CAEDMON’S PLACEMENT PROCESS

“This school looks like it would be a great fit for my child, but it ends in fifth grade and I don’t think we can handle doing another round of applications!” That’s the kind of thought that keeps some parents from enrolling their children at Caedmon. But is the middle school application process really as stressful as it seems? Viewing that question from another angle, does applying to middle school have any positives for the children who are involved in the process? And are there benefits to attending a school with an exclusively pre-K and elementary student body?

Caedmon emphasizes to applicant parents that it is a school centered on young children—the absence of students in middle and high school ensures that the environment is tailored to younger students, allowing them to be themselves, without the influence of older peers. The children are given a space in which to thrive, where they can discover their passions, and the school’s progressive atmosphere develops their independence and

The process of applying starts with meeting about where you see your child potentially going and where you think they might fit and the school also contributes with where they think your child might fit. It’s comforting to know that I know my child, the school knows my child, and the school knows other schools where my child might go.

— Meredith Woodruff (Caedmon teacher and alum parent)

their love of learning. As explained by Head of School Mathew Stuart, Caedmon is about “[g]etting kids to love school. This school is a place only devoted to setting up that foundation in a child. Any worry or any influence from adolescents, from middle school, high school, we don’t have.” By the time Caedmon children reach fifth grade, it becomes possible to make a decision about which middle school they will attend which is deeply informed by knowledge of who they are as learners, and they get to play a large role in the choice of their next school.

In addition, parents have no guarantees that they won’t have to deal with applications again until college if they do place their child in a K-12 school. Sometimes it gradually becomes clear that a school is not the right fit, and sometimes children decide that they want to attend a different school once they reach their middle school or high school years. If that happens, however, it isn’t always the case that parents will receive support with the transfer process from their child’s current school. Caedmon alum parent Helen Cantwell comments about this, “If you do transfer out, would you rather go through this process with a lot of support and positivity or do it without support? [At Caedmon, the process] is planned, supportive, and full of positivity.” The transfer process begins as early as third grade, when it gets brought up in conversation as children prepare to take the ERB CTP-5 test, their first standardized test at Caedmon. The process begins in earnest in April of fourth grade, when parents are invited to hear from a panel of admissions directors from middle schools. Mr. Stuart and assistant head Mrs. Mehdi also meet at this time one-on-one with parents to discuss their child and the schools they have it in mind for them to attend. The parents are

Matthew was great. He was amazing. We sat with him several times just to get a sense of where the kids would thrive. He had a really good sense of who they were and just gave us some good suggestions. Some very good communications—some very good emails starting in fourth grade, maybe even third grade. They were appropriately timed, asking us to put together a brag sheet, to ask, who is your kid? The UL teachers and Matthew did a great job preparing them for interviews.

— Gretchen Kocica (alum parent)

encouraged to conduct some research over the summer, and then they reconvene with Mr. Stuart in September for a follow-up talk. Throughout the fall, fifth graders prepare for the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE), a standardized test used in admissions to independent schools, studying for the exam during school hours and also having the option of taking Caedmon’s ISEE prep class in the school’s after school program. During the school day, moreover, they take a transfer process class every other week with Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Medhi, learning about interview dos-and-don’ts and various other points connected with school visits and applications. And each student gets to do at least one mock interview in school, meeting with certain teachers or administrators for that purpose.

Throughout October, November, and December, as students make visits to schools and they and their parents complete applications, Mr. Stuart is available to discuss any concerns that may arise. In December, parents share their finalized list of schools with Mr. Stuart, Mrs. Mehdi, and Ms. Bonet, and Ms. Bonet then assembles a recommendation packet for each student that is sent out to the schools on the student’s list. The packet, which is very comprehensive, includes report cards from June of third and fourth grade, a graded writing sample chosen by the student and the fifth grade homeroom teachers, CTP-5 test scores from fourth grade, and recommendation forms completed by Mr. Stuart, the student’s fifth grade

I think it’s good because then you get to explore other schools and it’s the student’s choice to choose the school they want to [attend]. In the future when you have to get a job like an office job, you’ll have to apply for it and you’ll have to have interviews, so this is very good to help you throughout life!

— Kyle Yuen (Upper Level student)

homeroom teacher, and, if requested by a particular school, a specialist teacher as well. During the month of January, Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Mehdi are on the phone with admissions officers, advocating for the students; and when admissions letters arrive in early February, fifth graders can often make additional visits to the schools from which they’ve received acceptances if they need more information to reach a decision. For independent schools, parents and students must make a decision by the first Tuesday in March. Caedmon also provides guidance to parents applying their children to New York City public schools, which have a longer process extending into April: if a child attends Caedmon, the neighborhood public schools in district 2 (Caedmon’s district) are available for them to attend, even if they don’t live in the area.

Describing her experience with all of this last year, Lower Level teacher and recent alum parent Meredith Woodruff says that “it was seamless, it was well-organized. The timing was spot-on, the check-ins were helpful and gave good guidance. There was a logical progression. There was support and feedback.” And Helen Cantwell, whose twins Lila and Caroline now respectively attend Trinity and Brearley, remarks that the transfer process “was a very positive experience—well-organized, substantive for the kids. We appreciated how honest it was—there were realistic expectations for kids. [The process] taught kids how to interview, how to think about big, hard questions.” William Dabbs, Class of ’22 and now at Horace Mann, agrees, noting that “the transfer process class was really helpful. They gave me examples of what interviews would be like.” He also says that the decision to attend his current school was his own, and he reflects, interestingly, that what may have been the most difficult part of it all was how long he had to wait between receiving his acceptance letters and notifying his classmates of his choice: “It was longer than expected…It’s like not sharing grades for a really big assessment!”

The independence and responsibility William enjoyed in this process seem typical for Caedmon students. Helen Cantwell stresses that it was her daughters who made the decision to attend different schools, and that this choice “emerged out of being a Caedmon student. Being at Caedmon allowed us to see what kind of students [Lila and Caroline] were. They could have gone to the same school but they chose not to.” Similarly, Gretchen Kocica, mother of Karolina (’16) and Veronika (’22), says that her daughters, who both attend Trevor, picked the school themselves, and she remarks that children applying to middle school “have to have input. They need to own it and feel 100% about it.” She also believes that the independence and decision-making fostered by the transfer process helped to prepare Karolina for college applications, with which she has been busy this year as a high school senior; about this process she says, “I’m much less involved—they know what to do! This is her [Karolina’s] decision.” And of Veronika, now in sixth grade, Mrs. Kocica observes that “Caedmon taught her to be confident, to be a self-advocate, and she’s been doing amazing.”

What about Caedmon students currently going through the transfer process? Sitting down to talk about it towards the end of the fall term, two of them, Andrew Dele-Michael and Kyle Yuen, had much to say that chimes with the observations made by alum parents and recent alumni like William Dabbs. “It’s been going well,” Andrew says of the experience. “It has a lot of steps to it—essay writing, tours, interviews, and the [ISEE] test. The interviewing process I’ve come to like—you meet a brand new person, and even if it’s just for 20 minutes, they get to know a lot about you and you get to know a lot about the school.” For his part, Kyle notes that the transfer process “can be stressful— it’s also really fun at the same time, looking at all these schools that you wouldn’t have heard about if this process didn’t exist. Touring the schools—especially during school hours—you get to see the real inside of the school as opposed to what people say!” Both students share the view that the transfer process is not an add-on to their learning but an educational experience in its own right, one through which they have acquired new skills and been introduced to new concepts. “You get to learn about time management,” Kyle observes, adding that “on verbal reasoning [on the ISEE] you have very little time.” And Andrew explains, “All this test prep—in the last three months I’ve learned so many things, like algebra. My reading comp has gotten so much better, and I’ve definitely gotten better on my essay writing, especially timed essay writing!”