Boarding School

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Boarding School. My parents think it's like going to the moon and never seeing them again. I however know the story. I've done research. I've looked and schools. I've also gathered pamphlets in the mail. Now all I need to know is... is it worth it?</p>

<p>I am most definitely a social butterfly. I text 24/7, FB, Instagram, call my friends, and have plans EVERY Friday night. But since I am so focused on being "cool", I am afraid to speak out and be smart in the classroom. I don't raise my hand. I'm nervous when presenting, and I do not think my school experience should be like that. So I'm making a change. </p>

<p>If you are/have been in boarding school, or have a child in BS, could you please answer some of these questions?</p>

<p>1) Like I said, I am a social butterfly that just wants to become a wise owl. But I still want my freedom wings. Is there social time? Like hanging out when homework is done, watching TV,taking a walk, or even just sitting in the library talking?</p>

<p>2) Is it lonely? Will your friends walk with you to class? Or will everyone be SO focused on academics that all you get is an unfriendly, "Hello" ??</p>

<p>3) Is it worth it? The big question. It takes time. Money. And takes you away from your family. But is it worth the struggle? Do colleges really care if you're a straight A boarding school student or a straight A public highschooler? So, does it pay off in the long run? (just the whole being away from your home part)</p>

<p>4) What are the dorms like?</p>

<p>5) (stupid question) but what are merit scholarships? We aren't the richest family around and certainly do NOT have an extra $40,000 sitting around every year. So what are merit scholarships, how do you earn them, and how much do they give you towards tuition?</p>

<p>6) Anything else you can add to help me convince my parents?</p>

<p>(please comment little hate against me. i've been debating over this for over 2 months and can't think of a reason NOT to, and I keep coming back to the subject.)</p>

2

<p>If your parents don’t like the idea, it’s probably not up for debate. </p>

<p>If you’re really serious about trying to convince them, though, you need to be researching financial aid above all else. Because boarding school is really flipping expensive if you don’t get financial aid, and it’s just not a viable option for most kids. </p>

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<p>My first suggestion is to just get the hell over it. (Seriously…no one cares if you speak up in class.) Your parents don’t need to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year just so you don’t have to feel slightly awkward the first few times you talk in class. I think you’re probably romanticizing the idea of boarding school anyway. </p>

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<p>Neither one gets any special advantage just by virtue of where they went to school…they both performed well in their respective environments. They won’t be directly compared to each other, at least not on the basis of their high school grades.
Most kids don’t have a choice in whether they go to a public school or not, and colleges can’t penalize them for that.</p>

3

<p>I’m at boarding school, but it’s pretty different here so I won’t be much help :slight_smile: The only thing I can say is that one of my parents was pretty against the idea, I just had to convince them that the academics and my future were worth it.</p>

<p>I strongly suggest the prep school admissions section, which is mainly about boarding schools.</p>

4

<p>Hey, I have 3 cousins currently in boarding school and I’m applying this year and will hopefully be there next year as a postgrad. This is what I can say, from my limited experience:</p>

<p>1) The work is rigorous, but the thing about living in school 24/7 is that you’re basically social 24/7. Usually everyone’s involved in lots of fun ECs and there’s plenty of social events, like dances, trips to town, etc. </p>

<p>2) My cousin who’s a senior this year is the opposite of lonely at her boarding school! She actually enjoys coming home just to get a break from being so social. Again, living with people 24/7 kind of forces you into making buddies. However, my other cousin (a junior) who goes to a more well-known and competitive prep school and is a LOT shyer than her, had a hard time making friends his freshman year. He told me his school is filled with rich, snotty kids who don’t go out of their way to make friends with those outside the clique. But as stated, my other cousin had the complete opposite experience so I guess it depends how YOU are as a person and which school is the better fit for you. You said you’re pretty used to being social already so I think you should be fine. Join a lot of ECs to get to know people outside of class. My guy cousin didn’t do that and I think that seriously hurt him in terms of making friends.</p>

<p>3) YESSSS it’s worth it. I’m the only kid in my family who opted out of going, and I seriously regret it, which is why I’m hopefully doing a PG year before college. There’s so many more opportunities to take advantage of at a good prep school than most public schools. ECs can be stellar depending on where you go. At my crappy public school, we didn’t have any of the ECs my cousins’ have/had at prep school, such as model UN, model Congress, debate team, math olympiad, etc. I know a lot of prep schools with great internship and study abroad programs as well! Also, prep schools tend to have more teachers with advanced degrees and therefore serve to enrich the classes. My public school teachers are either hit or miss, with the majority being really awful. Thirdly, prep schools have a larger selection of classes to choose from. At my cousin’s school, you can take classes in microbiology, organic chemistry, differential equations, etc. </p>

<p>Ultimately, I think the biggest difference between prep and public are the quality of students. Going off of what my cousins have told me, everyone at prep school really wants to be there and is interested in learning. You won’t find them getting into fistfights everyday or being disrespectful to the teacher. At public school, I have had a hard time fitting in socially because the kids here are the complete opposite of respectful. No one is interested in ECs save for sports and consequently we have few of them. The classrooms are like zoos, especially the non-AP ones. </p>

<p>If I could do it all over again, I’d have went to prep (or even private) school all 4 years.</p>

5

<p>Ok, so I said NO HATE. I get what you were trying to say but you could have said it a LOT nicer than how you did. Thanks for your input on how stupid and conceded I am though; it REALLY helped.</p>

<p>@halcyonheather</p>

6

<p>(Actually, you said you wanted “little hate.” My post is only about 10% hate. That’s little.)</p>

<p>But seriously… </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Discussions with your parents about whether it’s affordable, and whether it’s possible to make it affordable, should come before all else. You act like financial aid is an afterthought. From what I understand the financial aid at top boarding schools is pretty good for lower-income families, but you’ll need to research that, and then show it to your parents. </p></li>
<li><p>If you’re afraid to speak up in class, going to a different school is probably not going to help with that. That alone is a silly reason for going to a different school, especially if it’s expensive and would require you to leave your family.</p></li>
</ol>

7

<p>Learn1260, I can see how going to a boarding school could be worth it for you. I wonder if you could get your parents to give you enough information to fill out the standard private secondary school financial aid application, get the report that shows how much your parents would be expected to contribute, and see if that helps your parents look more favorably on your goals. Also, get them to visit a good one and let them see how the kids they encounter there compare to the kids you are hanging with now. In my experience, boarding school kids display a lot more confidence and good manners in their interactions with adults than you generally see with kids who live at home and attend high school. Your parents will likely see something they like a lot in the demeanor of the kid who shows them around the school, or best of all, in the panels of boarding kids who some schools put forward to answer questions from prospective students and their parents on certain days. School rules do not allow kids to text 24/7, could be a big selling point as well.</p>

8

<p>“Freedom with responsibility” you should go to boarding school more for the academics and opportunities rather than the social aspect.</p>

9

<p>Hey @Learn1260! I’m a freshman at a boarding school now :slight_smile:

  1. There’s time to text/hang out with friends, but there isn’t that much time to watch TV…at least live. My school (and I think a lot of others) have a Study Hall from 7:30-9:30 which is pretty much when all the tv shows are on, so I do most my TV watching on the weekends. For the fall term, our prefects are taking away our phones during study hall and that may continue. I don’t think every freshman dorm does that (I know they don’t take away phones for 4th form/10th grade +), though. I sort of like it because there are less distractions.<br>
    Bottom line: you will have free time :slight_smile:
  2. I suppose you could make it lonely if you wanted to? You can definitely get your “alone time” if you want it, but no I wouldn’t call it lonely. Whether or not your friends walk with you depends on what class each of you have (like Friend A has class in Building B and you have class in Building C, you wouldn’t walk with her) but people aren’t going to not walk with you because they’re so focused on academics. And yeah, people (you know) will say hi to you when you cross paths - and not in an unfriendly way!
  3. Okay. I’m only a Freshman so I honestly don’t know if it’s worth it. I’d imagine that straight A’s at a boarding school mean more than straight A’s at public school.
  4. I’m probably not the best person to answer this because my school is a little weird when it comes to dorms. We have two “villages” for the Freshmen-they keep all us freshmen together so we can get to know each other and what not. There’s one sophomore boys dorm in my village and I think there might be a sophomore boys dorm in the other. Each dorm has 10 freshmen and 2 junior/senior prefects (for the Freshmen - we also have various bigger dorms for 4th-6th formers where the grades are mixed) I’m (thankfully) in the newer dorms, so our dorm is really nice. The other ones aren’t bad but they have smaller common rooms. They’ll show you a dorm on your tour haha.
  5. I think it varies by school but I think you have to submit an extra essay for it?
  6. My dad had gone to boarding school but my mom really didn’t want me to go (well he didn’t want me to go either but he was open to the idea). What I did was I just asked them to let me APPLY. That’s always a good starting point :slight_smile:
    You can PM me or something if you have any more q’s :)</p>