Hello everyone, I’m starting the process for applying for the 2016-2017 school year. I have looked at boardingschoolreview.com, the websites, and also searched here online (I’ve been lurking for a bit), but I just wanted to put out this list of schools with the hopes that there are people who know current information about them. Some may seem strange to all be on my list together because some are very different, but right now I am just starting out and trying to figure out what I want, all of these are on my prelim list. I will not need FA. Thank you!
Carlsbad International School (CZ)
Brentwood College (Canada)
Hawaii Prep
Maui Prep
Verde Valley School
Colorado Rocky Mtn School
Episcopal School
Salem Academy
Mercersburg
Blair
Vermont Academy
NMH
Storm King School
@cat, welcome to the Prep School forum. It is unusual to see a candidate consider such an expansive geographic range of schools. So others here can better assist u, can u plz provide a little more info about your priorities.
Are u international?
What grade are u seeking to to enter, and how old are u?
What particular activities/sports are u interested in?
Have u taken the SSAT yet?
@gmt my first list is really all over the map, literally. I am in Virginia, however, my father and mother are from two different European countries ( and my mom lived in Hawaii for 10 years and said its her favorite place), and I’ve traveled a lot.
I am interested in schools that have at least one of swimming, Nordic skiing, or crew. I also am interested in outdoor programs. I play the French horn, but it’s not that serious and I may not continue.
I will be looking to enter 9th grade, I’m in 7th now and am 13.
I speak Russian and Norwegian (from parents) and schools with German or Japanese offerings are also very interesting to me. I really like language.
I also am looking at hotchkiss, cate, thatcher, and Andover, but I’ve found so much about them here already.
I have not yet taken Seats.
I want to be around smart people, but I don’t care about school name cause I’m pretty low key.
A second word of welcome and kudos for not taking the road more traveled with respect to your school choices.
Of the schools on your current list, I’m pretty confident that there are parents with ties to Episcopal, Mercersburg, Blair, and NMH who participate on the forum to varying degrees. The other schools on your list rarely (if ever?) get discussed on this forum…mostly because people on this forum tend to focus on a small handful of New England schools. So you might have to do some more digging on your own.
If you are interested in swimming and crew, I would add St. Andrew’s School in Delaware to your list.
Thank you! Yes, I know, I was hoping there was someone, somewhere who knew about the more rare schools :-* @GMC and @7 I will keep you in mind for both of those school and start to ask questions as I get into more the details!
I think that if you do some searches, you’ll find a fair bit of information on here about Blair, Mercersburg, NMH, and Episcopal. We looked into all four of those schools for this year’s application cycle and found a fair bit of info on them (and ended up applying to Blair, which my daughter absolutely fell in love with). As for the others, you’re probably right that there isn’t much information already here. I think you might get a better response if you put the names of the schools that you want to learn about in the title of your post, as people might not click through to a generic sounding post, but may respond if they see the name of a school that they know something about.
@cat, a strategy for refining your list is to decide which activities are a must-have, then start filtering. Boardingschoolreview.com is a useful resource for a first pass. But always check with the school’s website to verify info. http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/searchschools.php
Crew will narrow the list really fast.
Off the top of my head, i know Episcopal doesn’t offer crew or competitive swimming. Peddie is known as THE school for serious swimming-- they train for swimming year round, and they have crew. I recall they share a boathouse w Lawrenceville? and Mercersburg?-- both of which also have swimming. Vermont Academy is somewhat known as being a therapeutic school.
Hello! I am currently a sophomore at Cate and, like GMC2918, I am happy to answer any questions you may have. I love Cate, it’s the perfect size and really feels like home. I’ve made amazing friends, and had some incredible experiences. Let me know if I can help answer anything!
Have you taken a look at Putney? Its academically strong but laid back. They don’t have German or Japanese but love to support their students’ own initiative, so you can pursue a lot. No swimming but there is nordic and crew. My daughter just started there. It’s a special school, different but in the best sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ho7m99S3Q
Ah! Thank you all so much! I know that there are plenty really academically strong schools out of that “top tier”, but sometimes it’s hard to tell from a website what kind of student body there is. I did not pick up therapeutic from Vermont Academy, I guess because also they taught Russian and I consider that kinda hard if you don’t already know it. I was thinking some of the more “mountain” outdoor schools are like this for some reason? Schools that are brought up as providing LD support, etc, would this mean they have a less strong academic student body, or is that not a good indicator?
In terms of activities, I am a swimmer and I started crew this year, but Nordic skiing looks like something I would enjoy, so I’m ok with schools having only one of these, and outdoor programs are also a big draw, but I just haven’t been able to say exactly what are must haves. I guess I’m not really a ball sport person as much haha. I guess being open to many different things makes it hard.
Once I take ssat too I will see if that will help. But I will still prob apply to my favorite difficult schools and also other ones.
I will look into all of your suggestions! Thank you!
Hello Catinthehat. I think NMH has everything on your list -my outdoorsy non ball sport DD absolutely loves it. They have Nordic skiing , downhill skiing, crew and swimming available for both experienced and novice athletes. Their arts are also strong. They have a very beautiful new arts center with individual practice rooms and 2 theaters. Another bonus for you is 1/3 of the students are international and I know there are students from Russia and Norway. My favorite thing about NMH is it is just a low key happy school which offers a great work/play balance. The campus is beautiful (on top of a mountain with a working farm so you can see the cows as you walk to class) and they have an outdoor program which offers biking, canoeing, sailing, and rock climbing.
To answer your question about LD schools, today almost every top school including Andover etc. will accept a small percentage of students with mild learning differences and offer some extra support to them but these students must be able to handle the school’s regular coursework or they are not admitted and classes are not modified for them. Accepting LD students in no way indicates that the school is less rigorous. (Einstein had an LD after all) There are other schools who specialize exclusively in teaching children with Learning Differences and accept very few students who do not have learning differences. These schools might not be appropriate for you, but I see very few mentions of these schools here generally. Theraputic schools are for children who need more psychological support such as regular therapy sessions included in their every day program and these schools cater pretty exclusively to this type of student. (Some of these offer the “Wilderness” programs you might be worried about but this is not at all the same thing as a “mountain school” such as Berkshire or an “outdoor program” like that offered at many BSs. Good luck in your search!
Hi Cat, you should start taking the SSAT to get some idea of your academic level. And how are your current grades? Once you have an idea of where you stand, then it will be fun to look at extracurricular activities of schools at your SSAT level. So many boarding schools offer many great opportunities. Good luck!
Mercersburg does have swimming :). Very good swimming actually, and German. I have to decide if I want to continue swimming year round. I have all As at a magnet IB middle school. I take German and am very good at languages and also math, but I am not a super math genius. I take algebra 1 this year, so accelerated but not like some genius kids I see on here who already take AP calc and things!
If you have any specific questions about Episcopal High School, please feel free to contact me. EHS does offer Girl’s Varsity Crew. The head coach is an accomplished crew athlete and coach, as well as a former U.S. Olympian.
Sorry no competitive skiing at EHS, only recreational. German is offered through Advanced German. Currently Japanese is not. Although they have a pool, no swim team.
Like all of the schools mentioned by the above posters, EHS will challenge even the most academically engaged student. Couple of things that make EHS unique are 100% boarding and their Washington Program. Here is a link:
@jdewey Did your kid look at Proctor as well? What other schools besides Putney were they interested in? I recently checked out Putney and Proctor and think they look really cool. Just looking at ones that might be related and also why your JDewkid decided on Putney?
Our situation is unique in that we went to a boarding school fair and decided that most of the schools just didn’t seem like a good fit, except for Putney. She was in a progressive private school for elementary and middle school and Putney was the next level. The focus is on experiential learning and meaningful dialogue about performance, not on scores. They still take exams and do a ton of work, it’s just not the focus of rewarding their performance. JDewkid isn’t a competitive person so she would just would be under a lot of stress at some of the schools discussed here. The philosophy of independence at Putney is meaningful to us. So… it was the only school she applied to. I don’t know a lot about Proctor but Putney’s campus is a lot simpler? They don’t have a lot of the infrastructure other schools offer, like football fields, ice hockey or swimming pools. They have cows that need milking
I have learned more about the nuances of so many other schools just by hanging around here, which I did after the application was sent, we didn’t know about them.
I imagine she could have applied to more schools, I’m a big fan of the Quaker schools like George School and Westtown… and right now Cate and Thacher are looking pretty amazing to me (it was 18 below this morning), and all the schools other folks are suggesting above…Rocky Mountain was started by Putney alums. But Putney is unique so it would have still been on top. When folks here talk about fit it’s true…
