<p>Hi mml. The only ones I know anything about are Mercersburg and Blair… and only because I have been reading posts on CC for a long time. tokyorevelation9 is the expert on Mercersburg and of course, Burb Parent can tell you all about Blair. I don’t know much about the other schools, I’m afraid. </p>
<p>I think some of the best campus descriptions are found on boardingschoolreview.com in the section where former students write about their schools. They show how alumni feel about the school (why would they take the time to write unless they had strong feelings)… and they give specific examples of what was good or bad about their schools. I love the piece written by tokyorevelation9 (see the entry under Mercersburg Academy, Class of 2006, Princeton University). If a student can experience such personal growth, it must be a special place. Blair seems lovely, too, with a beautiful campus and very nice people. That’s just my impression from my limited exposure so I hope the real experts are able to tell you more.</p>
<p>tokyorevelation9 posts here, so someone interested in Mercersburg can try to PM him. But be forewarned! He is such a terrific cheerleader for Mercersburg and is a charismatic on-line ambassador for the school that it would be hard to resist putting Mercersburg somewhere on your list of schools to check out after he’s given an opportunity to make the case for the school.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input so far. I think schools like Mercersburg and Blair (Brooks and Taft as well) have a decent rep according to its reviews here and elsewhere. Though he’ll be applying to those schools, I’m concerned about the other schools that’s not talked about too much on the forum (Berkshire, Brewster, Vermont, Kimball, Tilton (his friend attends)–I haven’t seen posts on these schools yet. I don’t think I’ve seen much on Gunnery, Hill, Westminster that much or at all either). Any input on these schools? (Although from what I’ve been reading in general, it seems Westminster and Gunnery seem to be good schools as well.) I would hate for him to go to a school that turns out doesn’t fit him. We’ll be visiting some schools for sure, but, though informative, there’s nothing that beats personal experience…</p>
<p>There aren’t that many schools actively discussed on this board, so don’t worry if some of your schools are not discussed. Visits are very important for getting a sense of fit. I know people who speak highly of Berkshire, Gunnery, Hill & Westminster. That doesn’t mean that the other schools are inferior – I just haven’t heard discussion about them in my limited circle of friends & acquaintances. Once accepted, your applicant will get a much better feel for the school during revisit. His mother can talk to other parents at that time. </p>
<p>I’ve been to a sports event The Hill, and it looks like a very nice campus with great facilities. Unfortunately, the town it’s in is not that attractive. I saw it in the winter, and many places are not at their best in winter. My impression is that it is a very traditional school. We have driven through The Gunnery during a foliage drive. It is an attractive school in lovely New England surroundings. We visited Westminster. I liked the school, but my son did not want coat & tie. </p>
<p>It’s not at all scientific, but when we were looking I also looked at <a href=“http://www.ratemyteacher.com%5B/url%5D”>www.ratemyteacher.com</a> and <a href=“http://www.greatschools.net%5B/url%5D”>www.greatschools.net</a> .</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put too much stock in those 2 sites personally, especially ratemyteacher. They have a reputation as being places for unchecked rumors and sour grapes with rather exaggerated claims. Generally nobody questions the posts, so the stories get more interesting with each additional comment. </p>
<p>I do agree though that there aren’t too many regulars here with much experience at any of these schools, although I think there may be a Hill person someplace. MAPLPARENT seems to have some familiarity with Hill.</p>
<p>Gunnery’s campus is very wooded and I imagine would be quite beautiful in the fall. The stone wall around it give it a sense of privacy, though it also seems to isolate it from the town around it. You do have to cross the main road through town to get to the athletic fields. And yes it strikes me as a more formal school. IIRC it is also a bit smaller than others you mentioned.</p>
<p>I wonder if mml’s process for school selection is not wrongheaded. If I were playing admissions officer at a selective prepschool, I would ask myself, why does this student want to come here? Where is the fit?. The parent seems entirely preoccupied with relative competitiveness for internationals instead of asking the really important question what would my son contribute to the class, how can he give and receive the most out of being at a particular school.</p>
<p>I would suggest the parent first sit down and match the son to a set of schools that are selected for the right reasons ie that the kid can flourish there and give something to that particular community. Supposing he or she found that peddie was a great match–wonderful community, strong math department, international orientation, not quite as competitive as St. paul’s or Exeter as to grades but very very good. How then would she have to present her son to the admission department? She would have to establish “fit” and from the sounds of things the son might fit very well</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I agree with you that mml’s search process is wrongheaded. Perhaps a bit unrefined at this point, but that is what the search is about. From what I have been following, the first filters (size of school and boarder percentage) came up with a rough list. It would seem that size of school was driven by the student’s need for a closer knit community. </p>
<p>From that the search has seemed to move onto finding out about how the Asian thing works with the various schools on the list to organize the reach/match/safety categories. I would hope that this would move onto fit from there, finding the best of each category (safety/match/reach) with regard to fit.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think mml and student have much to operate on with regards to which school’s program is better for which type of student. I know that it is something we struggled with when considering various schools because we were looking from 1000 miles away. These schools don’t come with labels like “artistically oriented” “athletic” “service to community” “environmentally conscious” “lots of adult/student interaction” “student led” etc. I think if mml knew more about this, the finding of fit would work faster.</p>
<p>Having been there as an international applicant parent we asked ourselves, why does our child want to go to boarding school in the first place–community, academics, sports, balanced education. The second question we asked is what school matches what we are looking for the best. admissibility and odds were third order considerations. Our fall back position after all was to keep the student at home in an IB or AP programme in the public system.</p>
<p>From what little mml has revealed about her son’s reasons for wanting to go to boarding school no one can distil even a template for fit. That is why I suggested her approach was wrongheadend perhaps I should have said in inverse order. The only bit she can control in the admission process anywhere is how she presents her son or rather how the son presents himself. So sit down, make an honest portrait of your own motives and desires–if you’re merely prestige shopping forget it. The kid sounds like a perfectly good student, reasonably well motivated etc etc. So what makes him stand out – only his reasons for wanting to be at a particular school. Our children wanted community, an integrated humanities programme, music and a chapel, and a beautiful campus where they could dream. St. paul’s fit almost perfectly. No regrets ever–it was a love affair from the beginning. That is what a school is supposed to be like. Once you know what your child needs and is looking for shopping schools is rather easy and the truth is, it doesn’t matter which one you get into. Academically there is not that much to choose between.</p>
<p>I think you are missing something here that I learned in a PM. The student is not the son of mml. mml is a family friend who is very familiar with the student both academically and as a person and I believe is doing the preliminary footwork for the family in getting a list of schools for the parents and doesn’t want to present all reach options - hence the evaluating likelyhood of admission before presenting. If this were the parents doing this, I would agree to check fit before likelyhood of admission. Different perspective. </p>
<p>And I think from the list of schools, I would say that mml is not looking at prestige first. They do range widely, so I think mml has a representitive list.</p>
<p>And from what I’ve learned (through PM) of what the student wants to contribute in terms of a foreign student situation, I’d say that he is the type of Korean student I would want in my community. </p>
<p>I think mml would probably benefit from someone (like yourself or others familiar with the specific schools in her list) discussing the student’s particulars in a PM exchange. I know that I did that already with one of the schools and I think it was quite helpful.</p>
<p>Thank you both to paleozoic and goaliedad for your interesting and helpful replies. To goaliedad’s point, yes, it would be very helpful to know school particulars. To clarify the approach, these are the steps we took:</p>
<p>1) most important criteria for the students and parents were size and location. a few exceptions were made for particular reasons the parents/student had (e.g. friend goes there). This left about 20-25 schools.
2) looked at schools that he should apply to b/c it seems a great fit based on int’l population, class size, teacher/student ratio, for example. That leaves the following schools: blair, tilton, proctor, new hampton, peddie, brooks, berkshire, brewster, kimball, gunnery, portsmouth, st. george’s, taft, promfret, and mercersburg.
3) out of these schools, we looked at acceptance rates for some international students and came up with the reach/match as listed on 1st page posted 9/21 (middle of the page). </p>
<p>The first row are schools with an acceptance rates for international students below 2%. The second, below 10%. The third row, below 25%. </p>
<p>One caveat to this list however is that as we still don’t know much about the schools beyond what the viewbooks and websites tell us, it’s difficult to truly distinguish between any of them on that list, or the larger list above. We’re still flexible with this list as it’s more important to find the match then it is to stick with a list based on what things look like “on paper”. Any suggestions/information/discussions on these schools would be great.</p>
<p>One more thing I wanted to add to answer paleozoic’s post: The reason why he wants to attend a U.S. boarding is to have a close-knit community cooperative environment and the chances of his having a solid full-immersion English-speaking education is few and far between in his native country. Also, he functions best in a moderately regimented teacher-run schedule. Furthermore, he is already attending a day school in the U.S., but the circumstances are such that a boarding now will suit his situation better (mentioned in prior posts under “narrowing down the list” thread).</p>
<p>You mention that he is currently attending a day school in the US. To better help the folks out here on the forum with understanding where he is at, what type of English class is he currently taking and likely to need next year? Is he functioning close to the level of his native English speaking peers yet? If you put a great classic novel like a Charles Dickens in front of him, would he require the Korean translation to pick up the subtleties, or has he developed the English language skills to pick out the tone and tenor of a section? (or at least understand a teacher’s help with those things - not all kids his age have developed this skill particularly well)</p>
<p>Not trying to poke holes, but to understand what level of immersion he requires.</p>
<p>well, his English is quite good conversationally, but one can tell it is clearly a second language as he’ll make a few grammar mistakes that’s not typical of students who grew up in the U.S. However, there’s no struggle in understanding what he’s saying. He is not in an ESL program at his school and he probably won’t need any judging by his As and Bs. He’ll also probably do fairly well in the SSATs. If anything he’s writing needs work and so does his use of some idiomatic expressions. He would need help in reading Dickens and other comparable literary pieces, but not that much more assistance would be required compared to his peers in terms of comprehending such pieces. His vocabulary and writing are his worst areas and would probably need some additional help outside of class.</p>
<p>He would stay at his current day school except things have changed with his guardian situation (she’s moving) and as mentioned in a previous post, his school/peers, although good academically, isn’t as supportive to international students (hence the need for a more close-knit community). Without a good guardian, it would be difficult for him to stay there.</p>