You, your wife and daughter might be interested in a zoom meeting being held tomorrow night with involvement from several schools on your preliminary lists, including Berkshire, Suffield and Millbrook. The presentation is called “Why Boarding School.” Here’s the link for registration from Millbrook’s website: https://www.millbrook.org/admission/events–receptions
@ameridad thanks, that’s great!
@Golfgr8 honestly that comment and the one from @HMom16 are the kind of comments I was hoping to get from posting the lists.
Anyone else if you see what looks like an error, either from inclusion or exclusion, you are probably right. Please flag it for me.
Thanks.
Hi! Which St. Andrew is this? There are many St Andrew on SAO. Thanks.
The one in Delaware is the one talked about most here. I have no personal experience with it, but from prior posts understand it to have a culture of kindness consistent with what @dadof4kids is looking for. Also, it is 100% boarding.
The only question mark in my mind is how much of its culture is rooted specifically in the head master who just retired.
@CateCAParent I found it, thank you for your info.
New Hampton might make your B list (seems a good fit in every way except volleyball, but kids there are always trying new things so she’s bound to find something). It was my favorite school we visited for my “nice but average” kid.
Also, Cambridge School of Weston is a bit of an outlier on your list. There are many things to love about it, but the boarding program is really small, so unless that one really sticks out to you as having something the others schools don’t (and it does, but it might not be the things that are important to you), you might want to consider what boarding would be like with just a small percentage of the kids participating.
Thanks @vwlizard I will check out New Hampton.
Initally I liked CSW, but I’m getting more on the fence about it. I agree it’s an outlier, which I knew when I added it. What I didn’t realize at the time but do now is that there are less than 100 boarders. It’s on the B list now, and I’m guessing the lack of boarders is a dealbreaker. I figured it was one that if she got accepted and we visited it would either immediately jump to the top or the bottom of the list, but even if she loved everything else the lack of boarders is a big problem that will probably mean she won’t even apply.
I’ll probably put up a revised list in the next few days. I have one now, but it changes a couple of times a day whenever I have time to look at this or get other recommendations like you just made. So instead of giving everyone the play by play I’ll try to be a bit more efficient and respectful of everyone’s time and do some of the grunt work without constantly posting updates.
If you have other schools you would suggest for a “nice but average” kid I’m all ears, either here or in a PM.
Thanks for the input.
I’m surprised by the number of schools without volleyball. Not a dealbreaker, but there appear to be a lot of good schools that have it and otherwise seem to fit D’s criteria. So I’m guessing lack of volleyball will be the tiny factor that ends up keeping a few otherwise good schools off of the final list.
@Calliemomofgirls I’m sure you know this and probably were surprised too. At my tiny HS in the 80’s, volleyball was the only girls fall sport. All of the schools around us were the same way, and I think every PS I know of has volleyball around here, no matter how small. I thought it was as universal as basketball, but maybe I’m wrong.
I really think every BS is looking for kids who are community minded and kind. There wasn’t a school we visited that didn’t want kids who were going to add to the community. Of course, how they measured it and what that community looked like differed greatly. I’d note, that class cohort also matters. Many parents who have two or more kids close together who have sent them to any school, can note that the kids vary from year to year. Teaching and admin remain.
A handful of great kids can make a small class ( BS are usually 100-150). And for smaller schools, a handful of kids can really shift the vibe. For the larger schools it’s easier but those do tend to be more competitive in the sense that having more kids can create less cohesion.
I mention this only because I find that some subjective factors are inherent in the admin, other kids and what you, as a family value. One cannot measure kindness for example but you could measure how many kids participate in certain activities and what is celebrated ( in the newspaper/web/instagram). I think every parent is looking for a place where their kid can bloom. A place where they are stretched in every way but also respected and become a part of their community. Doesn’t every parent want their kids to be happy at school and learn good work habits? Just my two cents.
@dadof4kids There were a few, but most did seem to have VB. Hill, St. Georges, St. Mark’s are the only schools that come to mind right now that we considered but had to remove due to no VB. (As a side note, I’m surprised when a school doesn’t have it too since it would seem to be a pretty easy sport to include given it doesn’t take crazy-special equipment, like crew, for example. But turns out, I’m not the expert so no one asked me.)
I’ve come across 8 according my spreadsheet which doesn’t include the 3 mentioned above. Several of those are smaller schools with smaller endowments. So I get that some things are missing. But like @Calliemomofgirls said if you already have a gym, volleyball is super cheap, a few balls and a net.
Also like @Calliemomofgirls no one has asked my opinion. 
It’s a shame The Hill School doesn’t have volleyball as I think that might have been one to add to your list. It bills itself as the “Family boarding school” and I would have urged you to check it out.
I haven’t had enough time to really dig as deep as I need to, but here is a preliminary list, lets call it an A list and a B list. A is likely, B is possibly. Although I won’t be surprised if I end up moving more than one A off the list either. D has looked at some of these but much of the list is from me. Ultimately she will have to decide who makes the final cut and who doesn’t. My plan is to try to look at a couple of these a night with her, but I wanted to do the initial sort first.
A list. Mostly ones recommended by multiple people on CC. All of them I have done at least some checking out on their website. Fountain Valley I have not talked to anyone about, but it is drivable while the rest are not. If anyone has any experience with or opinions on them I would love to hear about it.
Cushing
Emma Willard
Fountain Valley (drivable)
George
Loomis Chaffee
Mercersburg
Millbrook
Northfield Mt Hermon
Pomfret
St Andrews
B list. Schools that either have something I love but also something I didn’t like about them, or more likely ones that at first glance seem good but I haven’t dug that deeply yet on. Many could well move up to the A list if I spent more time checking them out. Mostly these were suggestions, but a few that I stumbled across independently as well.
Berkshire
Blair
Brooks
Canterbury
Cate
Governors Academy
Kimball Union
Lawrenceville
Middlesex
Miss Porters
New Hampton
Putney
St Marks
Stevenson
Suffield
Taft
Thatcher
The Webb Schools
Westover
Westtown
I made a spreadsheet with some info pulled off of the boardingschools dot com site, supplemented a bit by info on the schools’ sites in some cases. By and large I am trying to avoid schools with less than 20% acceptance rates, although there are a few on there. She is a great kid in a lot of ways, but doesn’t bring anything special to the table, so if a school is mostly looking for that from their FA applicants then we don’t need to bother applying. I am also looking pretty hard at both the % of kids who get financial aid and the average amount. I figure in general the higher those #'s the better my odds. Looking at a few other things too.
What I care most about, and what doesn’t show up very well on the websites, is how chill the schools are and how nice the kids are. So I’m going to beat my broken drum, and ask for people to let me know, either on the board or by PM, if you think I have some schools on here that shouldn’t be. Also if you think I missed one by all means add it. I have plenty, but none are set in stone.
Thanks.
Kimball Union, New Hampton, Putney, St Marks, Westtown are tentatively off the list. No volleyball. After talking to D tonight I think that is more of a dealbreaker than I thought.
@dadof4kids - I can offer some insight on Canterbury and Westover. If you have any questions about either, feel free to PM me!
One suggestion, as you narrow your list, consider reading/skimming the Student / Parent Handbook at each school. It provides a wealth of information that isn’t usually available on the website. For example, some schools have more structure (i.e. specific rules/times/location for study) while others trust the kids to work that out and only step in if necessary.
Covid has made many schools more restrictive/structured so I think I would look for last year’s handbooks.
We found that schools that had styles more in line with my parenting style to be a better fit for our kids.
Thanks for the continued help, both here and in PM’s.
@HMom16 I think that’s a great idea, but I am struggling to find the handbooks. Any suggestions? I found them for St. Andrews and Cushing, but that’s it. In fairness, I haven’t dug super deep at several of those schools, particularly on the B list. But I have looked for handbooks at every site I go to, and I just can’t seem to find them.
You hit the nail on the head for why I am looking. I think that there are lots of different parenting styles, and some advantages and disadvantages to every approach. Mine isn’t exactly a complete hands off free range method, but it’s closer to that than probably many of you may be. My general philosophy is to let them make some mistakes (as long as the consequences aren’t too high) and learn from those consequences. Obviously this doesn’t extend to drug or alcohol use, or dating a boy who is much older or a host of other things. There are limits, and I try to prevent them from making life altering mistakes. My theory is that in a few years they will be in college and then can do what they want, so they need to learn HOW to make good choices, not have them all made for them. There are limits, but they tend to be extended a bit further for my kids than their contemporaries I think. (Although part of my current problem is that D25 is starting to have friends with truly no rules, which causes problems. But that’s a different topic.)
As an example, I give my kids plenty of advice about sleep and getting homework done early, but if they are up at midnight doing homework because they watched Netflix I tend to not hand out discipline, just point out how the reason they are tired in the morning is because of what they did last night. I’m a big believer in natural consequences.
Having said all of that I don’t want to go down a parenting style rabbit hole. I’m sure we can come with 50 different ways to do it, and not convince anyone else that we are right.
The reason I said that is to see if anyone has further refined recommendations based on that. I know BS will be more structure than she is used to, she knows it too. But I don’t want it to be such a drastic change that she rebels against it and wants to leave.
St. Andrews gave me a bit of pause when I read their handbook. Although that was the first one I found, and l get that what works overseeing 4 kids does not work when you are responsible for 400. I have had to adjust the rules on the fly on occasion, and frankly different kids had slightly different rules based on the trust I had of them and of their peer group. Again something that works at my house but wouldn’t at BS. I also know at the LPS what is printed in the rulebook isn’t exactly they way everything is handled in real life. It’s hard to know that until you are there probably.
Any advice for where to find the handbooks or on which schools would be less of a shock to a kid who is used to being left to her own discretion on making good choices?
@dadof4kids , I can see that George School’s community handbook requires authentication to download and I would guess that many are like this. When you interview, you will have an opportunity to ask questions, so you may want to start with the most broad brush approach to these. (Some schools may be happy to make the handbook available to you.)
What is your approach/consequences when kids break rules? One strike?
For which offenses? Who’s on the discipline committee?
When students have a free period or evening study hall, are they assigned to a space and supervised?
How are parents expected to communicate with the school about their child? Will I know if my kid has some sort of infraction?
I’m sure you can think of more, and particularly if you preface the questions with “I’m trying to get a sense of the culture here and your philosophy around how you support kids in doingthe right thing”, I think you will get helpful answers.
We looked at schools that kept kids on a pretty tight leash with the philosophy being "we won’t let them make mistakes " to ones that had quite a bit of trust in the kids and felt that a “poor choice” with consequences was a good way to learn responsibility for one’s actions. A lot of this, as you note, will depend on who your kid is and how comfortable you are with the system. A kid who absolutely needs the structure of supervised study hall is a bad fit for a school that allows kids to sign themselves out and go to Starbucks if they don’t have an "obligation " in their schedule.
You had me curious about the SAS handbook so I just looked it up. Had DD2 ended up at SAS, I wonder if she would have been the first kid in history to be expelled for all the marks for overdue library items. :). (just kidding around; kind of.). DD3 is more on top of that kind of thing, so I think we’ll be OK.). :).
Rather than look on the website, I googled “Middlesex Parent Handbook” and this was one of the first listings:
https://www.mxschool.edu/parents/middlesex-handbook/
Did the same for Millbrook and came up with one that’s a little dated but better than nothing:
https://www.millbrook.org/news-detail?pk=791652
Another approach would just be to email the admissions offices of the schools in group A. When we were looking, they were all happy to provide the handbook prior to our applying. Some were only available in hardcopy though.