For several days in mid-March, the Lick-Wilmerding Admissions office goes silent. Doors close. Blinds go down. The office space, usually a bustling hub of student’s lunchtime chatter with a stellar snack supply, becomes mysterious, solemn, focused. This is crunch-time, when the Admissions staff crafts LWHS’s next class. “We have a tough job each year,” Cristal Ogletree, LWHS Head of Admissions, said. “Tough” is a mild word to describe the momentous responsibility of crafting a community and deciding who will define LWHS for years to come.
For the last five years, LWHS has received between 850 and 950 applicants, for about 138 spots. How do they choose? There’s a lot of factors to consider when creating a community.
“We strive for a diverse community — defining diversity through the lens of gender, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic circumstances, and geography, as well as life experiences, interests, and values,” Ogletree said.
Despite a myriad of factors, the main way Ogletree and the admissions team identify students who will thrive at LWHS is by looking for “students who are active and dedicated learners, intellectually curious,” Ogletree said. Current LWHS students “have a well-deserved reputation for being very friendly, altruistic, compassionate, and willing to try new things,” Ogletree noted. She hopes to admit students who will contribute to the school culture with kindness and curiosity.
To successfully fulfill the great responsibility of crafting Lick’s student body requires far more “hands on deck” than solely the admissions staff, Ogletree explained. Current students, parents, faculty and staff are all essential contributors to the admissions process. Students host shadow visits during the fall, and also volunteer at admission events alongside parents and guardians. She stressed how essential the Facilities team is to the success of admissions events. Ogletree said, “they keep our campus looking amazing with events just about every weekend throughout the school year.”
Lick faculty have a unique role in the process. “Faculty members host shadows in their classes throughout fall semester, present at all of our Open Houses, interview hundreds of applicants, and evaluate application files as well,” Ogletree said. All faculty members are required to either interview students or read application files.
Ernie Chen, an LWHS math teacher who reads application files, appreciates that the “school feels it’s important that the faculty get a say” in the admissions process. Chen said that his role as a teacher gives him a unique insight when evaluating whether or not a student would thrive at Lick. For example, Chen said that as a math teacher, he might read a student’s math teacher’s recommendation and can easily see whether or not that student would fit into the Lick math program. “I understand what they [the teachers] are trying to say,” Chen said.
Chen said that he reads admissions files “very much on feel.” He mentioned that the Admissions office reads applications on a very holistic level and that he reads to “see whether that kid will survive academically here,” he said.
One group of LWHS students plays an especially hands-on role in the admissions process; LWHS Admissions Interns, or LWAIs, are a huge force in manning open houses, interview days, and orientation events for the new class. They also run the “LWHS Life” Instagram account and have created a website for newly admitted students. The responsibility of the interns, first-year LWAI Caroline Kreutzen ‘21, said, is to be an “honest representation of Lick.” Kreutzen said that LWAIs “reassure [prospective students] that [the admissions process] isn’t as scary as they think it is and answer their questions and come at them with a place at knowledge.”
Both students and faculty have changed their perspectives on high-school admissions since working with the Admissions office. Kreutzen, has learned that the review process is much more holistic and individualized than she had previously thought. “When I was an 8th grader I thought that a lot of it [admissions] was about statistics…Like I was a white, independent school girl who played soccer and volunteered and I thought the statistics of that mattered more than who I really was.” Now, however, she sees an application as “the start of your relationship with the school.” In getting to know the Admissions officers, Kreutzen realized that there was much more humanity behind the admissions decisions. The admissions process “ended up feeling a lot more human to me because I got to know the humans behind it,” Kreutzen said.
Chen noted that he has changed his perspective on standardized testing since reading application files. He noted that a student who may have done really well on a standardized test might “academically do well here, but not in terms of other parts of Lick,” such as participation in the community. Whereas someone who got a slightly lower score “might thrive here because they have the wherewithal and persistence and all the habits of mind.” Chen believes in admitting students who will “offer themselves, take leadership, try new things, [and] show up for performances.”
The Admissions team’s work starts long before any applications actually reach the hands of readers. The Admissions team breaks up the year into different focus periods. The fall focus is outreach. “We attend several high school fairs (and host one on our campus), visit a couple dozen middle schools, and host five Open Houses,” Ogletree said. The winter focus is interviewing and the processing of thousands of materials, such as recommendations and transcripts, that allow application files to be ready to read. Once files are ready, the staff spends several weeks reading and discussing applications, culminating in releasing admissions decisions in mid-march. The spring focus is preparing the soon-to-be frosh for a smooth transition into high-school. “We host placement testing day and a couple welcome events for the new class and their families,” Ogletree said. Then, in the Summer, it all starts again. “We refresh all our materials and plan for the upcoming year, always thinking about ways to update our process to make it more equitable and accessible for prospective families,” Ogletree explained.
Bay Area independent high schools have been getting increasingly selective, as class sizes remain the same and the number of applicants grows. Ogletree explained, “Over the past several years the general trend has been more students applying to more schools, causing an increase in applications across the board.” There are, of course, more deserving applicants than there are spots, and not every student who would flourish at LWHS gets the chance to go. Unfortunately, Ogletree said, “We cannot admit every student we want to admit. Saying ‘no’ to an applicant who we know could contribute to our community is one of the most difficult parts of our job and due to the size of our applicant pool, it happens every year.”
Nevertheless, Ogletree said, “we are fortunate to have the level of interest that we have at LWHS, and value the multiple perspectives, talents, and treasures that our students and families contribute to the fabric of the school community.”
The Admissions team is aware that the high school application process can be really stressful for young people and their families. “We wish it was less emotionally turbulent,” Ogletree said. “We do whatever we can to make the process less stressful for families.” Ogletree elaborated, “We encourage families to reach out to us throughout the process with any questions they might have. We try to be as welcoming and accessible as possible with the very large level of interest we receive.”
Attempts towards greater accessibility include the incorporation of an additional Open House and more shadow visit spots into the schedule so that more people have an opportunity to get to know the LWHS community. According to Ogletree, most of Lick’s peer schools (such as University High School, the Urban School of San Francisco, Bay School, The Nueva School, etc.) host an average of three Open Houses. Lick hosts five.
Another recent change is the switch to the online application system Ravenna, which is used by all of Lick’s peers as well. The portal makes it so families only need a single account to apply to every school.
LWHS also strives toward accessibility through its Flexible Tuition program, commonly called “Flex” in the Lick community, which functions independently from the admissions selection process. Lick uses a form called “Parents’ Financial Statement by School & Student Services,” the same form that is created by an independent company and is used by thousands of schools around the United States. The amount of financial assistance given to a family is determined by an algorithm that takes into consideration annual income, assets, family size, the number of private school or college tuitions currently being supported, whether parents are divorced, separated, or never married, as well as other factors outlined in Lick’s Flexible Tuition Brochure as “unusual expenses,” which include but are not limited to “an aging grandparent, parent educational loan payments, legal fees, [or] closing costs.”
Currently, 28 percent of Lick’s operating budget is used toward Flexible Tuition. One in three Lick students receives some sort of financial assistance. Despite significant funding for financial aid, LWHS unfortunately does not have the allotted resources to offer Flexible Tuition to every student who is offered admission and who qualifies for Flex.
Families that apply for flexible tuition receive a tuition notification separate from the student’s admissions decision. A student accepted to LWHS who applied for Flex receives one of three notifications: that they qualify for Flex, do not qualify, or are waitlisted for Flex, meaning they will be offered a tuition break if additional funding becomes available.
This year’s project of communal effort has come to fruition: LWHS has its class of 2023. 138 students from 70 different middle schools will join the LWHS community next fall.
LWHS’s new Admissions Associate Jewel Sparks said, “I’m most excited to welcome all of the new students and because this is my first year working in Admissions at LWHS and enrolling a class, they are particularly special to me! I can’t wait to see what all of the incoming students get involved in, and to see them grow as part of the LWHS community!”
The Admissions office doors are now open again, ready to welcome the next round of fresh faces eager to join the Lick community.
