Editor’s Note: A recent exchange between onBoarding Schools contributor Leo G. Marshall, Director of Admission, The Webb Schools and a reader requires its own space.

Daphne, reading Leo’s post (In Defense of Childhood), wrote expressing concern that perhaps she had not structured her child’s time or pushed and programed her child harder. Achievement, it seemed was all the boarding school admission officer wanted to know or hear about.

As Daphne wrote:

My daughter was faced with question after question about her academic honors and prizes, extra-curricular awards, athletic achievements, positions of leadership. Nowhere was she asked “What do you do just for fun?” And I was left feeling that maybe our not pushing her hard enough has put her at a disadvantage at this critical juncture in her young life.

Leo replies, the key to the process is understanding the variables, and more specifically, your student, the school and how the two might fit well together.

Subject: Re: [Boarding School Blog - onBoarding Schools] New Comment Added to ‘In Defense

Dear Daphne,

I dare say that often the schools and colleges themselves are part of the
problem. From one side of their mouth comes such questions as you
describe as, of course, we are looking for students who will contribute to
our schools in meaningful ways. Everyone, for example, has to fill their
orchestra or their soccer team. At the same time,  every school shies
away from a student who is doing little at home other than sit in front to
tv or a computer game. Most will say they want creative thinkers who
enjoy learning for learning’s sake but may not tell you what that means.

What schools sometimes suffer from is a lack of imagination about what
what kind of students they wish to have on campus. This is especially so
when schools are dealing with large numbers of applicants and they are
attempting to make some sense of the pool. It’s then easy to fall back on
old notions of what constitutes achievement. Therefore, our job is to
articulate our thoughts about learning and what kind of students find
success in our classrooms. And this has nothing to do with rattling off
average SSAT scores, GPA’s, or the recent winning record of the lacrosse
team.

The whole process becomes confusing to parents who then decide that the
best way to ensure their child’s chances for admission is to load them up
with activities and build a proverbial resume for their child. I am not
suggesting that parents shouldn’t introduce their child to a musical
instrument or encourage them to play a sport. Many students lack the
confidence to give such things a try and we parents should be in the
position to offer encouragement and support. But when this is all done
simply to give that edge to a student – the result of which cannot be
predicted – without taking into consideration the child’s real interest or
potential, the result is more tutors, more test preparation, more special
coaches, and exhausted kids.

This is also complicated when parents think there are only handful of
schools out there worth looking at and that is very often based on
perception of prestige, not whether they’re the right school for their
child. I cannot tell you how many parents ask me about our track record
for getting students into schools like Harvard. Yet, when I ask them if
they know anything about the college or whether it might be a the right
place for their child, they look at me like I’m crazy. The same thing
happens when parents look at boarding schools. Thus, I suspect a number
of schools are overloaded with applicants who really know little about the
school except the name. Those schools in their attempt to manage the
numbers fall back on questions about leadership (I’m just not sure any
middle school child can tell me they have developed real leadership
skills) or whether they have recently discovered a new vaccine.

What is the answer? Well, there is no perfect school except the one that
inspires your child. There is no magic path to success via the name of a
school. Nobody is going to ask what your child’s shot-to- goal ratio was
in middle school and no one cares what his SSAT scores was when he is out
there in the world. I do believe they will want to know if he imagines a
world as better place and that he enjoys being with others of all
persuasions and experiences. They will want to know if he has been asked
to question, i.e. to be an informed skeptic. They will want to know if
he loves reading and enjoys the thrill of competition but has kept losing
and winning in perspective. Schools like ours can help your child get
there but the work in front of you is to find which school can do that for
your child… and forget what your friends tell you.

Best wishes,

Leo G. Marshall
Director of Admission & Financial Aid
The Webb Schools
Claremont, CA