<p>After reading the Dean's Journal: What are your thoughts? Are you convinced that Andover is not a College? It will be important to many of us as M10/A10 is around the corner.</p>
<p>Andover</a> is not a College</p>
<p>Dean is a spinmeister. With two kids in BS, I’ve come to the conclusion that BS is more like college than parents should be comfortable with for MOST 14/15/16 yr. olds. Yes, there’s more rules, imposed study hall, and meetings with advisors, but day to day, hour-hour, they have freedom and independence that only the unusually mature are really ready to handle. It’s really alot, and I’m keeping child #3 home for high school!</p>
<p>erlanger, Thank you for such a great post from experience. Obviously there are many advantages to staying home to go to a local school that my be hard to replace. Do you think a smaller school like Deerfield might be a more acceptable alternative, more nurturing for teens?</p>
<p>Many views. No opinions?</p>
<p>As a parent of a current Andover 9th grader, I would say - yes and no. Yes, the campus has the appearance of a college campus, and we shared that impression when we visited. We have been surprised by the multitude of rules and level of supervision for first year students. Unlike most colleges, students are not permitted to be late or absent to class without an excuse. If a student neglects his/her homework assignments, the house parent will likely be notified and the student may be subject to certain restrictions (eg no video gaming, TV.) Days are fairly structured with class from 8 to 2:45 followed by sports, dinner and then extracurriculars. A student must be signed in to a designated study area by 8pm during the week. The first-year students are clearly supervised (or one might even say nurtured!) by coaches, prefects, house parents, academic advisors and teachers as evidenced by the very detailed 5 page report that we received during the recent break. Acknowledging some similarities between Andover and college, we would agree with Dean Fried that Andover is not college.</p>
<p>ke83, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I suppose it would be difficult to enforce restrictions on video gaming and tv, also the students can play video games on laptops. With this level of supervision, how did the recent problems with drugs and expulsions happen at PA recently?</p>
<p>I have heard that TV/video gaming rules vary from dorm to dorm. In son’s dorm, video game controllers are kept by prefects and there is only one TV and video system in the large common area. They are not permitted to have TVs or game systems in their rooms and there is no wireless connection in son’s dorm. It would be somewhat challenging to stream TV/videos on one’s laptop without others knowing because folks (especially prefects) frequently walk in and out of each other’s dorm rooms.
Regarding your last question, I posed the same question to my son. Neither of us have an answer except to say that perhaps the level of supervision differs from grade to grade and also from dorm to dorm.</p>
<p>Erlangrer-</p>
<p>Have you considered that maybe BS is not right for the kids you raised? </p>
<p>This is not to be a put down in any form. There are things that my d isnt ready for at 15 and somethings she is…based on what I felt I wanted her to be exposed to.</p>
<p>For example, my d was not allowed to have Barbie dolls until she was 7 years old. I told her that she could have 'baby dolls", example American Girl Bitty Baby. We made a big deal with that doll. Took the doll and d to lunch, bought closes, my d carried her bitty in an “infant carrier” on her back. I wasnt ready for Barbie and I wanted her to enjoy being a little girl. Her friends were not allowed to bring Barbies to my house and my d didnt go places where my “Barbie rules” were not respected.</p>
<p>My point is, I know how I raised my d. At least 200 people asked me did I really think BS was the right thing for my d. I thought about that question for many years. I said yes and it is working for my d, better than I could have hoped for.</p>
<p>Everything is not for everybody. </p>
<p>Did you take your older two kids out of bs? If bs was not working for my d, she would stay this year (unless she is in danger…you finish what your start) and then transfer. I am constantly asking my d is she happy and I watch to see the happiness. Leaving bs is not a failure. Changing you mind, or path when you discover it is not the way for you is not a bad thing. </p>
<p>Does my d feel bs is perfect…nope. She is a teenager, nothing is perfect in her eyes. Does she want to give it up—NO WAY. Instead of Skyping today, my d went to Vermont to ski, for the first time. I could see her excitement over the phone.</p>
<p>At the age of 4 my daughter could sit though a 3 hour chemistry lecture course without saying a word and keeping busy. We had no choice because I was a divorced mom with no babysitter that had to make a living. I raised a very independent child with a lot of patience. </p>
<p>My d wasnt raised better…just different. BS is right for her…but not for every kid.</p>
<p>pulsar, while the details or certain aspects of the operations may be somewhat different, (internet restriction rules, zero tolerance or second chance to drugs/alcohol come to mind), the fundamental ways of operation are similar in all top boarding schools. They do expect their students to be self-motivated and self-disciplined. You don’t have to have perfect skills on things like time management and prioritization right away, which can be developed over time, but the drive for success and sound judgement must be in you. There’ll be no hand holding and don’t expect you’ll be monitored so you can never have the chance to touch alcohol/drugs or always working on what’s you are supposed to. In that respect, Exie actually had a point when she said one should consider military schools if that’s what he/she is looking for in a school.</p>
<p>Our experience at Exeter has been that while help is available to kids who need it, every assumption will be that they don’t need it. They will allow them to fail, but they are very good about helping them back up again. I don’t think that would happen in college. I also don’t think it’s such an unreasonable position or that it’s particularly bad for the kids.</p>
<p>But other than that (and that many will say that top BS kids are held to a higher academic standard than a lot of college kids) - yeah, it’s pretty much like college, especially the smaller LACs that have most students living on campus. I was helping a friend’s d look at colleges and so many of them made me think, “Oh, it’s like a big Andover or Exeter.”</p>
<p>Pulsar – a ninth grader’s experience at Andover is different than students in the upper grades. My understanding is that the recent drug problems were limited to students in upper grades. A ninth grader certainly has more rules and less freedom than do other students in the upper grades.</p>
<p>I have a daughter that just started college this year and one in her third year at Exeter. There’s a pretty big difference. Daughter at Exeter asked daughter at college what her curfew was. None, of course. There are also frat parties every night of week at college. There is absolutely no supervision at college, just security at the dorm entrance 24-hours. Daughter at college does have an academic advisor but he treats her like an adult (even though she barely is one chronologically). I have heard that bs seniors can’t wait to escape the rules of the bs, so I would not say that bs is like college. It looks like a miniature college campus but that’s about it.</p>
<p>That’s a great perspective, PhotoOp!</p>
<p>I can totally see why BS seniors would be ready to escape the overlords, so to speak.</p>
<p>DAndrew, I would not assume that the larger boarding schools don’t support their students. I think it’s hard to judge it from posts on an internet message board. I suspect the schools select students who are motivated and able to work without adults hovering over them, but that there are support systems in place to monitor their experience, and to help if necessary.</p>
<p>Parents whose children have received extraordinary help are not likely to post about it on CC. It’s too personal, and runs the risk of identifying the student. For what it’s worth, I would not have described my public high school, way back when, as “impersonal.” We all went home at night, but our teachers knew us, and we knew them.</p>
<p>Periwinkle, that’s not my point - at all! First of all, I think the fundamental ways of operations of top boarding schools are similar, regardless it has 500 or 1000 students. Secondly, as noted by many, while the support systems are there, independence and sound judgement on obeying laws and rules are expected from the students. No school is nurturing enough to monitor the students constantly so they are garanteed not to have a chance to touch drugs/alcohol or studying/working exactly as they should. How did you get the idea that I think “the larger boarding schools don’t support their students”? I actually never believe in “the smaller the better” theory, and I don’t think the size (given the range) of the top boarding schools is a critical factor that contributes to any significant difference between these schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for explaining, DAndrew. I see I misread.</p>
<p>I agree that all the students who go to boarding school must function independently at a younger age than is the norm. That doesn’t mean that Andover = College (to return to the OP.)</p>
<p>I think after March 10th many students will need to look closely at the schools which have accepted them (if any.)</p>
<p>My son’s BS doesn’t provide as much oversight as suggested here. We don’t get long written reports about his work that leads us to the conclusion that he is being supervised closely. </p>
<p>My son and I were talking about this before he went back after Holiday Break. The main difference between BS and College seems to be that he has daily classes in each subject whereas in college, classes (at least they used to) typically meet only two or three times a week, leaving the student to learn more on his own thru the readings.</p>
<p>^^RBGG, I am afraid we are talking about similar processes from different perspectives. If your son is attending one of the top boarding schools often mentioned here, chances are the level of support he is getting is similar to that students in peer schools are. The small differences here and there may make a difference to kids who need specifically a certain kind of support but they don’t fundamentally change the way the schools operate. You could say that they are not like a college for reasons such as the school days are more structured or there may be more paperwork for leaving campus, but you could also say they are like a college in many ways - after all, these are academic institutes closely mirroring LACs.</p>
<p>It’s all relative to where you started out. We’re coming from an urban public school which is a legend only in it’s own mind.</p>
<p>My daughter has more rules at boarding school than she had at home, but then again she also has more independence, is traveling abroad with school groups and talking about visiting friends in Asia over the summer (without me - sigh). So in that way - it’s more like college than public school.</p>
<p>We pay a tuition larger than our mortgage - that’s exactly like her college age sister’s</p>
<p>The coursework is 10x harder then the “advanced” courses at her public college prep high school (which had entrance requirements). She’s on a block schedule and has to navigate a campus on her own. That part is more like college too.</p>
<p>So yes - I think it might be prudent for students to think of BS as a mini-preview of college. Going to college affords more freedom, but even at MIT freshman are now required to live in dorms (wasn’t always the case) and there are “rules”. Faculty members routinely identify students who might fall through the cracks and apply some degree of intervention when warranted - so do advisors. </p>
<p>So it all depends - on the school and the student.</p>
<p>Boarding schools are high schools that look like a college and for students coming out of a single building public or private high school, it probably operates closer to the latter than the former.</p>
<p>I do know that the “adjustment” time in college is shorter for BS students than non-BS students because they’ve already learned to adapt to the independence, dorm life, diversity, crushing course loads and schedules and tough grading curves.</p>
<p>IMHO</p>