Online Information Session: So You've Applied to Lawrenceville...

Good evening and thank you so much for being available tonight. My name is Dana Brown, I'm the director of admission at The Lawrenceville School and I want to welcome you all as you enter the room. We have over 150 people signed up for today and we cannot thank you enough for stepping away from your busy week to join us for what I do hope will be a very informative session, but also a fun session to kind of.

Give you some more insight to what is going to happen in our office over the next couple of weeks as we process your files and then also move into what we call yield season and in the mid season as well as wait list season. So I'm going to give several pieces of information on that so that way you are fully informed about what will take place over the next 6 to 8 weeks. First, I want to thank you all for choosing to apply to Lawrenceville.

Know that you have several options, whether it be day or boarding your local public schools. Many of you are from all over the world. I see Hong Kong to Ohio to California as in the great state of New Jersey, as well as Texas, Massachusetts and the UK so again, you all have so many choices, but we in our office want to thank you again for choosing Lawrenceville and on behalf of my Dean of enrollment, Mr. Gregory Buckles, as well as my colleagues.

In McKenzie, those in the scholarship Aid Office and of course the ever wonderful and powerful Pat McKinnon and Doreen Weinberg, who are the women who really keep this office running and who this information session is primarily geared to help out, we want to say thank you. And so that is part of where I'd like to begin as we move on. So let us get started.

Oops, I'm still here.

Light.

Fantastic.

Alright, just a couple of housekeeping notes before we begin. This presentation is being recorded and will be will be made available in our travel and events website.

They're also, well, there's a closed captioning button available on the top right corner of the share window, so if you need that, please use that. And full screen view can be enabled by clicking the expand button on the top right corner of the share window. And should you need to resync your audio or video, please refresh your window and questions can be posed in the chat. And so I've already seen some from Nancy and Skye and Ella Columbus, OH, and some very more.

God, thank you for saying hello this evening, but that chat function is open and and will be. I will monitor that throughout the presentation. As promised, here is an agenda for tonight. These are the items that we are going to discuss particularly around the admissions portal, the checklist and how long it takes our office to process all the items, letters of recommendation, tours and what to expect on March 10th through April 10th and additional forms of.

Standardized testing. Those are the pieces that we wanted to ensure that you had some more context about, particularly around our most favorite item, the admission portal. Now our admission portal can be accessed by the website below and I will make sure that we get you that in the chat as well, but in that in the admission portal and several of you have received emails, actually all of you have received several emails from us but the admission portal.

Is going to be the main point of contact by which we hope that you will continue to use as we are reading files between now and March 10th. This is where you have the power as an applicant to upload letters of recommendation.

Test scores as well as any multimedia links. So, for instance, I've gotten a chance to work with a few with students who've reached out from overseas that wanted us to take a look at their art portfolio. Or maybe they weren't able to use it in the OR maybe, but they weren't able to put it on their gateway multimedia link. Our big red portal will give you that access, and you can just simply upload any additional information.

Including test test scores, a letter of recommendation from teachers, or someone who knows you best. That is what that space is used for. That portal is actually your access pass. Your all access pass to things that we will use to notify you on March 10th. And this is where you can check your decision as well as weightless confirmation. So please think of that as your mainframe for all things Lawrenceville after March 10th.

That's where you go to upload anything, but also check the status of the pieces of information that you have.

Sent our way.

The checklist that you are probably seeing on your portal will take a while to update. In fact, we're asking families to be patient with us because we are processing two different application platform, two different application platforms, the gateway as well as the SCO. And each day we may receive over 1500 e-mail submissions. So we have to open up all those attachments and directly put them into your file as I mentioned.

Green Weinberg and Pat McKinnon, many of you who probably met if you've toured our campus, they are the two people responsible for that, and so they ask for your patience. We all ask for your patience as that information is uploaded daily. And you will find that even as we start to upload things, we've had many questions about standardized test scores. Will we accept standardized test scores after a certain date? And the answer is yes. We will continue to process.

All the way through probably the beginning of February. And I know that for some of you the tests were cancelled in your country or maybe you had to reschedule, maybe you wanted to take it again and we will accept the February exam.

We will also accept any form of standardized testing. So for instance a map score. We will accept an SAT and ACT and IC. There is no preference. What I and my team and I are looking for is the a data point that we can use to make an evaluation. And please understand that test scores are not the sole indicator of your performance. That is just one piece of data that we use to evaluate your application and we go through your application and.

View you across several different ways, academic, extracurricular and personal. So were your extra clear personal qualities would say. So I just want to under score that for those who are concerned about the test score piece, do not you know dwell on that but more or less understand that we will accept test scores after the deadline and again January 30th. That's when we hope that we will be able to adequately to up accurately.

Update all of your checklist so please refrain from calling the office and and maybe dump and emailing over and over again. That does slow us down a little bit. I will encourage many of you again to use the portal. Use the portal to get all of the other information up to and upload it to your file. Definitely if you were copying both your interviewer myself, as well as the admission inbox, that slows things down.

But again your portal is your main hub and again your All Access pass to move forward with this process.

OK.

So after January 15th, many of you have already made some of you may have have done your tour and interview in the fall, but there are some of you who are looking to come to campus very soon and we welcome you in the next couple of weeks. We ask that you give us a call or and check your e-mail regularly. We are going to need to update you daily. As far as our tours, we have some scheduling things that we need to work out on a daily basis and so I would say.

If you are planning to come towards the end of this month, please be in touch with Pat McKinnon so that way you can.

I'll confirm if Tours will be going out on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Let me back up for a moment and start with interviews there at the top. For those of you who are interviewing this month as well as into February, we will have additional interview appointments at some point in the next couple of weeks. We have to just calibrate our readers as well as find some of some of our part timers who are already booked through that first week of February, but if you are a family who is still in need of an interview.

We ask for your patience as we try to find some time to do that before we get to February 15th. If you are a student who is in The Who is in the country of either China, Hong Kong.

Singapore, South Korea, Brazil. You've been asked to use the vacant system. Varicam is a wonderful, wonderful tool where my international team and I can.

I'm easily click on your link you have and you get a chance to hear you answer some really thoughtful questions that we've worked with the very variant team to ask you. And we just ask that if you have not scheduled your vericat interview to try to do that before the Lunar New Year. I know they are taking off and they are at a company that is based overseas in countries that are going to observe the Lunar New Year. So try to get that done hopefully before January 22nd or at least scheduled by that time.

If you were looking for a fee waiver for your vericat interview, we will happily issue you a a waiver and please be in touch with either myself or Pat McKinnon to request a fee waiver. As mentioned earlier, tours are going to be scheduled Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, but we ask that you just call our office to confirm that those are going out throughout for the next couple of weeks, particularly as we move into between now and February 1st.

I would highly, highly suggest that you just give us a call because our schedules are changing within the with at this point in the term and we want to ensure that we have tour guides for you during the periods of that they are originally had been scheduled.

How can you schedule an interview or tour your events portal, as was the main place where you can do that? Many of you again have already done it. But there are two tabs. I believe there's one for tours and there's a tab for interviews, and so you click on that to see what the availability will be.

As mentioned at the very top of this, I said that, well, you know, my colleagues and I are going to read.

Over 2300 to anywhere from 3000 folders within the next 6 to 8 weeks. And so understand that if you are coming to campus and you want to say hello to an interviewer or someone that you know have heard of in the office, we are going to be limited in in our ability to come downstairs and say hello. If we do will be for a quick moment because we have to read all of your files and our committees are very important and they are intense and so we need to focus in on that. So please understand.

If you are coming to campus, counselors may not be available to do one-on-one sessions or anything after January 18th.

So now let's Fast forward on to the 10s as I call them, March 10th and April 10th. In a perfect world, we will have all of our reading done by the first week in March and fingers crossed and we'll be ready to send out the good news through the admission portal. Again, remember your portal is the mainframe that you need to in the past in the area where you going to access all of your decisions, but on March 10th.

Our decisions will be released and then we there are three different state. There's there's the admits wait list and then those students who will not be admitted. I want to speak directly towards those different areas and certainly hope hopefully you all will receive positive news on March 10th. But if you are admitted to Lawrenceville then you will continue to use the portal to do several things. One RSVP for discovery days. Those are our.

We visit days where we ask you to come back to campus, you get to go to classes, you get to meet several of our administration, several people on our administration to talk about student life, religious life, all the things that make Lawrence feel an amazing institution as well as your enrollment contract. Now that's the part where you know if you want to say hopefully you all say yes to the big red and L yeah, you need to go through the portal and use the the to to get the enrollment contract signed.

So again, that is where all of the information will be pushed out to admit. We encourage you to check that regularly. Students who are waitlisted. Now let me talk about the wait list for a minute because several kids December will you will go through this process and feel a little defeated. And I and I want to encourage you to say yes to the wait list, right, say yes to the wait list. For several reasons, our wait lists are really important to us and we monitor them on a daily or weekly.

Basis, we encourage you to do one of two things I you can certainly remain on the wait list through April 10th or even throughout the summer. But one thing I found that was very helpful to our staff in the last couple of years or students who had uploaded again through your portal, not a direct e-mail, I what I call a continued letter of interest. That continued letter of interest is just an update on the things that you've done since the time that you interviewed and.

Visited with us. So for instance, writing a letter and saying dear Miss Brown, very excited to remain on the wait list throughout the you know, the until April 10th or even longer. Here are a list of my achievements and the things that I've done since I interviewed back in October. That's very helpful for an admission office as we start to look at our numbers and predict where we may need to go or make offers off the wait list. And the wait list is not ranked.

It is not numbered. It is, it is just a general long list and what we try to do is go through it to find out where we can find other talent that we may not have yielded on at the very beginning in March 10th. So I would say focus on April 1 as your area for continued your letter of continued interest and upload it directly to the portal. At that point our support staff will lean back from the admission inbox and we're going to just directly go to that portal even throughout the summer.

That's an invite again, a very important piece for us, for for you to manage on that end. The scholarship Aid office run by Miss Lauren Gold as well as Lucy Watt will do several sessions as if once admitted, and they also have a page on our website that will give you more context and information. A tip for those of you who are seeking scholarship aid.

If they e-mail you asking for information, please get back to them as soon as possible. It is so important to get Lauren and Lucy their information when they ask for it because they are constantly reviewing numbers and they too are are on an office of just two amazing women who are processing daily. So if you wait it takes much longer for them to pick for them to calculate those numbers all there. They do it very well.

But I highly encourage you to answer their calls immediately. Do not delay.

Students who are not admitted to Lawrenceville, we invite you to reapply for 2024. We will have a session for you at some point in the fall about re applicants, but we do see a handful of replicants every year. But at least this gives you from a little bit of information, again from about March 10th if you weren't admit if you are waitlisted or asked to reapply for 2024, as well as if some information on scholarship aid.

And just continue to check your inbox.

On April 10th, sorry, I went through on April 10th, we asked again to just use the portal to access everything. Your enrollment process begins there. All items are due on April, April 10th. So we will look for your contracts as well as a deposit, then we will then release other information that has to do with your schedule, etcetera. And then on boarding at Lawrenceville that will trickle in after April 10th, but let's do what we can.

At the very beginning, which is following up with any additional emails that you make, any emails that you may receive, but also using your portal to access all of that information. As I mentioned earlier, the wait list is not ranked, but we may even off make offers over the summer. We do have something called summer melt in the admission world and so you will see that sometimes we do call students over the summer. So it's important for you to continue to use the portal to update us even through the summer.

These next couple of slides are just reminders. Again, for those of you who may be just starting this process, these are the list of required items. We are a school that is going to require standardized testing and we are also a school that will accept letter of recommendation from other teachers if your math or English teacher is not available and we understand COVID with certain something that had everyone.

Delayed several of us, we are flexible in that as well. And as I mentioned earlier, the standardized tests are important. Alright, so now we're at the question and answer period. So thank you so much Charlotte who is asking about applying to grade 11, but very good question, Charlotte, here we go. Let's approve Charlotte's question. So now we can see it in the chat. Charlotte wants to know about her.

If you are, she's.

Originally applying for grade 11, but was recommended.

That she repeat 10th grade to have the fullest experience at Lawrenceville. Let's take this question and talk more specifically about what we call reclassification.

And reclassifying as a great 10 applicant for an 11th grade space is something that many students will do. And so our numbers may be a slightly limited in grade 11. And so we need to talk to families sometimes about reclassifying for 10. Here's the beauty about reclassification. It doesn't mean that you're doing every single course that you did at your previous school at Lawrenceville. We do give you an opportunity to take a placement test in math as well as in foreign language.

And so you will likely be on track for the the the courses that you probably would have taken in your your previous school. But it it doesn't mean that you are being held back in any way. So for if that is something that you are interested in getting more insight on, please contact your interviewer. But there is nothing wrong with any sort of reclassification in any way, OK?

And for those of you who are having trouble accessing your portal, please contact the you can change your password. I think it's resetting your password. My slide did not show the the box the login page, but there is an option for you to reset your portal. If you are still having trouble with that, I will be on dorm duty in the next probably what, 30 minutes? I got to run back to campus and do that. So if you want to send me an e-mail, I'll try to get.

That to you at some point, Julie.

Let's see.

There are some students for traditions on campus. I'll get that into to a moment. I when did we visit? Days happen. This is Andrew's question. So, Andrew, our revisit days are going to be towards the end of March and beginning of April. They're three days. We have one day designated for boarding students and two days designated for borders. We tried this year for to. We will ask that our borders come on on one of the either Fridays and one on Friday.

One on Saturday and one on Monday. So we gave you the weekend to travel. All of that information will be you available for those who are admitted.

All right.

Hello, all right.

This is a great question. So David is asking is there an opportunity for students who are admitted from the wait list?

To revisit typically what happens with the wait list offer we give you about 24 hours to say yes, that's it. We you know you'll get a box in the mail. You'll get all of the bells and whistles. But we we want to make sure that you get a chance to come and see the school. Certainly we'll give you a tour but it will it be the the similar to what this students may have received on a revisit day. We cannot promise all of that but we definitely will give you a tour and ensure that and but we do ask that you make a decision.

Within 24 hours.

All right, let's go to.

To do to do.

As far as whether you how do you obtain a username and password for your portal that was sent out directly. If you fill out an inquiry for us then you received an e-mail that said here's your portal information. Here's how you can reset your username and password. So I would go back to your spam folder triple and double check that and see what you may have received. If not then e-mail me within between now and 11:00 o'clock PM tonight. I'll do my very best to answer your e-mail that I know that.

In the title of that portal e-mail, the e-mail that we sent out has basically says here's how to access your portal. So you just got to read the emails and you will find all of that information.

You're right.

All right.

I've got some other general questions about traditions music programs. There's a lot here on that one, but let me just double check to make sure I receive. I can. I want to focus on the things that are most immediate for, especially for those students who have scheduled interviews. Yes, we need, we have. Our schedule has changed quite a bit because we are managing some things on campus, and so if you were asked to reschedule your tour, then we can.

We will.

Do our best to see if there is an opportunity for you to do something on the following week. I know several of you are coming from abroad as well as California. We are inviting you to do a walking tour, right? You could do a self-guided tour. If you want to come by on Saturday or Friday to do that then sure. But this Friday I know we had to cancel tours for some scheduling reasons and so I want to just be mindful that yes you.

Can do a self-guided tour. Pat McKinnon will greet you at the door and give you a map, but we need to focus them on some things here on campus but also start reading in our office. So I I want to acknowledge that for any of you who do have tours coming up, it is best to call us prior to your departure and to continuously check your e-mail. I'm going to have to squint and lean in because I didn't think these these little small and tiny. I can't see this.

Alright, I am leaving. Let's go to the next question here about.

Admission decisions, when will they be released? Typically after school. You know, we tried it after school. East Coast Time, can it be anywhere from?

4:00 to 5:00 PM but it will even later. But I don't want to give you a specific time because sometimes our we have to double check our system when we triple check all of the decisions before they go out the door. So I would say that you here's what will happen. You will receive an e-mail that says, hey, your admissions decision is ready. So refresh, take a look at things, you will get all of that information and just triple and double check your e-mail.

All right.

To accept submission of a graded analytical assay, Judah is asking a question about.

Do you accept submission of a graded analytical essay, Judith? If you want to upload it to the portal, feel free. Go right ahead. We'll take a look at it. Not a problem. That's what the portal is there for. All right? Now have we covered all the housekeeping things related to?

March 10th, April 10th and admission portal before I get into these other general questions about music.

Um.

All right. Let's focus on.

Alright.

All right, so let's go into some other general questions. And again, we have about another half hour. So bringing the questions on before I have to go log off for a dorm duty. And the next question that the student is asking is about US citizenship. If you're U.S. citizen temporary living temporarily living in Asia. I'm.

Your interview. You had to send it through vacant as requested. Are you considered an international student in the application process? That's a great question. So here's what we here's how we look at international students if you are currently enrolled.

In a school overseas, regardless of citizenship, we read you based on where you go to school. We call that a school group, and so it be varicam piece for us is primarily because we do. I prefer to view the video while reading the application, but it also gives my colleagues who are on my International Committee an opportunity to see you in action, answering some very thoughtful questions. And so there's no.

There's no penalty for varicam. This is not something that we're doing just for a set of certain countries, but it's just more to manage the workflow but also gives us a chance to focus in on that student. So I would worry less about citizenship around this, but understand that we read you by school group and not so much by citizenship, so I hope that was helpful.

There's another thoughtful question here from Ben. Ben is asking whether or not there's anything else that he needs to do. If you've, if you've submitted all the required materials and there's nothing else that I suggest you do at this point, if you've submitted all the materials, it's up to us now. It's my job to get our team together as well as Mr. Buckles to ensure that we're reading and calibrating. We just need to focus on that. And so Ben and and everyone else, we thank you so much for that thoughtful question and just know that you've done absolutely everything you could.

Including attending this information session.

I'm.

Let's see, Charlotte asked earlier about Ted through 11th grade. If you need to make changes to let's answer this question more on the side of if you need to make changes to your application. So, for instance, some families have said, you know what, instead of being a day student, we'd like to be a border, and instead of applying for 10, we want to apply for repeat 9. If you are going to make those changes, they need to come in no later than next Wednesday. Let's just say that for the sake of this discussion, we need to have all of that data and information.

And so we can start.

Moving through files and.

Keeping track of things. If you are going to make those changes, you need to notify Doreen Weinberg at the general Admission inbox. And then I would upload a statement or copy of the e-mail or PDF of that e-mail that you sent to the admission portal just so. That way we have that correspondence. All right, there's more questions. All right, here we go.

I'm gonna leave Chloe. Your question is more specific and on a more information session side about supporting students with music, art, etcetera. I'm going to hold off on that for a minute. I the student Robert, who is at the Bement school, you want to know whether or not the admission team has any connection with your.

High school placement folks, let me answer this question. In general for those who are at junior boarding schools or those who may be working with some consultants, things like that, we do our very best to again read everyone first before we speak to any anybody else any additional advocacy. We try to do that after we've made our decision. If there are other things that have been highlighted that need to be highlighted, we will reach out to the school.

But just trust and know that between those of you who are junior boarding schools who are working with consultants and even those who don't have consultants are sitting there like do I need a consultant? Please, no, you don't. I. And that we, we are going to give your application the same, you know, full consideration as everyone else. And so we will have conversations if we need to, but we do that typically after we make those decisions, OK.

Let's see if you'd like to upload a video. Olivia wants to know what a loop YouTube.

YouTube Link or should you upload it directly from your portfolio? Olivia the the the portal I think has the.

Instructions on on how to do that. It's either way, it's just a link. Just put it in the in the file, in the box and it'll zip up to us. It'll be amazing.

Alright.

Employee, let me go back to you.

How does so David wants to know again how does having a student currently or formerly at the school affect acceptance odds, not understanding that tumor tough David. So you're thinking what as if there are we looking at how many kids we took from a school last year and how we're if we're going to impact it this year. Every school group is different. That's the beauty of admission. Every single school group is different. All students bring a whole different set of talents, interests.

And each year our institutional needs change. And so we don't look at, OK, did we take 16 from here or five from there and put that into our calculus. We are truly just looking at each individual application and determining whether, where, where they would be the best fit part of me.

If you want to add additional letters of recommendation, is there a format in which you can share with the teacher to send it to the admissions team? I think this question is primarily asking if you want to have another teacher right for you.

What you can do is just have them put in the PDF format. You may have to send it directly to the admission inbox, but if you you can send it to the admission inbox, right, we, I would say no more, no more than three letters of recommendation. After you start lining all that up, we've got to, you know.

We've got to make sure we read and give everyone full consideration. So if you haven't a really great letter of recommendation that you want to add, then my suggestion is if you, if the teacher feels comfortable sending it to your parent and having that parent upload it, then sure. But some teachers won't do that. So I would say then yes, you'd have to use the general admission inbox for that.

OK.

Oh, let's see here.

Who we all get back to your question because it's super specific, about 10 and 11. Charlotte is asking if you were asked to submit a tax form, excuse me, to the platform.

So if you are contact if if you you know, here's the question about tax forms, scholarship aid, etcetera. Usually the S portal is where you're going to upload all that information. Lucy Watt is the assistant to Lauren Gold.

In the.

Scholarship aid office.

And you can e-mail lucy.wattandl.watt@lawrenceville.org. Her information is there. I just left lawrenceville.org out because it's too long to type, but if you can't see it on the USB port.

Profile. I mean on the platform. Then contact Lucy. She'll redirect you there.

Let's talk about coaches and contact and all that other good stuff. Several of you have probably reached out to some coaches and they were slow to return emails, which that's perfectly fine. Again, their teachers and advisors and people who do dorm duty, etcetera, but they will eventually be in contact if you are an athlete who is interested in playing at Lawrenceville. So I would just say kind of they need to be patient.

As those individuals get back to you.

I am.

Daniel, if you have already uploaded information to Gateway, you do not have to upload it to your portal. Again the beauty about Gateway and SA O whatever you have sent to them.

We will automatically get that information from them within, I would say 24 hours and so the next morning when Doreen and Pat come into you.

Go through the inbox of 1500 submissions. They are busy taking all of those dumps and all of that information. They call it dumping into files from Gateway. So there's a special magic that happens on the other end, whether it's through the inbox or through another special portal that they have. If you trust if you've uploaded to Gateway or SL, we have it. It's just going to take a moment for your checklist to catch up, all right?

Um, the format of the recommendation should be PDF.

Alright, I'm alright.

OK, school e-mail to the mission, but directly to the portal. OK, Ellie has a great question and this is something that several people call and ask our office all the time. If you've uploaded grades to Gateway but it was not uploaded to the Lawrenceville Portal, the school emailed them to the admission e-mail, but we can directly upload them to current grades to the portal. If you have those current grades, sure, use the portal and upload it. We it's just going to take us some time to just attach it to your record, so.

Actually transcripts along because they'll make them hold on. Let me double check myself because they did tell me where's my portal?

No, transcripts cannot be used on to be uploaded to the portal. Right here it says upload letters of recommendation, test scores, student updates, and multimedia links only. So if you've sent it, allow us to attach it ourselves. Don't resend it to the portal, Ellie, or anyone else who was looking to try to help us out, I appreciate you listening carefully. And if that wasn't clear, transcript should not be uploaded through the portal. It can be sent directly to the e-mail or if you've sent it through.

Gateway allow us to just get all of that information over to Gateway and again your checklist will likely be up ready by January 30th. Please understand this. You know the beauty about reading and having a two 2500 applications. I'm not going to read all 2500 tonight or by the end of this week. Again, this is going to be a long process so don't panic if do not panic if you don't see your checklist. You know things checked off on your list right away, right?

Ohh OK.

We go, sorry.

One moment.

All right.

Sports in a high level would be recommend submitting all his like few say O.

Alright, OK. So Charlotte, your question lots of things here. What I'll say here is if you.

You should only be using one application. Please do not do Sao and Gateway. That will confuse our office. So if you choose one and stick with it and I think that's what you're already doing. I'm if you're doing a lot of different things and I've run out of room.

On your essay or gateway portal based on what they've already formatted. Then just do an additional sheet of resume and upload it to your portal. That's perfectly fine if you have another extra personal recommendation.

That's on sale, but they are able to PDF it to you. Then just use the portal to upload that information.

If you are, oh, this is a great question from Robert regarding winter grades. Some of you have not, your grades have not come out yet and so those will likely have to go through the admission inbox or you can go back to Gateway and upload those grades, right. That would be fabulous.

And then we've got another question about what kind of updates?

What kind of student updates could we provide to the portal? So for instance, you if there if you want a major award or if there is a tragedy in your family, or if there's something that you want to highlight that you know you did not get a chance to discuss in your interview. Those are the things that you might want to upload to the portal, but we're just looking for other things that you did not cover door through the application.

For those of you who are kind of between standardized testing, again we only need one if it's just SAT, IC, SAT ACT, those of you who are in schools where you've international schools, and I know the TOEFL is required, we're waiving the TOEFL for several students, particularly if you've been in an English speaking school for more than four years. So that's a it's not something you need to really focus on at this point, all right?

Um.

Let's see students who apply to 11th grade based on space available for students who live. Chloe wants to know if our students who apply to grade 11 based on space available, students who leave during the lower grade years, and how does the admissions from midyear work? OK, great questions. So here's the deal.

Our biggest graduate, our the the biggest entry point for us typically is grade 9 because everyone moves out, right. We've got seniors who graduate may and I've got to shift everyone up and so we've got a 9th grade to fill. Then 1011 and 12. There are some students who will remain, many students will remain for 10, very few leave and 11 right that's the college process year year to begin the college process students are are connected with their friends and so yes there are some.

Some, some there's numbers are not as large as they are in 9. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't apply. But just know that think about it in terms of progression between grades nine and 10 and who we graduate. I will put my e-mail in at the end of this for sure. Is it here? Nope. But I will put in the chat. Not a problem. I'm postgraduate students. We we, we keep a very healthy number of those, Vaughn. And so I would say you should feel comfortable.

Going through the process, I mean going through the application and applying. All right. There is no cutoff for the SAT. Charlotte we are looking at score a wide range of scores. We also look at state standardized tests. Those of you in who are maybe unable to do an essay, an SAT or an IC exam, we will take a state standardized test. I've seen them from Florida, Idaho, New York State Regents exams. I'll even take the.

HPT is at the New York City High School placement test for the specialized high schools. We'll take a look at that as well, so just know that we are happy to take any form of standardized testing.

I'm gonna drop my e-mail in the.

Catdebrown@lawrenceville.org again just leaving that at thelawrenceville.org off because you all know the rest. I'm.

If you're Sofia, if the personal recommendations did not show up on the you have submitted some optional item on Sao, for example, your personal recommendation, do you take them? They didn't show up on the checklist in the Lawrenceville portal. We don't take the additional letter of recommendation. However, if you feel compelled and you want to see if that person will give you access to it and you can upload it through the portal, then we'll be happy to take that too.

All right.

All right. So hopefully that cleared everything up. We were at 7:43 and I still have about 15 ish more minutes to go. These were amazing questions I'm going to go back up to and we'll continue to take questions until 7:50 or so the.

Students, Chloe wants to know a little bit more about music and some of the options that you have within the school curriculum. You know, there is a set schedule and our academic schedule set.

Does have they do have two evenings that where ensembles and orchestra do meet as well as you can meet during your free period. So there's plenty of time for you to do the music that you wish to do.

All right.

Instrumental activities in school curriculum. Again, Chloe, we are just, you know, the great thing about coming to a boarding school is everything is built in, right? You are walking to the Clark science, the Clark Music Center, and to do to take your lessons and there'll be time within the schedule for you to practice and rehearse, right. Your teachers will be at lunch and they'll tell you what time rehearsal is. So it's not something that you have to juggle. Once you get here, it'll be laid out.

For you. So you are able to do exactly what it is that you need to do, not sure exactly William, about how many sophomores we plan to take. That varies typically every year. So those target numbers are based on how many freshmen are going to reenroll. A lot of that depends and that moves every year. So I can't say we're going to absolutely take you know 502535. That's what Mark Dean of enrollment will work his magic and behind the scenes.

To ensure that we target the right amount of students, all right, the wait list. It will be significantly large, right? We do like to keep a healthy weight list and so if you are made a wait list, offer, offer, please accept it because again, wait list, we will look at that throughout this summer, again highlighting the things that we want you to do at during April 10th. If you are on the wait list, know that it is not ranked.

It is not ranked and it offers will be made throughout the summer. Your continued letter of interest that I mentioned down here is due by April 1st. It's important for us to hear about some of the things that you've done since then and you have to accept. We give you an offer to accept the wait list that's also in your portal. So when you get your decision, if you're waitlisted, it'll say, do you want to remain on the wait list? Boom. You checked? Yes, that's it and you're all done. You don't have to send a separate e-mail to the admission inbox. You don't have to tell me.

Because I am going to focus just directly on the portal or your interviewer, you can just give all of those updates through the admission portal.

OK.

All right. I will say that if you have any more detailed questions, once again, I'm going to duty at 8:15 and I'll be up for another three hours. So you can send me an e-mail. I'll do my best. I may even call you because I'm wired now. So this is exciting. Emma wants to know, can a student board? Oh, yell Emma. This is a great question. Everybody looking at this question, can a student board the first year and switch today school.

The next year? Ohh my goodness Emma, you get the $1,000,000 check mark. So here's the deal.

Some of you like to sit around and think that it's better to you know, maybe we'll start as a day student and then maybe board or board and switch today. That gets a little tricky here and there, right, because we've got to come in on numbers and beds and all that other stuff. Is it easier to go from boarding today? Sure. But that's also a set of you know when Roland management that our Dean of enrollment Mr. Greg Buckles has to figure out. So emo and and others who are thinking about.

That you need to have a strong, a long and strong conversation with your family about what you want to do. I would highly suggest that you work that out prior to applying, but no, that it is. It will be somewhat frowned upon with these switches as we try to get through on making our numbers unless there's a real serious circumstance. Is it easier to go from boarding today? Yes, because I don't have to deal with the bed. But if it's a your data boarding situation, unless there's a.

There's circumstance then sometimes those things are reviewed at well after.

March 10th or when you're admitted, that's that is one thing that we will will deal with that when it's much later, OK.

Judah with the ohh look at this Judah cute cute like this Judas asking about can do you also recommend sending a love letter or a first choice letter. Judah I like that I never heard about it was a love letter or but I've seen first choice letters you know I that is a trend that is that's taken off over the last couple of years. You know this is my first choice that does help quite a bit if you are on the wait list and so that continued letter of interest is is that's the can go in your continued.

Of interest. But if you want to upload that into the portal that helps too because as we are taking notes and going through committee files, we'll we may look for evidence of that. But I won't say that that sways the committee 100%, but if you feel compelled and passionate around it, then for sure go ahead and do it.

Umm.

Ohh, repeat sophomores versus regular sophomore. Charlotte's asking some really good questions. Charlotte you got a lot of questions sister, so I'm gonna answer some of that stuff offline too. I'm is there a special consideration for do regular sophomores have a higher priority as opposed to repeat sophomores? Not necessarily. I mean we at this point we are truly reading at your application for are you meeting the institutional priorities and what are fulfilling a need in some other area.

That is what we're focused on when it comes to repeat 10, real 10, repeat 10 or a true 10, that doesn't necessarily flow fall into the conversation as much, OK.

Um, other questions here, Julie. I already put my e-mail in there, GE Brown.

At.

But where am I? Lawrenceville.org?

All right. You so student interviewed during Ohh Sophia, you wanna know, do you consider the student interviewed in January for day students? Are you asking Sophia if we will interview day students in January if you filled out the application? If we have spaces available? Yes. Oh, here's another great one. I had a couple kids who were not able to.

I log on for their interview the other night. They may have had some Internet access trouble, or they weren't able to. They couldn't find another appointment and so now they're getting really nervous. What I asked my candidate to do was to just send me a summary of the of why Lawrenceville and you may want to upload that to your your portal. This is if you miss your interview. Let me, let me be very clear if you miss your interview for whatever reason, and you are marked as what we call a no show.

And there are no more appointments available. We will accept some sort of narrative to just how it lights, you know, here are the things I want the admissions committee to know about me. That's if you miss your interview. I will say this as we are getting into February and going into late January. Please check your e-mail and be on time for your interview. It is now. We have, we have gone through a very long fall and a very soon to be long winter.

Log in, be on time, be effervescent, be engaging. We have three or four people who are doing late interviews for us as my team goes into committee sessions. But it is so important to be on time for your interview check, make sure that your link works. Here's the other thing, many families press the link and they say, oh, it doesn't work. It will activate the at the time when your interview scheduled and you will also get several.

Confirmations prior to that, alright.

Um, OK, I like these. Now I can freestyle and go into what's my favorite thing about Lawrenceville and has what has been the best experience you had in the Lawrenceville community both from Ella and Andrew. If I say lunch, does that help sometimes that is. I do love my lunch buddies who are my lacrosse coaches, Tucker and John. So shout out to them for being my forever lunch buddies. They always know how to make the day go by faster and and bring a lot of light to it. So I would say.

Really, it's catching up with students and faculty members, and so I enjoy being you.

I'm social, so I like that. That's the one of my favorite things about Lawrenceville. But I will say during the holidays, I absolutely love the Chapel and Christmas Vespers or lessons and crap. Sorry lessons and carols or Christmas Vespers, they call it here. That's also one of the fun things. And of course my how. I don't say it's least favorite, but it's the one that really makes me sad is graduation. I don't know why, but I always get a little beefier graduation. It's hard for me. After the seniors leave. There's a there's a little emptiness there, and you.

Realize that ohh, my gosh, they're actually really gone. Especially when you're in admissions, because you remember seeing them on in the bowl and they move up through the circle and then they finally walk out of your life and you're like, Oh my gosh, I remember that kid in 7th grade when I recruited him here and there. You get all emotional, so sometimes I get a little weepy and intense, but you all didn't need to know all that. At any rate, let's see.

Sophia excellently questioned is beyond online interview at this point only for the student and not the parent. We are at the point where we just want to hear from the student, right? It's late January, it's out have been great. If it were September, October, November. But if you were a parent that has questions, my guess would be that you jump on 1st and say hey, I just would like to answer ask a couple questions because there's a 30 minute interview and that interviewer is zoned in on the student. If parents have additional questions then.

We will try to get to them at the end, but know that we are focused on the student altogether for the interview. So that's another wonderful question I am.

Let's see.

Let's see your math teacher got it. So this is another good one. Here I'm throwing this in the chat.

Let me see if in part of my gaze I'm just trying to see. Math teacher got the initial recommendation link weeks ago and has been sent a couple of reminders, but hasn't sent in my recommendation yet.

She's probably overwhelmed.

You there is no penalty. I should tell you all this. There is absolutely no penalty. Why? Because we've got over 3000 applications to read between now and March 10th. So there, do not worry, do not stress, we are not marking down.

Excuse me when students have that information. We know teachers are busy. Part of me. We're not going to penalize you for anything, so do not worry about that.

All right. What would you recommend? Sending an update of achievement of achievements or achievements or a letter if a student takes an interview in August? That's a really great question. Absolutely. This is why your portal is your friend. Remember, bookmark this, bookmark this, bookmark it. Your portal is your friend, and it is absolutely the thing that you should do to just say, hey, I just want to let the admissions committee know the following. Here's what I've done since March since my interview. This is why you have your portal. So if you are a.

Student who interviewed back in.

You know, October or June or August, fabulous. If you've got things you need to tell us, wonderful. Put it in the portal, PDF it, and it'll zip right up to us. Can't wait to read it.

All right, it's 55. We are getting to that point. I am. I see several folks from Texas, Jersey.

Lot of jersey tonight.

Georgia. California.

And those of you who are watching this by recording, I hope we were able to answer several of your questions. I will stay on for a few more minutes. But other than that, we can sign, we can sign off part of me that's a little bit drying here, but I think we covered just about anything. OK, great. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful evening. And again, we appreciate you applying to Lawrenceville.

Thank you.

Welcome.

I came back for some outtakes. Is anybody still here?

Let me see.

Anybody still here?

It's like outtakes in the movie and that Marvel movie when people come back and you're like, Oh my gosh, where'd she go?

Umm.

No, I think we're all set to. There's 22 people that's still hanging out in here.

All right.

Sky, Rohan, Andrew, William, Jack. Tristan, Vaughn. Lillian. I gotta go to dorm duty. Have a great evening. Thank you all so much. Take care. Goodnight.