Boarding school transfer

Hello all,

My daughter is now a 9th grader at one of the most rigorous boarding schools. She is getting a bit tired of the amount of homework - the poor kid does nothing but study, which started negatively affecting her overall happiness there. Obviously, things can get better as she is mastering the time management skills, but she is at a point when she wants to consider transferring to another school.

The challenge is that she wants to do the application/transfer process without burning the bridges at her current school - If the transfer doesn’t work out, she would still like to stay. Has anyone had any similar situation? Your advice on how to navigate this process would be very much welcome.

@Calliemomofgirls has good insights on this topic.

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First year, first term (semester) can always be tough. Take a look at her course load. Has she been over-placed? Is the load hard because the topic is hard or moves too fast? Or is it too much busy work? Maybe it’s not really the homework, but social stresses (ie roommate)? Dig deeper before transferring.

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Yes, was just going to say you need to speak to calliemom ! Her daughter transferred from a tippy top last year. Great decision from everything we’ve heard.

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Thanks for the page @gardenstategal ! yep. I know this path well @Cinematronic. I would be happy to chat via DM. Also, you can poke around my posts from last year where I talk a little more about my daughter’s reasons for transferring, and our takeaways from that process. Long story short though: BEST decision for my daughter, and zero, zero, zero regrets. DM and we can talk more, and perhaps I can share some things to think about to help navigate best decision and process for your daughter. It’s a hard time for sure.

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@Cinematronic I’ll add here that once she did decide to transfer, she found out that three other freshman in her dorm (including her roommate) also applied to transfer out, and so I don’t think it’s unusual. Meaning, there is a way to apply without burning bridges. I don’t think schools take it personally – we were very nicely told “we aren’t for everyone” (maybe there was a tiny bit of “don’t let the door hit you” in that?) but overall, it didn’t seem like we were the only ones with this experience, and I’m sure some of them end up changing their mind and staying come March 10th.

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