<p>What is the best choice you've ever made at boarding school?? What made you get that idea??</p>
<p>If you've just applied for boarding school, what made you get the idea to apply?? Did you have to convince your parents??</p>
<p>My sister went so that is how I got the idea… And because my sister went my parents were absolutely fine with the idea of me going to boarding school</p>
<p>the idea of being surrounded by people who are interested to learn, unlike my current scchool. (I just applied for 2013)</p>
<p>Same with turks12345
My peers think its cool to be stupid.
And I wanted to get out of that environment.</p>
<p>I had to convince my mum to let me apply the first time round (didn’t meat deadlines) the second time round she said no, and the third time round she said she didn’t want me to, but that I was old enough to choose for myself, so I’m going 
My dad went to boarding school, so he was fine with it. I always wanted to go private for a few years of high school, and once we started looking all the decent schools are either in London, south coast or the middle of berkshire/surrey, all of which are between 1 and 2 hours away, so just too far to commute.</p>
<p>Oh my god. I am so glad I’m not alone in this situation, happyskittles and turks12345. I could give you a million examples of classmate stupidity right now, but I don’t want to hurt your brain 
All I know is that boarding school will be 100% full of smart, dedicated students who made their way to a top boarding school that wants to make them even smarter, while still having fun and a social life. <em>sigh as I dream of March 10</em></p>
<p>“All I know is that boarding school will be 100% full of smart, dedicated students who made their way to a top boarding school that wants to make them even smarter, while still having fun and a social life.”</p>
<p>I hope you are kidding. Because no matter where you end up going, this will certainly not be true. No school is 100% smart dedicated student who love learning and working hard/playing hard.</p>
<p>I think you’ll find the percentage of these types of students is much higher than at most public high schools, but if you think it’s going to be the Jeopardy teen tournament every day, I think you will be disappointed. As a wise person once said to me “Putting anything up on a pedestal allows it to inevitably get knocked off that pedestal.”</p>
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<p>To the OP…I’m a parent, not a student, but I think my daughter would say that one of the best choices she’s made at BS is to really dive into things…join that club, play that sport, volunteer, go meet your teacher during office hours to sort out that question you’ve had about his/her class material, say “yes” when some random person asks you to join a group of kids you don’t know for lunch/dinner/formal. Don’t overextend yourself, of course, but take this opportunity to embrace all that BS has to offer.</p>
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<li>one and more for 7D’s daughter’s “dive into things”</li>
</ul>
<p>You may have heard it before in a movie, or classics course: “carpe diem!”. </p>
<p>As to the second set of questions . . . You won’t get in if the target school knows you failed “to convince” your parents that they should support you in this BS relationship. So, that’s worth being clear about. </p>
<p>The first set of questions are more interesting. If you do dive into things, you may well feel “overextended” – but how much? A lot is bad, but some to middling probably means you’re making good choices! The experience of students I’m familiar with suggests that freshmen will see lower grades than they were used to, because the prep schools simply set higher standards than the middle schools. AND because you’re not studying all of the time. The BS life is about infinitely more than the numbers or letters on your report card. After three years, these will shake out to what is a reasonable reflection of your academic skills. But you will have chosen to make yourself into a better human being by seizing the day and the opportunities presented. You will hear variations of, and specifics on, this general idea in many “chapel” talks when you go to BS.</p>
<p>Adding to what I had said before, going to BS would be a great opportunity to learn about new cultures, expirement sports, activities, courses, etc. you have never had the chance to try(like 7dad said). Plus, I would not only grow as a student but also as a human being by becoming ´a strong independant woman.´ I currently go to a private day school where most (like 95% of the students) have their lives already planned out for them. Their parents own companies what not and they think that they have everything planned out, therefore they dont even try to do their avg to not say best while in class. I mean, if you are given the opportunity to try your best, then why not take the risk? that is why boarding school is the place I want to be in. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In this case, attending BS is the lemonade.</p>
<p>Most importantly when you are new-- WAIT TO DATE. Don’t isolate yourself from everyone by starting up in a relationship right away.</p>
<p>^ Haha, good advice, indeed.</p>
<p>Also I imagine a reputation gained early at a new school would be hard to shift.</p>