<p>Don't know about your son Jamimom, but at St. George's, where I went to school, tuition+room and board was nearly $29,000 a year (back in 1995). This did not include flights 4 times a year from Newport to Virginia (or any incidentals, spending money etc.) </p>
<p>I didn't come from a poor family but a normal, middle class family and because of an Auchincloss family endowment for my financial aid, it cost my parents around $7,000 a year, well below the avg cost of a competitve "Day School." It may be the case at your son's school that only the most needy get financial aid (ABC etc.) but that is not always the case everywhere. HTH</p>
<p>My boys do not board so the $25K figure is just for the day school. I believe $8k is the 5 day room and board cost that we are considering. We just got a cost increase letter yesterday, that I have not closely examined, so I might be off by a little bit. Of course, that is not the whole ball of wax there. </p>
<p>There are many different policies regarding financial aid. We did not apply so I do not have personal info. My son was football captain so I ended up doing alot of booster activites some of which cost money. The financial aid kids--at least 20% of the team was on financial aid were exempt from alot of those fees. Most of those kids came from special programs or were townies, and one of the mom who is a townie and active with the school and knows most of the families on aid said that the two categories are outreach and town, for financial aid, other than someone who might end up on aid because of a financial emergency after he was admitted. The money is very tight and there is a financial aid waitlist every year, she told me which make it a tense situation at times for families who must have aid to attend.</p>
<p>The school is need blind in admission. I had heard that there are a few merit awards, but they are no longer mentioned in the literature, and the woman I referred to in the earlier paragraph told me that they had been turned into merit with aid, something the school had wanted to do for a long time. Now since the kids on aid are not identified in the directory, and my son doesn't know who the heck is on aid and who isn't except for a few kids that he has known since he was a freshman who told him, I can't tell for sure as to who gets aid and who does not. Reading the literature, there is no mention of merit awards, and though anyone can apply for financial aid, there is a directed paragraph about the no-interest loans that many middle income families can use. There may well be kids who are middle class that pay a fraction of the cost at the school, but I don't know any of them. When someone asked the question once at a session, about whether middle income families have any funds availabe to them, the loan was cited, plus that anyone was welcome to apply--no commitment or detail on what is available. Since the school gets far more applicants than it can take, I don't think they are going to give a whole lot out, as they do just fine as things are.</p>
<p>Jamimon, in my reasearch, I have seen no mention of boarding for just 5 days at any school. Is that a typical situation? We are looking at a couple of schools about 3 hours away. Do you think the 5 day board works well?</p>
<p>Kirmum, for us it would work well. Many schools do not have that option as they are on a 6 day schedule with half day classes on Wednesday and Saturday. Also they are not full K-12 schools as this one is. This school ended up in our lives, quite frankly, not because it was our first choice, but because it was the best option available. I really wanted a private day school closer to our house, but neither of the boys were accepted to the ones I felt were the best matches for them. It has really been difficult logistics wise to commute to this school, but the older one was just not boarding material so this was just the best thing for him. We did not apply to any true boarding schools for the freshman, as he was not at that point in 8th grade. But now that he has been at the school for half a year, he wants to board there. And if he stays out of trouble and does well academically, then we will permit it. The 5 day option is just fine with me. My boys are not at the stage maturity wise where I feel comfortable putting them in a true boarding situation.</p>
<p>I finally read the essay prompting this thread after subscribing to AM. A bit different than what I had expected. My only comment is that the abuse he suffered at the hands of his well to do classmates may have had nothing to do with their wealth. I certainly do not believe their wealth and station in life was what made them so rude. My freshman son ran into a situation early in the year at his school. The JV football practice let out early one day, and he was waiting for his brother in Varsity to finish when two of his JV teammates jumped into a car with a senior/junior to go to a sub shop to eat. He asked if he could join them as he was hungry. They acquiesed When they got there, he realized he had no money as he had left all of it in his academic backpack. Well, the guys hooted, ordered their food and drink and would not lend him a dime though they had ample to easily do so. It started to rain in torrents, and they decided to leave him at the sub shop, about 3 miles from the school and let him walk. He did not have a cell phone either--I did get him one for his birhday a few months later, and they would not let him use theirs. They were all set to go when he asked them to give his brother a message as to where he was. Well, that stopped them in their tracks. Big brother is the football captain. They immediately made him order a sub and a drink and drove him back to the school telling him that he was toast if he told his brother about this. Well, Big brother was waiting for him, in the gym lobby and the moment he saw him come out of the car, he was livid. Apparently those fellows were not above hazing underclassmen, and it was really foolhardy of my younger son to have gotten into the car with them off campus. He immediately approached them and demanded to know what was going on. They insisted little brother was well treated, which he agreed he was. Well, those were all scholarship kids. Yeah, one of them had a car, they had money for subs, and they all had cell phones. My older son did not know they were on scholarship though he did know they were trouble but as Team Mom, I knew because they were not to be billed or charged for certain football functions. You don't need wealth to be a jerk, as those guys amply demonstrated. So unfortunately these acts of meanness occur with all kinds of kids. </p>
<p>Kirmum, I do have a read for you. A book called "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld. Not saying that this is an exact scene at boarding schools, but it is a peek inside. Actually applicable for colleges as well. Sort of a "Charlotte Simmons" for prepschools, alot of parallels.</p>