weaker and less interesting student bodies.

Sounds like B is being positive but noncommittal to everyone, so no one actually knows where they stand. I respect the new strategy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, a Brearley board member did tell me that they are super yield sensitive and will significantly discount families that didn’t send them a first choice letter.

Not anymore. Our PSD explicitly stated (after talking to Christina head of admissions directly) that Brearley doesn’t want FCL, but love letters are fine.

Brearley has totally flipped the script this year on admissions.

Wow.. that is such a drastic change. Our DD was in a connected preschool. This is years ago.We were told by PSD that you can’t get in Brearley unless you first choice it. That is why families like us had to make choice early on. We chose other TT. Other family that we were close to chose Brearley over TT. Based on what PSD and other families informed us, Brearley seemed to be super sensitive to the yield in comparison to other TT.

Definitely a drastic change even from last year and what our friends went through.

The new head of admissions and the new head of school are taking a more holistic approach to the admissions process and looking at all the candidates together and not taking in to count first choice letters etc. They wouldn’t even give early feedback. They gave feedback in January right after winter break.

Basically I think a lot of people are in the dark with Brearley besides getting “strong” feedback. They are no longer giving a definitive “yes” like in the past. Most likely families won’t know about Brearley until February 5th.

I feel like this will go on to change a lot to the ways the other all girls schools do admissions going forward. Chapin used to give extremely strong feedback (without saying a yes since they are ISAAGNY) in early December because of Brearley giving acceptances to girls as early as November.

It’s definitely an interesting time to admissions.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone's PSD heard feedback from Nightingale?

We have. We got it back in December right before winter break.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, a Brearley board member did tell me that they are super yield sensitive and will significantly discount families that didn’t send them a first choice letter.

Not anymore. Our PSD explicitly stated (after talking to Christina head of admissions directly) that Brearley doesn’t want FCL, but love letters are fine.

Brearley has totally flipped the script this year on admissions.

Wow.. that is such a drastic change. Our DD was in a connected preschool. This is years ago.We were told by PSD that you can’t get in Brearley unless you first choice it. That is why families like us had to make choice early on. We chose other TT. Other family that we were close to chose Brearley over TT. Based on what PSD and other families informed us, Brearley seemed to be super sensitive to the yield in comparison to other TT.

When we applied to K, also years ago, this was the same story with every TT except HM. In order to get in, you needed to first choice the school, whether Brearley, Spence, Chapin, Trinity or Dalton. It was pretty much a requirement across the board for TTs other than HM, which did their own thing. It was all a game and everyone played it.

Has anyone's PSD heard feedback from Nightingale?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, a Brearley board member did tell me that they are super yield sensitive and will significantly discount families that didn’t send them a first choice letter.

Not anymore. Our PSD explicitly stated (after talking to Christina head of admissions directly) that Brearley doesn’t want FCL, but love letters are fine.

Brearley has totally flipped the script this year on admissions.

Wow.. that is such a drastic change. Our DD was in a connected preschool. This is years ago.We were told by PSD that you can’t get in Brearley unless you first choice it. That is why families like us had to make choice early on. We chose other TT. Other family that we were close to chose Brearley over TT. Based on what PSD and other families informed us, Brearley seemed to be super sensitive to the yield in comparison to other TT.

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, a Brearley board member did tell me that they are super yield sensitive and will significantly discount families that didn’t send them a first choice letter.

Not anymore. Our PSD explicitly stated (after talking to Christina head of admissions directly) that Brearley doesn’t want FCL, but love letters are fine.

Brearley has totally flipped the script this year on admissions.

Anonymous wrote:But you write a FCL to have an advantage, and now it seems we don’t? I’m wondering if we should write one somewhere else…

When people think and act like this, the value of FCL diminishes… i think PSD conveying the first choice is equally or more effective because they have multi-year relationship and need to sustain it.