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t is the height of admission season at St. Paul’s and
the Sheldon rotunda is packed with hopeful pro-
spective students and their parents. The nervous
whispered murmurs of clustered families rise and
vanish into the rounded high ceilings. Each student has
come to Concord – from near or far – seeking a coveted
spot for the next enrollment cycle. Some – but not all
– are acutely aware that, for a variety of reasons, it is a
goal that has become less attainable each year.
“I deliver a lot of really bad news,” says Director of
Admission Scott Bohan ’94. “At least 85 percent of the
people I meet get bad news. Most of them will never
be here again.”
St. Paul’s has witnessed a steady change in acceptance
rates over the last several years, including an all-time
low of 12 percent in 2013-14. The highest rate of admis-
sion to SPS since 2009-10 was 17 percent in 2011-12.
St. Paul’s is not alone in these historic admission rates,
following a trend of its most competitive peer schools.
Phillips Andover Dean of Admission Jim Ventre reports
an average overall admit rate of 14 percent for the
Massachusetts-based independent school over the last
five years (3,100 applicants for 420 spots). Deerfield’s
acceptance rate in 2014 stood at 15 percent, according
to Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Pam Safford.
Jane Reynolds, the dean at Hotchkiss, says her school
admitted 20 percent of last year’s hopefuls. Choate’s
student newspaper reported a 2014 acceptance rate of 21
percent in a pool of nearly 2,000 applicants. Other com-
parable boarding schools with acceptance rates below
25 percent, according to Boarding School Review, include
Governor’s Academy, Lawrenceville School, Milton
Academy, Peddie School, Taft School, and Phillips Exeter
Academy.
In spite of these daunting numbers, applicants appear
undaunted. Like its peer schools, St. Paul’s has seen a
steady rise in applicants over the last several years, peak-
ing at 1,600 in 2014. Bohan says the applicant pool has
nearly doubled in his 15 years at St. Paul’s, a statistic he
attributes to many factors, including hyper-connectivity
that allows access to more international and domestic
applicants, a boost in the financial aid budget that opens
the door to independent school to more families from
diverse economic backgrounds, and a fundamental change
in the way many parents view the world.
“The raising of children has changed in the sense that
everyone we talk to has gone to some sort of specialized
summer camp or an enrichment program at MIT,” Bohan
says. “Parents are trained to look for opportunities for
their children and I don’t think it’s necessarily as scary
to send your child to New Hampshire these days. They
are only a text or a Facetime call away.”
St. Paul’s has worked hard to establish itself in the
international markets in recent years, particularly in
Hong Kong, South Korea, and the exploding pool from
China. This is coupled with more attention to non-
traditional domestic markets. Following the model
of a well-established program that brings applicants
from Montana to St. Paul’s, the generosity of alumni
has led to the recent launching of regional scholar-
ships for qualified applicants from Alabama, South
Carolina, Northern New Jersey, Texas, Pennsyl-
vania, California, Wyoming, and the Paso
del Norte region of Texas, New Mexico,
and Mexico.
“As a result of all this, we are finding
really talented kids from all over the
place,” says Bohan. “This is great,
but we are a medium-sized school.
There are only so many spots, only
so many seats in Chapel. When
you have 1,600 applicants, you
can fill 150 spots pretty quickly.”
As an example of the increase
in domestic applicants, eight
minority students from a
Southern California-based
program are currently enrolled
at St. Paul’s. Maria Colmenares,
who runs the “A Better Chance”
program, is pleased with the num-
ber of students she places annually
at St. Paul’s and other competitive
independent schools, but she has
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