Hillfield Strathallan College ADMISSIONS

If a student doesn't want to be here, it's not going to work. Right? At a certain age, and I say this to parents all the time, you can't force your kid to come here and expect that they're going to take advantage of everything that you're paying for. You know what I mean? And so at a certain age, that's a question that our admissions people will ask the kid: is this your choice or your parents choice? Because they really have to buy in.

But we have entry points at various points in the school. Obviously, our biggest one is grade nine. We usually bring in about 25 to 35 new grade nines. That's our biggest entry point. But there are other entry points along the way, because we have four schools too. There's just different times that families choose to join us. We're quite unique, actually, in that early age. We have two parallel streams. We have a Montessori program and we also have a junior school. And both of those funnel together and they come together into grade five in middle school. So the two separate streams both start at 18 months, 16 months, and then go to grade four, or Montessori nine, as we call it.

Again, you really have to involve your kids in this decision if they're old enough to realistically be a part of that decision, because it's so critically important that they're on board. And I don't mean to give the kid the whole decision. That's not what I mean at all because ultimately I do believe strongly that it should be this joint decision. But it's so important that we see that the kids want to be here because there's so much to take advantage of. And the kids that find the greatest success are the ones that do that.

The admission process for Hillfield was seamless. After completing an application online, the team reached out to us within 2 days! They invited us to come for a tour, and we were able to see the physical spaces our children would learn in. They also encouraged us to visit an open house (they host regular evening open houses). We were able to bring our son as we didn't have a sitter, which ended up being really neat because we were able to see him interacting with the school environment before there was a class in it. The admissions team was very kind and knowledgeable and answered all of our questions.

I applied to HSC when I was in Grade 8, hoping to start in Grade 9. It started when my parents filled out an application and then we did a tour of the school and met a current senior school student to hear about their experience. Then I did a visit day with another Grade 8 student to meet some people and get a feel for the student community. This day included a meeting with the Senior School principal. After that day, I received an email telling me I got into the school! I found the visit day fun and it was a nice way for me to picture what my life was going to look like. A piece of advice I would give someone applying to high schools is to try and visit so you to see how you feel on campus!

The school has flexible payment plans for admission. The admission to HSC is very reasonable compared with some other private schools in Toronto. In February, we have to confirm if our kids will come back to HSC in September and pay $1000 for each kid. The admission office has regular Open Houses. They make sure all new families will be aware of admission. I suggest we can tell new parents about extra costs like trips, uniforms purchasing, etc.

Come tour the school. Meet the principals of your child/children’s grade. For parents who want feedback from other parents, they should ask to reach out to the active PG members. During our application process, my older daughter was entering Grade 6. She had to do an entrance exam. My younger one started in Grade 1 and an exam was not required. I believe there is more interest in HSC now, as there are wait lists for various grades. I would recommend contacting the school as soon as possible if there is interest in joining the school. I volunteer at our open houses and assist the admissions team welcome families touring our school. We hold about four sessions each year and we see a lot of participants every session.

I was involved with the ambassador program at Hillfield Strathallan College, so we met with a lot of prospective families. I never had a family leave a tour at Hillfield Strathallan College and not speak to the excitement or the eagerness of students that they observed and the amazing facilities that Hillfield Strathallan College has.