<p>Hi, it was suggested that I start a new thread with these questions.</p>
<p>My son has expressed a strong interest in attending boarding school. We live in Ct, so I sent for info from most of the schools in CT, Mass and NH. I was hoping to keep him within driving distance. Now I wonder if I am limiting his opportunities. </p>
<p>Also, in order for him to attend he would need financial aid. Is there any way to find out which schools are more likely to give fin. aid?</p>
<p>Lastly, can the 2 hours that a student spends visiting a school really tell you what you need to know???</p>
<p>question #1 -- are you limiting his opportunities? The quick answer is yes, you are -- but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. We all have to limit our choices or we would be absolutely overwhelmed. </p>
<p>You and your son need to decide whether it is important for you to be able to visit your son at school -- this can be very, very important. Think about school plays, musical concerts, sport games. It can be really nice to be able to visit your child and see what they are so excited about. If you live within driving distance, it also makes it easier for your son to come home on long weekends and holidays -- and stay connected with friends and family back home. If finances are also an issue, then transportation becomes a concern. Airline tickets for travel can be very costly -- which might prevent your son from coming home when everyone else does and the cost might prevent you from visiting. While many schools do provide FA, very few schools provide enough money for multiple airplane tickets.</p>
<p>I speak as someone whose son is only applying to one school within driving distance -- and 7-9 schools that will involve a flight. However...we live in Colorado and have very limited choices. If I lived in CT, I would definitely only consider schools within a reasonable driving distance -- I can see the multiple advantages to a school you can visit in a reasonable amount of time. There is always the summer for distance visits to far away places.</p>
<h1>2 It is hard to really know the whys and wherefores of financial aid awards -- but you can find some clues by looking at the stats. Take a look at the percentage of kids on financial aid (check the school site or call them to get accurate figures), the school's endowment, the average grant per student, the actual cost of tuition and board. All these figures will give you a little insight into the possibilities for FA. For instance, a school where 15% of the student body is on FA compared with a school where 40% of the kids are on FA -- where do you think your student is more likely to be granted FA?</h1>
<p>Keep in mind that schools definitely use FA to draw students -- athletes, top students, minority students, geographic diversity, etc. If you student has something that sets them apart at a particular school, that might help boost their chances of admissions & FA.</p>
<p>Well, if you had to pick 3 U.S. states with the highest concentration of high-quality boarding schools, probably MA, CT, and NH would be it. This set includes Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's, Deerfield, Groton, Hotchkiss, Taft, Choate, Middlesex, St. Mark's, Milton, and Loomis just to name a few--not bad. I also think that most homework should be done before visiting. Doing research on-line and looking at facts and numbers can help you narrow down your list. Once the list is reasonably short, the visit will tell your son a lot about the "feel" of the school, which matters.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. I would like to able to attend some of his games and he would like me to be there. So that was a good question to ask. He has decided on school based on proximity, competetiveness and lacrosse. (He absolutely loves lacrosse. It is kind of a varied list. Most schools are a reasonable possibility. His average score was a 91% when he took the SSAT last time. ( I know this isn't the only consideration)</p>
<p>His school list is:
Northfield Mt Hermon
Hotchkiss (a maybe)
Phillips Academy
Phillips Exeter
St. Pauls
Choate
Governor's Academy
Westminster
Loomis
Avon Old Farms</p>
<p>Fortunately, they are all close enough to visit. I think there is enough variety to find at least a few schools that will be a good fit. Our first visits are on the 15th of Oct. We're getting excited!!!</p>
<p>Since you are looking at strong lacrosse programs and since you have not eliminated all-boys schools, you might want to consider Salisbury. I think it fits in terms of locations as well.</p>
<p>It sounds like you are making good progress on the road to finding a boarding school that will fit your son well. I do have a question regarding your criteria for "competitiveness". Are you saying that your son wants a boarding school that is more competitive rather than cooperative? Or one that will prepare your son to be competitive when applying to colleges? Those two criteria are different and you would need to look at different things.</p>
<p>If one of the things you are looking at is the selectivity of the school, I would strongly caution against choosing a school simply because it is selective -- if it is a good fit then put it on the list and if it isn't, keep it off. Ignore selectivity until you get to point that you need to see if you have the right balance of safeties/ matches and reaches. Selectivity in and of itself is not a good criteria for selecting a school.</p>
<p>Some other considerations -- does the school have the sports he is interested in (other than lacrosse)? what is the percentage of boarders? what are the campus facilities like? what is the average class size? how many kids attend? Does it have the classes he is interested in? foreign language? higher levels of math? extra art or science topics? what do they do on the weekend? casual or dress?</p>
<p>only you and your son know what you are looking for -- but a solid perusal of the school's website will give you some good information.</p>
<p>Be aware that highly selective boarding schools are very difficult to get into -- even more so if you need FA (except for those few who are needblind). If you have a good, solid back-up school at home that he would he happy to attend, then you don't need to add any safeties -- but if he is set on boarding schools, make sure you have some solid matches. If you need FA. there isn't any school that is a safety -- even a school where he is clearly tops on everything (scores, grades, recs. etc) may not offer enough FA to make it doable.</p>
<p>If lacrosse is an important factor, Deerfield Academy has traditionally been one of the top programs in New England. I believe their varsity and JV were undefeated last year with their thirds team losing one game. All of the other schools you list have solid programs but it seems like DA belongs on that list.</p>
<p>I'm not sure that competetive is a good word, perhaps challenging would be better. He wants to be sure that there are other kids working at the same level that he is. He is at a great private day school now, so finding a good match is most important. He is interested in boarding school because of the opportunities that he believes it will provide both academically and athletically.</p>
<p>The selectivity of the school isn't as important as finding a place that he can be content. Our first step was to find schools that had good solid lacrosse programs. (Of course, there were a lot of schools that met that part of the criteria.) Then we read guide books to get a feel for the schools. Both Choate and Hotchkiss are at the bottom of the list at this point, but he still wants to visit. He is also considering Salisbury and Trinity-Pawling (please excuse my spelling).</p>
<p>I think that once we start visiting schools, he will have a better feel for what
he wants. Now it is hard to put into words.</p>
<p>My son sounds a lot like yours. We are considering the 2 all boys schools as well. Based on the view books, Trinity Pawling is at the top of his list. We'll see when we visit. I think you will find that at any of the schools he will be challenged and will be able to surround himself with kids that are equally motivated. Even at the "non-elite" schools. I worried about that at first, but they all offer multiple honors and AP classes and our son will not "math out" at any of them and while some have better science and language offerings than others, I think you are looking at the search the right way - looking for what feels right.<br>
We have only done one visit and are still hoping that the "rightness" pops out as others have said it does when you walk onto a campus.<br>
Good luck.</p>
<p>DA certainly has PGs for lacrosse but all of the schools on warriorboy648's list outside of St. Paul's and Governor's have lacrosse PGs. Some schools have more than others in certain sports (for example Andover used to field a dozen or so football PGs as did Choate a few years ago) but that really depends on the year. The presence of PGs( in my experience) doesn't immediately exclude every other student from the sport. Anyway, warriorboy648, your list looks great.</p>
<p>All this input is great. Deerfield is one of my son's top choices. The only real concern (besides getting in) is playing time. He is good at lacrosse, but how good, we don't know. We have a friend with a son at AOF and they suggested looking into good lax programs, but not necessarily the very best so he can be sure to play.</p>
<p>My son is checking into Trinity Pawling and Salisbury. We also heard some really good things about Northfield MT Hermon. </p>
<p>There is so much to learn and to do. </p>
<p>It seems as if the same schools are mentioned a lot. Does anyone have input on Loomis, AOF, Mt Hermon etc.?</p>
<p>Baseballmom recently visited Avon, she may be able to share.<br>
Mount Hermon is known to be very independant - the kids have more free time than a lot of other schools, and it is less structured. Trinity on the other hand it quite structured with the time.<br>
With bigger lacrosse programs you might still get a lot of playing time, just on a JV or thirds team, which isn't all that bad. I would rather send our son to a school with 3 teams and have him get a lot of playing time on a 3rds team, then one with 2 teams and have him sit a lot on the JV team. But that's just me.</p>
<p>I have a son at NMH and one who graduated in 2003. You can PM me with specific questions.
I don't think it is too "unstructured", but I am not sure how this differs from other schools (?Linda). My son's time is pretty much fully spoken for...he has a meeting in chapel in the morning, classes, sports practice, study hall, then 1/2 hour of free time to use the internet/make phone calls (no cell phone use allowed anywhere except in your dorm room). I know NMH has a rep of being quite "liberal". This is not evident...maybe it used to be this way?</p>
<p>When NMH came to my son's school for the informational meetings, they seemed to have more "free" time than some others, later lights out, later study halls (and less required ones than some) and a few things like that.<br>
For many kids that's not a problem. For my son, it probably would be. :)<br>
NMH also has a block system, modified this year, but it is 75 minute classes and you take 3 major classes per term, and then you are done with that class for the year. Again, great for some styles of learning, not for others. I know a few kids there this year that are loving it as they feel they can concentrate on one subject and do a much better job not having to switch back and forth. My son wonders what it will be like not having math for a year...so there can be disadvantages. I'm sure they compensate for it somehow.</p>
<p>Linda S- I do not understand how you can say no math for a year! My daughter went to NMH for four years, and even under the old block scheduling never went without math for a year. Also study hall was required all five nights and the internet was turned off as were the phones. Where are you getting your information from?</p>
<p>From what I was told by a long time math teacher (and from admissions this year) there if you have math in the first term you have fulfilled your math requirment for that school year. You are done in December - so for this year, it would be December 2007. The next school year, you might not have math until the spring - starting in January - for this example, it would be January 2009. No math for one full year. Not a *school *year, but an *actual *year.<br>
As for study halls, many of the other schools have required study halls on Sundays as well. The information I am getting is directly from admissions this year.
I'm not saying it is not a good school - I think it is a great school and have defended it many times here when some were attacking it for being a school for theraputic/problem kids. The information is what we have received in our current school search this year.</p>
<p>Linda,
My older son graduated from NMH in 2003 (trimester block schedule system with two major classes per trimester). He never went a year without math. He actually had math twice some years and completed math through AP calc.
My younger son is there now....they have switched to semesters with three major classes per semester. I don't expect my younger son to go a full year without math or a language either. In fact, he plans on adding a second language. Many hs now use the block scheduling system. My son has study hall from 7:45-9:45 5 nights a week and lights out at 10:30 (he is a freshman; it is 11:00 for upperclassmen). There is no internet or phone service during study hall; internet time is always limited and, as I said previously, phone use is also limited due to the fact that you can't use cell phones except in your room. I don't know what to compare the structure to as I haven't seen how other bs do things, but I think my son's life at school is quite structured and he doesn't have time for much that isn't planned.</p>
<p>Study hall is required on Sunday....it is earlier and starts at 7:30. If you have gone home for the w/e, you are required to sign back in to your house no later than 7:00pm.
I suppose that could happen with math (calendar year), but that is possible in any block scheduling situation. However, NMH does offer "minor courses" to bridge the gap if that happens. I know it was not a problem with my older son and he was able to "double up on math". My younger son will be doing the required humanities next year and will have room to take two maths if he chooses to do so.</p>
<p>NMH has required Sunday study hall....it begins at 7:30pm. If you go home for the w/e, you are required to sign back in to your house no later than 7:00pm.
Also, doubling up on math is not disallowed. My older son did it. My younger son might not have to as he is a freshman in Honors Algebra II and doesn't really need to be finished calc by his sophomore year as he is not even very interested in math. He will probably double up on languages as that is a big area of interest to him. I can see what you mean about the "calendar year" (fall to spring), but that is not so uncommon. Many schools are now using block scheduling. Also, NMH offers "minor courses"; some of these are "bridge courses" for math and language if there was a semester gap and the individual needs a refresher.</p>