How to Create an Organization System for Private School Applications
As the New Year gets closer, now is the time to make sure you’re on track with private school applications! Yes!! You can head into the holiday season feeling chaos-free, imagine that! In this article you’ll find everything you need to make sure you and your student are on top of their school applications and can enter their second half of the school year focused on their academics.
Keep in mind, it might seem like a lot to do before their private school applications are all buttoned up but it’ll all get done! What’s most important is that you prioritize. And what better way to do this than creating a system for tracking your deliverables and goals?!
Create Your Filing System
The best place to start is by creating your filing system. We’ve seen it all. Some parents use Google folders and create Google sheets or Excel spreadsheets. Other families have an old fashioned paper file folder for each school on their master list. Some even have a paper folder for each type of task! And others have a portable hanging file folder box. When my daughter was applying to independent schools, I used a binder system, and each school had a tab within the binder and the first page(s) were my masterlist.
What’s Your Masterlist?
Your masterlist should include different lists and space for you to keep track of everything that has to happen before an application is submitted. Once you’ve got your masterlist “housed” in your filing system, think about the different sections or “buckets” of your masterlist.
The First Section of Your List - The Schools
Start by writing down all of the schools your student plans on applying to this school year. At this point there are probably some front runners that everyone is excited about. Make sure you’re picky with the schools on this list! They should only be ones that your student can really see themself living and studying at.
Now, Prioritize Your List
Now that you’ve got a big brain dump of all the schools your student is considering, it’s time to sort through them and write down the details of what needs to be accomplished. For example, under the name of each school, you should write down to-dos under these three categories:
Things to Do Now
The items under this first list are tasks that are time sensitive. Other tasks on your lists are typically dependent on these tasks being accomplished. Here are some things you might consider adding to this list:
Asking for teacher recommendations
Applying for or researching financial aid
Submitting graded writing papers with teacher comments and graded math tests if your student is applying test optional.
Things to Schedule
The next list to break down your to-dos under is a list for later. We like to encourage families to schedule time to complete these items in order to avoid procrastination. These are items that aren’t necessarily time sensitive, but can become hard to tackle under a tight deadline.
Here are some items to add to this list:
Set up your Standard Application Online (SAO) account and portal
Schedule any remaining interviews or in-person campus visits
Block off time on your calendar to work on applications
Send off a couple quick thank you notes or emails to people you’ve met with
Call your student’s school and find out their policy for releasing official transcripts
Schedule a call with the Director of Financial Aid at the schools you’re applying to
Request your student’s ISEE or SSAT scores be sent to the schools you’re applying to
Things to Delegate
Helping your student apply to private school is a family effort. Don’t leave all of these tasks up to one parent or family member. Sometimes it can be helpful to go over the lists together and divide and conquer. During this application process, especially during a busy time of year, remember that it’s okay to accept help and leverage others’ skills!
Here are some examples of how you can incorporate delegating into your application process
One parent fills out the application forms while the other drafts parent essays
Leverage nannies or older siblings to sit with a student to help write thank you notes
Ask someone else to call and schedule interviews and campus visits
Have your student ride their bike to the post office to mail their thank you notes
Enlist a relative to help your student create a virtual portfolio of their artwork
Ask a favorite tech-savvy friend to help create an athletic highlights video to submit
Things to Cross Off
We have to admit this list is always a parent's favorite! This list includes the items that at the beginning of your brain dump you thought were really important, or were going to be essential later on. Now, that you have worked through some of your to-dos, you realize some of these items are no longer necessary. Here are some examples of the things parents we’ve worked with have been able to let go of:
By speaking with their child’s school guidance counselor, one parent realized they could do everything electronically rather than needing to go in-person.
Another parent discovered upon reviewing all of their application questions, that they had fewer essays to write, as many questions overlapped across the schools.
A mom realized when she sat down to schedule campus visits/interviews, she was able to schedule many of them online at night, saving her daytime hours for her professional job.
Now that you have a masterlist of to-dos, you’re set to ring in the new year! This framework is here to help you stay accountable and prioritize what’s most important. If you don’t know where to start, begin with a task that will “lighten your load!” From there, you’ll gain some momentum to keep going.
If you need advice on how to manage and apply to private school successfully, we’re here to help!