Preparing kid for applying La Pietra

Private school is expensive. And you have to be really good at academics to be admitted. For these two reasons, I have not thought about sending my kids to private schools. Yet one day in early June, I got a call from the Vice Principal for my 5th grade graduating daughter, recommending her to apply for La Pietra because her teacher considered her as a top 20% student. I was in quite some disbelief. I know my daughter is creative and talented in her way, but top 20% in academics?! But who am I to deny her the opportunity to go to La Pietra. So I went on this process to apply for a private school and below are lessons learned (in progress). 

1. You can make the cost manageable by applying for both financial aid and merit-based scholarships from the school and other organizations. The Financial Aid application is done through a third-party vendor and charges a fee ($60 for School & Student Services). Completing the financial aid is like the experience of filing taxes on your own, which I do. It still takes me 7 hours to complete. Get your spouse to give you the credit card balances and 1 month of pay stabs. Be ready to access all the accounts in your life to get the information that they ask. I had to retrieve usernames and passwords for at least three accounts. But I feel that I know my life better after completing the application😅. 

To receive full financial aid, you need to earn $60K in adjusted gross income or less. But they encourage all to apply. My assumption is that they have enough endorsement to cover a big part of students' tuitions, as said on their website "We are proud to be a financially stable private school with the balance of education costs covered by our endowment, fundraising and generous donations." 

There are other organizations that offer scholarships:

• Kipona Scholarship (Kamehameha Schools Program) for Hawaii local students, Open in Aug and end on 1st of December. 

2. Think of four people to provide recommendation letters. Two letters from school teachers or administrators are required for completing the admission application. You need to know the teachers' emails to input in the online application form. The teachers will receive an automatic notification to submit the recommendation letter. 

Two additional recommendation letters (from another teacher, coach, mentor, counselor, supervisor, advisor, etc) are required for the merit based scholarship application. They need to complete the preformatted recommendation letter and send the letters in by mailing it to the school address (La Pietra – Hawaii School for Girls, Admissions Office, 2933 Poni Moi Rd., Honolulu, HI 96815.)

3. Collect all the awards. I have never given much thought to elementary school awards. But you need to list them on the scholarship application. It took me 1 hour to scourer the house to find them. I am determined to put all the awards on the wall so that I do not have to this again💪.

4. Prepare a portfolio to showcase in the merit-based scholarship application. Your children's work is an optional content in the scholarship application. But for me, they can really show my kid's talents. And I just threw out all my daughter's papers in her backpack😓. Well, she graduated! Luckily, she has digital creations and stories that I can search for. But if I knew that she has a possibility to go to a private school, I might be able to collect sooner and help her to refine her work and construct a portfolio. For me, it doesn't have to be academic. For example, my daughter started organizing family events since she was 5, poetry contests, drawing contests, dancing contests, sales event, carnivals, game nights, parties, each with rules, props, prizes, and stages that she prepared herself. It is not academic, but her creativity, organization skills, and implementation skills outshine everyone in the house. Wouldn't it be nice if I have a good record of it?

5. Need to prepare kids for one extracurricular strength and one community service activity. Be it swimming or piano, they need to be able to pursue personal interests. They need to demonstrate persistence and excellence in those pursuits and ability to form identify and social network through engaging in these activities. I think that is why they ask about co-curricular and extracurricular activities in the scholarship application. 

I have always wanted to engage the kids in community service but do not know where to find them. We go to beach cleanup, sure. But contributing to the community and helping others and our world should be a sustained and continued effort. Listing community service/volunteer/leadership activities is required on the scholarship application.

In sum, learning through the experience applying for private school for kids, I know that I need to:

1. Be a good bookkeeper. Know all your accounts. Know how much you spend on the kids' development and education. If you pay a tutor cash, record those somewhere.

2. Be a good record keeper and help kids to construct their identity through organizing the records. Record their awards, their ingenious work outside of academics, their teachers and mentors, and help them organize those into who they are. As an artist, there are your work..., people support and inspire you are...; As an event organizer, there are your work...; As a writer, there are your work... 

3. Motivate, entice, and highly nudge the kids to develop personal interests if you can detach them from iPads and screens!

4. Find at least one community service activity for them to participate on consistent basis. If you know of some options, leave a comment below.