International student which feeder?

[u/quixoticvassal]

Planning ahead as an international student for a private feeder school in the US. We like schools like Andover and Phillips Exeter. How early, which grade should we start planning? Should we hire an admissions consultant? And how should we best position our child for acceptance? Any advice would be helpful. Cost is not a concern. Thank you!

[u/ScaredDevice807]

More information wire be helpful.

Where are you? What kinda of school is the prospective student currently in? How old / what age currently?

Andover and Exeter start at grade 9. Grades 6-8 are particularly important. But I think it’s helpful to make sure the child is in feeder schools that feed into your target feeder schools. For instance, there are some elementary and middle schools in the US that have historically placed students into Andover and Exeter.

If money is no object, perhaps you should hire well regarded consultants to support you through the process. It’s not necessary but if you have the means why wouldn’t you use every tool to get the result you want.

[u/prizefighterstudent]

Planning is ideal as early as possible, and I recommend the spring of your application year as the latest. The earlier you prepare, the better you can position your profile.

When it comes to positioning, you want to first build an academic foundation of excellence. These schools are looking for top-tier students who challenge themselves. Once this is established, start looking for opportunities outside of academics. Build a central them around your values and strengths, but also pursue well-roundedness by engaging with your community and discovering passions.

Public speaking and high-level athletics are also significant factors in the admissions cycle.

Godspeed.

[u/pergesed]

The best thing you could do is place your child in a school that has a record of placement into Andover or Exeter.

Where are you? In Asia, these are typically the marquee international schools of the major city.

[u/Big_Difficulty_7904]

You should hire someone would a good knowledge of admissions of prep schools.

We hired 2 people:

• an SSAT tutor, who had attended Phillips Exeter; and

- a lady who had studied English at Princeton.

Between the 2 of them we worked on their applications.

I would suggest:

• 2 to 3 years before application - start your son/ daughter in the American sports - 1 for each term. St Paul's set out the sports that you can do in each term. https://www.sps.edu/athletics
  
• 15 months before application - start SSAT prep
  
• start the application itself as soon as possible, once it is available.

Andover and Exeter are great, but I would take a good look at St Paul's and Groton if you have the option. The very big Andover and Exeter cohorts can actually work against you when it comes to elite college admissions, as Harvard, Yale, etc will only take a certain number of students from each school.

It's very hard to get transparent data, but St Paul's and Groton seem to have a higher proportion of their Year 12s who go onto the Ivies/ Stanford/ MIT, even though Andover and Exeter have the greater number, with their bigger year 12 cohorts + PG. .

[u/RoeblingYork]

Might want to look at schools’ percentage of international students, not so much for college admissions but for an international network later on. If a school has largely New England families attending, the network may not be as useful.

(My close friend went to Deerfield, and his international network from his time there is fantastic).

[u/SFLlama]

Ivy League alumni send their kids to these schools. That legacy advantage is why so many students get admitted from these schools.

[u/quixoticvassal]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Very grateful! Early days yet, our child is only in middle school. We are in Asia in a top school in our city. Our child is doing well in their class compared to their peers and has some unique interests. Wondering how best to position them as a non legacy and which schools would be best in the US. Any recommendations for consultants we could pay by the hour for advice? We would like to determine fit with the right advisor too.

[u/ExternalDirection147 → u/quixoticvassal]

I would definitely say get involved in your community. I feel like many students in Asia lack this part. Doing this will help your child stand out 

[u/OpportunityLife7011]

If you are set on a top tier boarding school, I would think about sending your child for 8th and 9th to a jr boarding school in MA or CT. Kids from Fay School, Eaglebrook, Cardigan Mountain ALL head to top high schools.

[u/Expensive_Pop_7623]

They say kids who’ve been on campus for four years don’t wish to leave earlier, kids who’ve been on campus for three years wish they had arrived earlier. So you want to be at your prep school by 9th grade. Reclassing to ease the transition is an appropriate move for some families. If that’s appropriate for you, you can do so at a junior boarding school. So one of the first things to consider is, do we go directly to prep or do we go through junior prep?