<p>Westover and Emma Willard! Obvious bias over here, but I love them and so does my sister.</p>
<p>Hill, Blair and Mercersburg.</p>
<p>Peddie. Take a good look at it.</p>
<p>Lots of excellent single-sex schools get looked over. Emma Willard, Miss Porter's, Chatham Hall, and Westover are all amazing (and I'm leaving out several others with which I am less familiar--someone help me out.) </p>
<p>These are places that get less attention on this board despite the fact that the quality of their faculties, facilities, and academics make them competitive with many of the schools that do get mentioned.</p>
<p>The Hun School...it's in the MAPL although not as well known as some of the other MAPL schools, but it's got some terrific teachers.</p>
<p>I think Hun has too high a percentage of day students.</p>
<p>thacher and cate.</p>
<p>momofwildchild - what do you mean?</p>
<p>I would look at Hun as a day school that has boarders as opposed to being a boarding school. I went to a school in the area that had a low percentage of boarders (now none) and I never regarded my school as a boarding school nor did I regard Hun as a boarding school. Yes, it happens to have boarders, but that's not the mission.</p>
<p>That said, I did get viewbook materials from them for boarding and their activities and events for the boarding community on weekends was quite substantial. So it's not like they ignore boarders or that they're an afterthought when it comes to the way the school treats the boarders. I'm speaking only of my subjective perception as to whether I'd classify Hun as a boarding school.</p>
<p>D'yer Maker- I went to school in the area (Princeton Country Day, then Princeton Day School) myself and agree that Hun was never really thought of as a boarding school. That said, Hun's reputation seems to have come up in the world over the last 20 years or so.</p>
<p>Curious -- what area school were you at that took boarders and no longer does?
I can't come up with it.</p>
<p>I agree about Hun. The only two schools I can think of that were once boarding and are now day are Delbarton and Kent Place.</p>
<p>Oh, I see. I mean, that does make sense, Hun has more day students than boarding. But the percentages are about 60/40, plus, I mean, the way I see it, if a school has "boarders" it is a boarding school. As opposed to like Princeton Day or something. Of course I also kinda view "boarding school" as really a synonym for the more generic "private school" so if that isn't what you guys think of when you think "boarding school" then I apologize.</p>
<p>Actually Hun is about 30% boarding, 70% day.</p>
<p>I strongly recommend against boarding at a school with less than 60% boarders. It changes the whole focus of the community. My son attended one in Austin, TX and it was a disaster in many ways.</p>
<p>was that school by any chance a school that used to be a seminary?</p>
<p>Well, I didn't go to Kent Place! That's where many of us Delbarton guys found our prom dates.</p>
<p>About this concept of private schools changing over the past 20 years (actually 25+ for me), where'd you come up with that crazy notion, fun is fun?!?!</p>
<p>Actually, last October I was talking with someone here in Dixie about New Jersey private schools and she mentioned Blair and I started telling her about it. I was about 2, maybe 3, sentences in and I hit the brakes. Time out. What I was starting to tell her was a quarter century old, seen from the eyes of a high school student, based largely on two actual visits to the campus for football games over a 4 year period. While the memories are vivid and it seems like yesterday, I had to respect the fact that my reality and the rest of the world's reality can be wildly divergent at times.</p>
<p>In fact, as I alluded to above, the viewbook materials for Hun that I looked through last fall were surprising to me -- in only good ways.</p>
<p>When I was at Delbarton it was about 10-15% boarders. Until I was looking at boarding schools for my S, I hadn't consciously considered what it was like to be a boarder at a Benedictine monastery school on weekends. </p>
<p>During the course of one of our BS road trips this fall, we were traveling on some tedious Massachusetts byway when my S asked me how I interacted with the boarders at Delbarton as a day student. </p>
<p>I said, "On weekends, unless there was a school dance, I basically forgot about them." </p>
<p>He thought for a moment and rationalized my apparent indifference for me. "Well, that's because you weren't really friends with them, right?" </p>
<p>I thought back to those days as best I could and said, "Well, actually, I was pretty good friends with some of them." </p>
<p>"But you didn't visit them or have them come to your home?" </p>
<p>Sheepishly, I said "No. To be honest it never occurred to me."</p>
<p>"You're evil."</p>
<p>In my defense, I think boarding in the 1970s was a much different experience and students and parents had much different expectations of a boarding experience. If you disagree, please do so privately as I prefer to delude myself into thinking I'm not nearly as evil as my S thinks I am.</p>
<p>D'yer Delbarton is a great school -- absolutely great! It's incredibly hard to get into now. Fierce competition!! Nice to know that you went there. They have a new art building that is fabulous and great summer programs too. Why didn't you look for girls at Villa Walsh? A good walk through the woods would get you there!</p>
<p>Lawrence Academy at Groton--an ISL school founded in the 1700s.
Very unique school--rarely mentioned on CC. It features an 'adventure term.' Also, it enables self-motivated students to devise their own conservatory-style curriculum to suit a given interest, (i.e. film, music, computers, etc.)
Definitely the artsiest school in the ISL. (This comparison comes to mind: Lawrence:ISL as Brown:Ivy League.)</p>
<p>Wow, Lawrence sounds like a really good school. I wish I looked into it. (Brown is my dream college.)</p>
<p>Lawrence (LA) is interesting because it has an interesting balance of very artsy students and very strong athletic teams in hockey and basketball.</p>