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| Private Education |
The Pivotal Decision
Jill Rachlin Marbaix
05/03/2004
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What exactly are admissions officers looking for? “Our
admissions process is both science and art,” says Kent Jones, director of public
relations for Emma Willard in Troy, New York, a girls’ boarding school whose
curriculum emphasizes academic rigor. “It is a science in that we need to see
certain things in an application to assure us of a student’s ability to meet
academic challenges here.” Emma Willard looks for what Jones calls “the 4 P’s”:
Program, taking a demanding course load or being on an accelerated track;
Performance, demonstrated by high grades; Potential, a sense that the girl has
some real excitement about learning; and Person, evidence that the girl has
enough maturity to be a good roommate and hall mate, as well as a good student.
“We need all the pieces to decide,” Jones says. “And that is where the art of it
seems to come in.”
Viable candidates will have teacher recommendations, and
many schools require some form of standardized testing for grades 5 through 12,
usually the Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) or the Independent School
Entrance Examination (ISEE). Not only do both employ multiple-choice questions
to measure verbal and quantitative skills, but they also require the students to
write essays. Because these scores play such a key role in admissions (to
qualify for a top boarding school, a child’s scores must reach at least the 90th
percentile on the SSATs), parents often hire tutors or enroll their children in
preparatory courses to boost them.
Interviews are also crucial. ”[Faculties]
want to admit students that are sending a clear message that this is the right
school for them,” says Jane Schoenfeld, an educational consultant with
Independent School Placement Service of St. Louis, Inc. Our children should
avoid making the kind of obvious inquiries that the school’s brochure or Web
site could answer. Instead, they should pose more insightful questions like:
What do students do on weekends? How difficult is it to play varsity or junior
varsity sports? If I am having difficulty with a class, how do I get help? How
do you help students adjust to life in the dorm? Good manners also factor into a
successful interview. A thank-you note as a follow-up to the interview should be
sent promptly in order to demonstrate that the student is already versed in the
manners that elite schools consider a matter of course.
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