<p>Very good advice hsmomstef--not only for the OP, but for all applicants!</p>
<p>Also, consider the finances of the school. I do not know anything about NMH but I do know that Peddie received a huge gift from an alumni a few years ago - at the time it was the largest single gift ever given to a secondary school. I think it has made quite a difference to the facilities, the campus, and the teacher salaries.
Peddie is in a small town about 10 miles from Princeton. I do not think the town has much to offer. Perhaps the town NMH is in might be nicer - but I don't know.
Good luck with your son's decision. Both of the schools are great schools!</p>
<p>No....NMH is also near small towns in a rural area. Scenic and pretty, though! NMH is quite generouse with their fa and has also been the recipient of some large gifts recently.</p>
<p>You are getting excellent advice. "Fit" is everything. How well do you know your son? How concerned are you with his happiness? Your posts are focused purely on 'prestige', suggesting that what is important to you is that he "succeed" based on a model that says prep school/ivy league college/ivy league graduate professional school. Is that what he wants? Is what he wants important to you and your family? What if your son decides he wants to major in theatre set design? What if he wants to build houses for the poor? What if he wants to put on a backpack and tour Africa? Are you and your family going to be ok with this? </p>
<p>This is why those of us who have responded to you probably seem unhelpful to you. We don't know you, what motivates you and your family, and we don't know what motivates your son.</p>
<p>Maybe this will help, maybe not, but here's my D's motivation. She is in a public high school here in the US. She gets good grades. She plays three sports. She tests reasonably well. She is well liked. Her teachers gave her nice recommendations. By any standard, staying in her public school, she would be a 'success.' But she wanted more. When she told us she wanted to go to BS she said she knew she could stay at our PS and do fine and get admitted to a very good college or university. But in three years she knows she wouldn't have any more idea of who she is or what passions she wants to pursue than she does today. So she wants to go to BS to learn to be a better learner, to be exposed to more, to be surrounded by teachers and students who aspire and inspire. </p>
<p>So in choosing a boarding school, we focused on schools that seem to promote learning rather than acquiring credentials to get to an Ivy League college. We believe we found one in NMH. If your motivation for your son is to credential him to get to an Ivy League college, and the love of learning is unimportant, I would not recommend NMH. Partly because I think it would be a waste of an education, and partly because I hope my D meets and interacts with people who want to learn for the sake of learning and for whom something other than an Ivy League education is no failure.</p>
<p>"Why we send the applicant out of his home country to US for boarding school? The main reason is we want to give him better chance to have the top-level college education - IVY as we expected can be good choice - and we thought BS can be good preparation for colleges."</p>
<p>PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE -- stop thinking about Ivies as the only top-level college education in this country. There are many excellent schools, both universities and liberal arts colleges. The Ivies are just eight of them. I don't know why international students and their parents seem to privilege the Ivies ... but the truly prestigious people in the United States aren't obsessed with the Ivies.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl and Laxtaxi -- while you are spot on with your observations about the importance of an ivy league education, keep in mind that people that live outside the US are in another culture entirely. </p>
<p>Internationals focus on the Ivy League for the same reason that the only two schools in the United Kingdom that anyone talks about are Oxford and Cambridge. It is name recognition -- and you can't say that the ivies don't have international name recognition. Another point to consider is that if the student plans to return to their home country after graduating from college, a degree from an excellent LAC in the states may be worthless. They have to function in their culture -- not ours.</p>
<p>While I do not see Ivy admittance as the end goal, for many families it is. Rather than making it seem like they don't care about their student or that they should just go elsewhere so that their grade-grubbing kids don't infect yours, you may want to suggest they actually attend a US boarding school that really cares about the kid and his interests and passions. Given the opportunity to bloom and grow, that same kid who thought that Harvard was the only goal to aim for may find his world expanded and his options limitless. That is actually the beauty of a good education.</p>
<p>hsmomstef -- you have said what I want to say. Since the culture and social background is different between US ones and ones from other countries, IVIES do mean a lot to us. </p>
<p>I did not say colleges other than IVIES are not good. Actually they are. Yes, we care more about the recognition. That is why intl students always focus on the matriculation.</p>
<p>Valid points, duly noted and expressed well. I accept that rocncyber's reasons for sending her S to boarding school differ greatly from my family's reasons for allowing my D to attend. I also respect rocncyber's candor in acknowledging that the name brand means a lot. </p>
<p>Expressing that same candor, I acknowledge that I want to minimize the grade pressure on my D and I don't want her sucked into the Ivy-or-failure mentality. That is why I am attracted to NMH. Of those I know who attended or sent their families they talk of the quality of the education and the relationships formed between students and faculty, and the pressure to attend certain colleges seems collaborative and supportive rather than do-or-die. </p>
<p>Hsmomstef, your thoughts about sending a child to BS to expand horizons beyond the international family's focus on brand names are lovely and well-stated. Given rocncyber's focus on prestige and emphasis on getting to an Ivy, I would think NMH my not be the best choice as I think that there are many distractions - intellectual, social and otherwise - there that might cause her S to deviate from the family's chosen path.</p>
<p>as an asian student (more specifically, KOREAN), i know what us think of colleges. i know a friend who got accepted to lawrenceville, but her parents are only thinking of her waitlist to andover. arguably, andover is the most famous boarding school in the states. unlike other asian parents, my father (having gone to blair) knows the pressure and importance of the love of learning. while asian parents typically want their kids to go to ivy league schools, my father's only hope for me is to be happy and doing what i like. i am so thankful to have a father who understands that prestige isn't everything.</p>
<p>my advice for you is to make sure your parents know that prestige isn't important as well finding a school that just fits for you.</p>
<p>this year i am going to peddie and i thihnk its the perfect fit for me. i got waitlisted to NMH but i rejected the chance to be in their waitlist cus i didn't the school fit me. peddie is a slightly smaller school but it is drastically imprving while also having a strong academic and athletic program. because it has a small student body, peddie will give u a lot of individual attention which i am grateful for.</p>
<p>wow i made a couple of stupid grammar errors (cus im eating right now) but yeah i hope u guys get the point</p>
<p>How can you go to Peddie if your father went to Blair? I'm surprised he's letting you go! :)</p>
<p>hahahah i know my dad definitely hesitated!!! </p>
<p>but i mentioned that in my interview at peddie and it was al just a good laugh...hahaha</p>
<p>Hey Gunner,</p>
<p>what grade did you apply for ?</p>
<p>Do you receive any Financial aid ?</p>
<p>i applied for grade 10 and i am in 9th grade right now</p>
<p>and no i did not receive any FA and i did not sign up for it either</p>
<p>gunner, would you mind PMing me your stats (or some general things on your EC's and rough grade) because I'm applying next year as a 9th grader to 10th grade, and not a lot of people here apply at that age (at least comparing with the 8th graders applying to 9th) never mind a URM asian.</p>
<p>congrats to peddie btw (:</p>