Great second-tier boarding schools

<p>Hart- You are in God's country! Sewanee is the most gorgeous place on earth. You are right- more people should take a look at St. Andrew's-Sewanee. You have the whole college at your doorstep, too.</p>

<p>RE: Vermont Academy</p>

<p>Sorry, but a really poor facility in a downright depressing setting.
Below par college acceptance list.</p>

<p>Mercersburg is definitely more than a match for some of the other prep schools in the northeast, especially those in the Mid-Atlantic. It is a great boarding school (more than 80% of the school boards) that does not have the nosedive acceptance rates like the big New England schools. </p>

<p>I am a graduate of Mercersburg, and although I will say that I'm currently a student at Princeton, I hate the idea that people think the only reason why anyone would go to boarding school is because of ambitions to get into an Ivy-League or other top-ranked school. This is not the way to go. Although Mercersburg does send many students to top-ranked schools, people go there because its just a great environment for learning. I can say that the academics are truly first rate, and are more than comparable to schools like Peddie, Hill, and Hun School of Princeton. Mercersburg offers more AP courses than Lawrenceville, Peddie, Phillips Exeter, Hotchkiss, and Miss Porters, offering almost twice as many as Peddie. Additionally, Mercersburg makes a great effort to provide upper-level course electives that are not APs so that students don't have to have their schedule be a big block of cookie-cutter AP classes. It also offers more sports than most other schools in the the MAPL league.</p>

<p>Mercersburg's acceptance rate is currently 38%, which is in the middle range of upper-level boarding schools. I surmise that if the school were located near a major metro area (a major advantage Mercersburg doesn't have), the acceptance rate would be at least 7-10% lower.</p>

<p>As for people looking in the Mid-Atlantic area, I would definitely put Mercersburg on your list to visit if you can. It really gets the cold shoulder sometimes because of its rural location 1 1/2 hours north of Washington D.C./Baltimore. It really is a great school, a very tightly-knit community with really dedicated faculty and devoted alumni.</p>

<p>I sent you a PM. ^^</p>

<p>I agree with TokyoRevelation..look at Mercersburg, I went to a summer camp there and the dorms and campus are beautiful. The only problem might be that it's kind of far out, but there is a really cute little town right by the school...also it's only about 2 hours to Washington D.C....</p>

<p>What classes did you take at Mercersburg?</p>

<p>I did a soccer camp, but the campus was insanely nice.</p>

<p>I would love to apply to Mercersburg, but it's too rural. Hard to get around. Applied first, then realized I didn't want to make my interview trip WAY TOO DIFFICULT, dropped it last week.</p>

<p>But it's performing arts programs are SOO tempting.. swimming too</p>

<p>too isolated!! borrrinnnngggg.</p>

<p>Well, to tell you the truth, when you are really in the thick of your boarding school experience, you will be so occupied doing work and other activities that getting off campus is rare, and I'm positive this applies to ALL boarding schools, even ones much closer to cities. On top of that, Mercersburg makes a concerted effort to allow students to get off campus and visit D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York, as well as many other places. During an average school year there are at least 10-15 public trips to Baltimore and D.C, and about 4-5 trips to NYC and Philadelphia. Student organizations and other groups, like Model UN, on campus make their own trips as well, so that further increases the number. </p>

<p>Of course, this doesn't remedy the thought of having to drive into the depths of Pennsylvania. However, if you live farther away than say the NY/NJ metro area, getting to the airport is really not that big a deal for Mercersburg students. The school provides transportation to three airports, Dulles-Washington, BWI, and Reagan International. The cost is usually not too bad because the fee is split between all of the passengers, so the more people who ride in one bus/van, the cheaper each student's fare. I am from the Chicago area, and I usually just took the bus to BWI, where I would take a Southwest flight to Chicago-Midway. This ended up being pretty economical for me. </p>

<p>As for trips that are not to and from school, Mercersburg offers great opportunities to travel internationally. Mercersburg students travel to Spain, France, Italy, Germany, China, Costa Rica, Russia, and Ecuador almost every year. This year I read that a group of students went to Taiwan for an international education forum there, and when I was a student I went to Ecuador and the Galapagos on a 4-week trip, which was possibly one of my greatest life experiences. </p>

<p>Mercersburg truly is much less isolated from the world than people make it out to be, and I don't mean to be pushy, but its something that people often assume about the school and then set it aside.</p>

<p>Wait tokyo does that mean you never get to go to taht really cute little town with all the coffee shops and really good sandwiches? whoa, well that is depressing...</p>

<p>I went to Episcopals this Saturday. I really like it. There are some internalational students there; They told me they have scholarship. paid half of tuition. The school told me, they would 97 opening this year. It is hard to get into.</p>

<p>Our s graduated from Loomis last year. Great school on a beautiful campus and lots of athletic opportunities at all levels. Diverse student body for a BS. There was a wide array of academic offerings and strong academic competition. There were 400+ boarding students and about 300 day students so there was definitely a huge boarding community and no lack of weekend and evening activities. Faculty and staff were very involved with the boarding activities. S has a good friend who was a straight A student in a good public school who is in his second year at Loomis(sophomore) who says the academics are very challenging.</p>

<p>Oh I'm sorry soccerprep, but when I was I student I didn't consider walking into the town of Mercersburg "going somewhere". Downtown Mercersburg is practically an extension of the school, so yes, you can get sandwiches and stuff. Actually my friends and I went every Wednesday night to Flannery's Tavern (best food in town...kinda expensive), and kids go to Towne Square or Main Street Pizza more than they should. There is also a new place in town which I cannot say much about because I graduated before it opened.</p>

<p>bump for abercrombie</p>

<p>Thanks so much Burb Parent! Very Very Helpful!!</p>

<p>i really dont think that lawrenceville is a second-tier school. many people say that it is because it is not in new england and is in the MAPL schools.</p>

<p>It's also because Lawrenceville has not updated many of its numbers on boardingschoolreview for several years. Many people don't go beyond the numbers on that site, and often the numbers are very out-of-date.</p>

<p>Lawrenceville is one of the best boarding schools in the country. It's like calling Stanford second tier because its not in New England.</p>

<p>Well, not really. The reason people think that L'ville isn't first-tier is because its acceptance rate teeters on the higher end (almost low thirties) and because it's SSAT score is significantly lower. In some respects, it's the same. But the others are how people differentiate them. So, no, I wouldn't say it's "top-tier" as people on here define it.</p>