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For prospective students applying to America’s top prep schools, the organization Gateway to Prep Schools has provided a simpler alternative to mountains of paperwork: a single, online application.

That is, unless you’re applying to Exeter.

Composed of three parts—a common biographical form, a school-specific essay and online recommendations and transcripts—schools can tailor Gateway’s application to their needs. “[Gateway is] an online application system providing the benefits of a consortium application and preserving an independent school’s traditional control over the portion of an application that is unique to them: their own essay and short answer questions,” Gateway chairman Ian Gracey said.

29 member schools use Gateway, including St. Paul’s School and Phillips Academy.

Director of Admissions Michael Gary said the Academy’s in-house online application provides a “total Exeter experience” from day one. “There are two reasons we have decided to encourage families to use our online application,” Gary said. “We want families to have the total Exeter experience and we want to deliver the optimal customer service to every family that applies.”

Gary emphasized that the current method of capturing and processing family data allows the Academy to respond to families more quickly. “This eliminates the need to have supplements that usually accompany common applications like Gateway,” Gary said.

“Keeping [applicants] on our website instead of sending them to another website answering our questions allows us to control the experience families have applying to Exeter,” he said.

However, Admissions officers at other schools have found many benefits in the Gateway process.

Bill McMahon, Director of Admissions at The Thacher School in Ojai, CA, compared Gateway’s app to the Common App, a similar application used by the undergraduate programs of colleges and universities. “So much of the application is about trying to provide access to all these great schools, and the online process makes it more available to families,” he said.

Thacher’s applications rate has been increasing around 15 percent annually, and McMahon speculated that Gateway was a factor in this upwards trend. “We will continue using Gateway,” he said. “There are other online options as well, for example, the SSAT has an online application. It’s not some sort of quirky new tool but the path for the future.”

According to surveys Gateway conducted, on average, students apply to two schools, and of all the students 25 percent apply to one more member school that they had not previously considered within the process.

“Parents and students who responded to our survey often stated that Gateway removed stress from the application process and made the task of completing and organizing applications less daunting [than expected],” Gracey said.

The predecessor to Gateway, called the Shared Candidate Profile, was used by Deerfield, Groton, Hotchkiss, Phillips Academy, Phillips Exeter and St. Paul’s four years ago. However, schools felt the process could have been improved with a “hybridization of universal forms and custom questions and essays,” Gracey said.

While Exeter was involved with the Shared Candidate Profile, it opted out of the development of Gateway. Last year, Exeter received 2621 completed applications, with an 18 percent acceptance rate; Phillips Academy received 3103 completed applications, with a 14 percent acceptance rate, according to each school’s admissions reports.

Barbara McKnight, Computer Specialist and Data Manager for Northfield Mount Hermon, believes applicants prefer Gateway to the school’s individual application. “NMH also uses its own application, and we’ve seen a drop in that and more applications in Gateway,” she said.

While Gateway does make the application process easier, a prospective student willing to respond to a school’s individual essays and short-answer questions demonstrates a passion for the school. Gary cited candidate interest in Exeter as one of the reasons why the school decided not to join Gateway.

“When we were a part of the pilot program called the Candidate Profile, we learned that some families were still completing multiple applications to demonstrate that they were more serious about those particular schools, ignoring the benefit of lessening the burden of completing multiple applications which is the primary argument for using a common application,” Gary said.

While new upper Spencer Reeves found the applications were generally similar, Reeves felt moving towards the common app “couldn’t hurt.”

New senior Zach Barnett also felt the Exeter application would have been easier if it were in the Gateway format. However, he found the time he spent on the Exeter’s application was worthwhile. “The application was a lot more personable and I spent a lot more time on it,” he said.

To Gary, applicant interest is more important than applicant quantity. “Gateway is an easy way to increase the number of applications we receive and therefore make our application that much more selective, [but we have] never been driven to increase applications just for the sake of increasing applications,” he said.

“We are driven to attract the right applicant and make our school easily accessible at the same time. We believe our online application accomplishes both,” Gary said.