St. Marks and Hockaday (Howe: fit in, spring break, public schools)

[DalGalHere]

Couple of questions on admissions:

1) How do folks know how large the applicant pool is for the class they are applying for? I've seen posts here that read -- the applicant pool is 90+ for the Xth grade class. How did you learn this information? Did you ask the admission office? How forthcoming are they?

1.a) Anyone know the applicant pool for applying to 4th grade at St. Marks this year?
1.b) Anyone know the applicant pool for applying to 8th grade at Hockaday this year?

2) Do St. Marks and Hockaday provide only email notifications with respect to admission decisions or do they follow up with snail mail?

3) With respect to ISEE scores, do both SMST and Hockaday use the cumulative method (just add up the 7,8,9s) or do they look at each score individually? What would be comfortable cumulative scores for 4th and 8th grades?

4) CAT scores -- what is a minimum score that would provide you with some level of comfort that your son may have a chance to be offered admission?

5) In those years that are not expansion years, will there be situations where no one is admitted because no current student has elected to leave?

6) Anyone else feel anxious about this process? You are not alone. Good luck!

[wiseguy6767]

Believe for last 10 years SMS 4th grade avg # of applications has been around 70 (high of 83 and low of 53 through the years). Good luck

[barnicles]

1) sometimes the school admissions team will offer this information. Not likely until the admissions responses have gone out, and probably included in the response (to let anyone that tried and didn't get in know how competitive it was this year).

1b) I don't but those are both non expansion years so they will receive fewer apps than 9th and 5th

2) Yes and Yes. They will send an email out with their decision on the 11th (I'm assuming this is this years date as it's usually right before spring break) and then they will most likely follow up with a mailed letter, package, or school spirit type gear if there is a "yes".

3). They look at individual scores and cumulative, and use these scores to help determine if a student will be able to excel academically at the school. If a student has 3 nines and then a 2, they will look at that two and consider how there might be difficulties getting up to speed with the other students and keeping up. They have their own formulas for figuring out which students fit in their schools, which is why they include essays and interviews.... but this is to everyone's benefit. They WANT the kids they admit to succeed. They want them to excel. They don't want students to be overwhelmed and have to change schools.

4) not sure

5) If the admissions team feels a candidate will offer much to the school community and if the community will also benefit them, they might admit a student above their last year count, even if no one leaves... that's why they have a bit of flexibility in the number of students in each grade level. It's not always the exact same year to year.

6) yes, it's very stressful but also an exciting time with possibility.... right? Good luck to your kiddos.

[NanD]

My son is applying to SM 4th also. Heard there are about 65 applications.

[wynnedutch]

Originally Posted by barnicles

2) Yes and Yes. They will send an email out with their decision on the 11th (I'm assuming this is this years date as it's usually right before spring break) and then they will most likely follow up with a mailed letter, package, or school spirit type gear if there is a "yes".

Correct, it's the 11th. They hit send and are out the door before their desk chair stops spinning sometime between 5:00-6:00pm so that they're not there when people start calling to ask questions. Then you have a week to cool off if you didn't get in. Kind of like the 24 hour rule in sports on talking to a coach.

[JTC Mom]

[quote=DalGalHere;63020456]Couple of questions on admissions:

1) In the past I've heard this information from the admissions office, either speaking directly to them or in parent presentations. There can be a lot of variability! I attended a presentation this year at which St. Mark's presented the number of applicants by grade each year. I don't remember most of it but I do remember that number of applicants to first grade (which has 32 openings) varied from about 120 to about 180 over the course of the 5 or 6 years of data that was presented. It didn't go straight up, it varied year by year. I also remember that 2nd grade - which has only 2 openings plus any attrition - had as many as 50-60 applicants in several years.

1.a) I heard directly from the admissions office they expect to accept 1 out of every 6 or 7 applicants on average (across all grades) at St. Mark's this year. Their website says 1 in 5 is the average, so it sounds like it is harder than average this year. 4th grade is an expansion year so hopefully that helps a little.

1.b) IDK

2) We've never gotten in to either school so I don't know about snail mail for admits. I can confirm that waitlist is announced by email only.

3) They say they don't add them up. But it's not hard to add them up without even trying so...who knows. Both admissions offices have suggested that there is no cutoff to guarantee admission or denial. However, in general, I have heard unofficially that you want at least 28 total to be considered competitive. So, all 7's or some combination of 6's and 8's or 9's. I know someone who got into Hockaday a few years ago with a 5 in one ISEE section, but the rest of her scores were 8's.

4) I have not heard anything about this but I would say you'd want 120 or higher FSIQ. That's what a lot of public schools use 120 IQ for gifted and talented cutoff.

5) Yes

6.) Good luck!

[Anonymouse2]

From an email from St Marks - this is school wide, but the indicated acceptance rate is 15%:

The Application Pool 2022-2023:
As of this week, the school has received a total of 835 applications for admission, which is approximately 140 above the average of the last few years. We expect to enroll approximately 125 new students.