Latin’s Enrollment Management office announced in an email sent out to Latin families last month that students with siblings currently attending, or parents working at, Latin would have the opportunity to hear back about their acceptance to the school before the majority of applicants.
While the application deadline for both affiliated students and all other applicants will remain November 26, students applying through early admission will find out whether they were accepted by January 24 instead of February 28, the date for at-large families. According to Enrollment Management, applications themselves will be reviewed in two batches: one for those who utilize early admissions, and the other for the families that will learn of their acceptance by February 28, including affiliated families who opt out of early admission.
Latin’s early admissions system is not to be confused with comparable early decision programs at universities. Rather than placing limitations on what other schools applicants can consider or making acceptances final, Latin’s program allows applicants to consider their offer until contracts become binding for all on April 15, for a nominal fee.
Before this admissions season, early admission was limited to Latin’s younger applicants.
Director of Enrollment Management Eleannor Maajid said, “We didn’t call it an early decision policy, but [the program was] for our [Junior Kindergarten (JK)] affiliated students. So JK affiliated students would find out a couple months before the at-large students, and that has always been the practice—as long as I’ve known—at Latin, and so we are just now bringing SK through 11th grade into the fold.”
One reason the Enrollment Management office expanded the early notification was Latin’s commitment to existing families. Aiming to retain families already linked to the Latin community, Enrollment Management will provide students the opportunity to hear about potential acceptance a month earlier than other applicants.
“This year specifically, we have been really concentrating on our recruitment, and specifically our retention efforts,” Ms. Maajid said. “And this is another way to help with retention of our current families and of our faculty and staff, to know that they would be able to have this decision earlier.”
While the timeline will look different for those choosing to apply through early admissions, the components of their applications will remain the same as those required by at-large families. Both early and regular applicants will need to submit an initial application, three letters of recommendation (from a math teacher, English teacher, and a principal or counselor), grade reports, and a copy of a recent standardized test, in addition to completing an interview with Enrollment Management.
While viewing an applicant as a child or sibling may downplay their individual qualities, there may be benefits in considering previous knowledge about an applicant’s family. Prior information regarding such applicants can give Latin a better sense of the support that they can provide during a student’s time in high school. Senior Darien Ramirez, whose younger brother will apply to Latin’s Upper School this year, said, “Latin already has an understanding of the current student that they have, and so, in the end, they could kind of base off what they know about the family’s financial status and everything the family goes through for that other kid as well, so they could offer the same opportunities.”
An early admission may appeal to affiliated families for other reasons, including those interested in keeping multiple children at the same school rather than commuting to several locations. The new program may also allow for a more straightforward timeline for families who are already acquainted with the Latin community.
“You already know the teachers; you know the community, the environment,” sophomore Lia Cooper-Ortega said. Like Darien, her eighth-grade brother is a Latin applicant this admissions season. She said, “If I was a parent of a lot of kids, I would think it would be very hard to—like every two years—start that whole process over again, and not even know what’s going to happen, what kind of school you’re going to get into.”
Myra McGovern, Vice President of the National Association of Independent Schools, spoke to the benefits of early admissions from a broader perspective. “Families can reduce some of the anxiety that comes with a standard admissions process; they can better plan for the year ahead,” she said. “Multiple kids in the same school can lead to better engagement at school events too since families aren’t trying to attend several schools’ events at once.”
Not only can familiarity improve engagement in the community, but it can also foster a supportive environment for siblings. Lia said, “We could know the same people, and it’s my little brother, so if anything were to happen—if he were having trouble with friends or anything—I know that I could be there and know how to help him.”
Such advantages are not present for applicants without familial connections to Latin. Due to the focus on maintaining existing relationships with Latin families, some members of the community imagine that students without connections may be subject to more scrutiny than their affiliated counterparts.
“I’m thinking from a theoretical perspective here, where a student like myself—who might be an only child—might be expected to have higher grades or a higher entrance exam score than a student who has a connection,” junior Charlie Wolin said. “I think that it’s totally fine to accept kids who have those connections, as long as they’re not such outliers when it comes to academics.”
By analyzing trends in yield for early applicants and word of mouth from families, Latin plans to assess the success of its early admissions program after more data is collected. Associate Director of Enrollment Management Rachel Jacobson further affirmed that even when reviewing the applications of affiliated students, Latin’s admissions team will still need to consider the academic standards it has set for the community at large.
“We value our families, and so we’ve always given preference in a certain way,” Ms. Jacobson said. “Of course, we look at every student applicant individually. It’s important to us that we think students will be successful at Latin when we evaluate every student. Our early decision release is another way that we’re taking into consideration trends, as well as considering retention, to also continue to value those families.”
