<p>I took up three new sports........squash, crew, water polo.</p>
<p>If i get in, i'm hoping to take crew, field hockey, and lacrosse (personally)</p>
<p>Thinking about crew and basketball (apparently, I have the physique to be a really good basketball player); definitely taking Tennis and Soccer.</p>
<p>my d is playing two new sports, field hockey, and lax. She also plays basketball. Having no PG at the school was a consideration when we chose schools.</p>
<p>Participation in varsity sports is an interesting reason to prefer schools without PG programs.</p>
<p>Now it's time to reality-check the most negative information I hear about prep schools. Via interlibrary loan, today I received a copy of Casualties</a> of Privilege: Essays on Prep Schools' Hidden Culture edited by Louis M. Crosier, which a former prep school parent elsewhere in cyberspace recommended that I read before making up my mind about prep schools. Have you read it? Do you believe it? Does it matter? </p>
<p>More generally, how many of the parents who are posting in this thread attended a boarding school in their own youth? I am sure my wife's experience, in a different country in a different era, is different from that in any prep school in the United States today. Or is the quiddity of being in a boarding school really the same all over the world, generation after generation? What is it like to live in the prep school and grow up into parenthood afterward?</p>
<p>I went to boarding school in Europe. I think that upbringing plays a greater role in one's outlook in adult life than having attended boarding school does, though they sometimes go hand in hand. </p>
<p>There were many at my school (probably most) who were just regular guys (all-boys school) regardless of the fact that they were privileged to experience something that a only small percentage of teenagers do, perhaps never knowing what a privilege it really was until years later. These types likely benefitted most from the whole boarding school thing. Then there were some others who appeared to value it mostly in terms of the prestige factor (you know -- snobbery). Those boys missed something of the opportunities to be had, most importantly perhaps the bonding with other boys who could become lifelong friends, with networking and such that follows.</p>
<p>So, hard as it may be, with the amazing campuses, facilities and resources that many boarding schools offer, the successful student must keep in mind that though the world outside may be different, it is no less important and vital to that student when he or she eventually enters it. And, it is the degree to which he or she appreciates that fact while still in school that will bear upon any success in the "real world".</p>
<p>Don't go to a school with pg's! Go to St. Paul's, we're in Vanity Fair, so your friends will think you're really cool and they'll think you're a badass because your school has media manufactured scandals!</p>
<p>Meateater, why do you say don't go to a school with PG's? What are the downsides? Also, what issue of Vanity Fair is St. Paul's in?</p>
<p>
[quote]
A PRIVATE-SCHOOL AFFAIR The last few years have been ugly for St. Paul's, the exclusive New England boarding school, as it reeled from allegations of financial mismanagement and sexual abuse. Alex Shoumatoff diagnoses his alma mater. Photographs by Jonathan Becker and Vincent Laforet.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>dabost we favored a non PG school because it allows the students to play sports all 4 years. Many schools use PG's as "ringers".</p>
<p>St. Paul's has certainly had its share of dirty laundry of late. I have noticed that sps response seems to be that all is well. However, articles like this continue to remind us that all may not be well at sps.</p>
<p>I can't help but wonder if boundaries were crossed sexually, what others may have been crossed........ grades, recommendations, exams, etc.
believe me, crossing any boundary needs to be dealt with swiftly. What assurances as parents do we have that this is not happening now? That's ancient history stuff will not fly.
All the great academics, matriculations, facilities, etc. can make up for a bankrupt moral code of any administration/teachers.</p>
<p>Egads! My D applied to St. Pauls! Will the dirty laundry at that school never end?? Now I don't know what to think.</p>
<p>prepparent, are you thinking about the grade and recommendation changing that I think I read about a few years ago at Middlesex where one school official killed himself?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, as with many large institutions that must bear responsibility over our young, some schools choose to deal with "problem situations" by a method that goes like...</p>
<p>1) Announce an investigation.
2) Take lots of time to process investigation.
3) Announce steps have been taken to address the individuals involved and the situation involved.
4) Declare the problem a thing of the past because so much time has elapsed since the original incident without a repeat.</p>
<p>What this doesn't tell us is if something has actually changed about how the institution runs itself.</p>
<p>Most situations that arise in institutions dealing with minor children deal with one (or more) of the following:</p>
<p>1) Inadequate policies regarding adult/minor interactions.
e.g. No requirement of multiple adults present with youth(s) in a private setting; No requirement to report such incidents;<br>
2) Inadequate policies regarding the adult supervision of minors.
e.g. Too many children being supervised by too few adults for the location/activity involved; Lack of audit trail accounting for children'(s) location.
3) Failure to enforce policies;
e.g. Resources allocated to activities do not allow for following policies; Culture of lax enforcement leading to no enforcement.</p>
<p>Sunshine is always the best disinfectant for these situations. Unfortunately, BSs like other institutions that regularly deal with minor children are so afraid of mistakes being made public, that they will not publish the whole story including its root causes and corrective actions. Much of this has to do with our litigous society. IMHO, most of this has to do with administrators who hide behind their lawyers.</p>
<p>Cleaning up ones act with public announcements of how bad situations are to be avoided in the future would be a big confidence boost to those of us who have those fears in the back of our minds.</p>
<p>Nobody expects BSs to be perfect. They do expect them to show results - even with the improvement of supervision.</p>
<p>My D spent a day at one school Monday where the house-mother showed my DW the book where students sign out to go to other locations off-hours - including the ice-rink which is on campus. It is nice to know that there is strict accountablility here. I understand that they do follow up on whether students are where they say they are as well.</p>
<p>While signing out to go across campus sounds a little draconian, one has to remember that many of these incidents happen on school property. If all facilities are properly supervised and all students are accounted for, the likelyhood of mistakes drops dramatically.</p>
<p>I know that there will be bullies among students and even a predatory staff/faculty member on occasion at these places and that these people will occasionally harm a young man or lady, processes and procedures that are well designed and carefully followed will minimize the opportunity for these individuals to do harm and minimize the amount of harm that can occur as well as increase the likelyhood that it will be corrected.</p>
<p>Getting off my soap box....</p>
<p>catg, I believe that took place in the 60's or 70's. It was related to harvard matric #s. I don't recall sexual improprieties.
I detect you do not like my comment.</p>
<p>Sexual improprieties?? are there any??</p>
<p>prepparent, I did not imply sexual improprieties, just wondering where you got the potential grade changing,exams etc. stuff from. As I read the article, and I may be wrong, the stuff in question came up when members of the class of 1975 were having a 25 year reunion. What would you have an administration do to people that were dead as pertaining to things that may have happened in the 60s,70s, or 80s. It said only one person in question was still involved with the school in 2001 and that person was escorted off immediately. They said all authorities had been alerted. Now even the Rector is gone that dealt with the problem in 2001. the writer states that both Andover and Exerter were involved in sexual harrassment lawsuits recently. My guess is that if you canvassed 50 years of alums from any boarding school and probably any college, you would get plenty of responses.</p>
<p>I know several families that have sent all their kids to SPS during the last 10 years or so. I'm sure that would not be the case if tthey were not extremely happy with the school.</p>
<p>Catg, I agree with you 100%. I was not picking at sps, I think that SPS is an e xcellent school. I was merely thinking out loud as to other possible improprieties that can come about with this type of situation. I also acknowledge that many bs's have had issues in the past.
I guess what caught my eye with this article is that allegedly 29 teachers were mentioned over a 50 year period, that seems more than a potential minor issue.</p>