<p>I have to admit that there is nothing better than a Troll to get fun is fun and D'yer on the same page. Now THAT is worth the price of admission. LOL</p>
<p>Keep up the good work folks!</p>
<p>Don't get too giddy, goaliedad. I'm pretty sure that fun is fun was addressing me.</p>
<p>i didn't say boarding school was hell or that it was the worst place on earth, nor did i say it had no redeeming qualities. i said i didn't like it. most people i knew were neutral-to-negative about it, at best somewhat positive. the people who hated it the most were very often the ones who'd spent a couple of years in a normal high school. </p>
<p>i came to this board looking up information on an unrelated topic and saw this place. i come in here and see all these kids (or ostensibly kids, as i said, probably their parents) gushing about how excited they are and how great it's going to be based on revisits or brochures or whatever. well, everybody feels like for the first couple of weeks. then reality sets in. maybe you'll come out thinking that it was an overall positive experience, but i'm telling you, it's not going to live up to all of your expectations. in most respects, it will probably be a let-down.</p>
<p>you can talk all you want about 14 year olds spreading their wings and becoming independent and blah blah blah, but at the end of the day they're still just kids. barely even teenagers. you wouldn't trust them to drive a car, drink, or have sex for that reason exactly. i'm in my early 20s, and when you send your kids to boarding school you're often entrusting them to be raised by someone my age. fresh out of college, first real job etc.</p>
<p>look, you can flame me and insult me all you want, but i honestly wish none of you ill will and i hope all your kids love boarding school and do fantastic there. just remember that everybody's parents think they're doing fine until they get that call from the dean because we suspect or caught so-and-so doing such-and-such. were you totally open with your parents at age 16?</p>
<p>You can say what you want about trolling, I am convinced this guy is not a troll.</p>
<p>OK, lbftw, if you didn't enjoy your experience, tell us how long you stayed there and why? And why did you go in the first place? Your idea of your parents?</p>
<p>I think the folks here could learn something about what makes for a bad fit at boarding school.</p>
<p>i guess i'm a troll because i don't think boarding school is all that great.</p>
<p>i posted some feedback in some kid's thread about getting into st. paul's. what do you want me to say? i could give you a million things i wish i'd done or been better about, but i doubt it would make any difference. either you've got it or you don't.</p>
<p>i stayed all 4 years. was my parents idea. i didn't really want to but didn't really object either, and eventually just kinda got talked into it. i stayed mainly because i felt like leaving would be a pussy thing to do, and that it would reflect poorly on me.</p>
<p>I think my job is done here .Finally.... discussion</p>
<p>you've got what it takes to do well, or you don't. if you do, you'll figure it out. if not, you're in for a rocky ride. any advice i could give would probably fall on deaf ears.</p>
<p>You need to talk about your BS experience on this board i believe it will help .</p>
<p>The original poster (OP) has a legitimate point in that boarding school is not for everyone. I know parents that wanted boarding school for their child, but the student was happy, challanged and growing socially and intellectually at the current school. Why disrupt a good situation? Especially with the popularity and availability of honors and AP courses at local public and day prep schools. Boarding schools are increasingly looking at Asian students as an important market segment to maintain "full occupancy" due, in large part, to the substantial academic opportunities offered by private day schools and top public schools.</p>
<p>i believe that. seems like fewer and fewer of the old school wasp set and more and more new money. bush didn't send either of his daughters to prep school.</p>
<p>bush didn't send either of his daughters to prep school.</p>
<p>Prep schools don't serve beer at lunch.;>)</p>
<p>bush didn't send either of his daughters to prep school.</p>
<p>Prep schools don't serve beer at lunch.;>)</p>
<p>My bad ..except for South Kent :>0</p>
<p>i think everybody needs to be nicer on this site. I mean come one, lbftw is just telling us of his experience. Just because you disagree with him doesn't give you an excuse to call him names and be mean. this is supposed to be a site for nice people, not people who don't respect each other's opinions anhd are gonna trash talk anyone they disagee with.</p>
<p>i think lftw has good points, and although i am definitely still applying, i respect his opinion and do not think he's a troll.</p>
<p>play nice.</p>
<p>Nelly,</p>
<p>I have moved lbftw off of the troll list now, as he has added some personal evidence to his argument (about 10 posts ago) that boarding school has problems. Prior to that, the summation of posts I saw were negative generalizations that anyone could rattle off whether or not they went to boarding school.</p>
<p>I can see that a student who doesn't really want to go to boarding school will often be much more bothered by those problems than someone who goes a boarding school because it it their idea. And sadly enough, many kids do fake wanting to go to a school at the interview, just to please their parents. And admissions folks can be fooled by good actors.</p>
<p>In the adult experience, this would be similar to the attitudes expressed by people who have experienced a bad marraige and stayed in it because it was expected of them. They tend to focus on those negative parts of the experience that wouldn't bother a happily married adult that much. </p>
<p>Glad to see some light after all this heat...</p>
<p>Sorry NeLLyRaE, but the guy's an adult, not a kid. It took until post #83 before he began to back up his conclusory warnings of large-scale disaster. He wasn't sharing his experience as you say. It wasn't until early this morning that we got some meaningful information about his experience. Prior to that he refused to discuss his experience in any useful way. </p>
<p>His point is accurate for some, but not all. He started out making a blanket assertion that boarding school is wrong for everyone (except for the St. Paul's applicant who he encouraged in a backhanded way) and that sort of advice is as preposterous as someone saying boarding school is right for everyone. He's been fighting a straw man: the person who thinks BS is right for everyone. Nobody here makes that claim. Nobody.</p>
<p>Bush's daughters did, in fact, attend a prestigious prep school when the family lived in Dallas. When they moved to Austin, they attended public school, but DID interview at a prep school there. It isn't really good form for a Governor's kids to not attend the public schools in the state.</p>
<p>OK, my first reaction to lbftw was that he was a troll. After some thought and based on some of his/her further posts, I have revised my opinion. Most of the posters here are kids who are either in BS or applying, or their parents. I think this can lead to a somewhat one sided and idealized view of the BS experience. When someone like lbftw comes on who is almost completely negative about the BS experience it creates a cognitive disonance that is upsetting to our happy little community of posters.</p>
<p>However, the points he makes are not without some validity. BS is expensive and at least some of the students will be snotty, preppy, spoiled rich kids. All of these schools have had scandals. Milton was in the news a few years ago with a "sex scandal" that involved members of the hockey team. A few weeks ago there was another scandal when one student was expelled and several others were suspended after hacking into the school computer and changing grades. St. Pauls had a financial scandal" involving its headmaster a few years ago, and if you go back a few more years a scandal involving a respected teacher who sexually harassed a number of female students. Choate had a drug scandal about 20 years ago that ended up being a story on 60 Minutes. Groton had a hazing scandal a few years ago. </p>
<p>Of course public high schools also their fair share of scandals, drug problems, hook ups, etc. - we are after all talking about a concentrated population of 14-18 year olds. You just don't hear about these scandals because they don't occur at prestigious, well known schools.</p>
<p>However, while lbftw does offer us a reality check by pointing out some of the negatives of BS life, ultimately I think that, for the right kid, the positives far outweigh the negatives, and I think that some of his arguments are flat out wrong. The caliber of teachers at the top boarding schools is far higher than at a local high school. They are also more available and more committed to establishing a personal relationship with their students.</p>
<p>For most kids, the quality and depth of the friendships you develop with your classmates will be stronger than they would at a day school.</p>
<p>The facilities, breadth of course offerings, opportunity for extra-curricular activities, etc, is far greater at most boarding schools than it is at most public schools.</p>
<p>The maturity, self-reliance and self-confidence you will have after you graduate from boarding school will make the transition to college MUCH easier.</p>
<p>BS clearly is not for everyone; and its sad that lbftw is so bitter about his/her experience. I think his/her view of BS is unduly negative, distorted and in some instances flat out wrong. However, no BS is a utopia. If you think otherwise your view will be equally distorted and you are bound to be disappointed with the reality.</p>
<p>BTW - to respond to lbftw's comment that none of the posters know what they're talking about/lack personal experience, I strongly suspect we both attended the same BS. (Only I went there when the school was slightly larger and shortly before the board of trustees was merged).</p>
<p>While I disagree with ibfts's method of deivering his message to us, I agree with others here that he did make valid points that we might want to explore. The issue of dorm supervisors/dorm mothers, etc. having their own lives and therefore not paying enough attention to our kids is of a concern to me. I wonder how they balance taking care of their own young children, wearing many hats and being available to our kids. It's not always a good situation. Our kids are on their own quite a bit and there are certainly positives and negatives associated with that. While I absolutely believe that boarding school is not for everyone, I also believe that those who willingly choose it and want to succeed, can do so wonderfully. IBFTW, I would like to learn more of what parents and kids should look out for from you, and others, based on your experiences, if you don't mind sharing. We're all trying to do good things for our kids. Let's try to do it in a constructive way.</p>