<p>My DS also came in more confident in academics than either the sports or social world. In sports, he played one out he’d already played a fair amount, and picked up two new sports for other seasons. He really enjoyed them all, and became MORE confident, though he was never a star athlete, by any means. He liked his coaches, and really liked the team comraderie. They have teams at several different levels, and there’s no problem not being a big jock-- although I think there is a certain amount of status you do get from being a really exceptional athlete. If a kid doesn’t like team sports, there are some altermatives (like an outdoor hiking/exploring thing), but the school encourages kids to try at least SOME team sports! and my son’s experience there was quite positive-- it didn’t seem too cutthroat/competitive, at least at his (mostly JV) level. Coaches overall were positive. When I said the place was “hierarchical,” I didn’t mean based on money, family, etc. (although, like any school, I’m sure big potential donors got special treatment-- but we weren’t in that category, and never particularly felt excluded or ignored because of it). I think it is kind of hierarchical socially, however, but that was exacerbated by it being all boys, and think it might be true of any all boys JBS (although I have no personal experience at any other JBS, of course). Status can come from different things (size, athleticism, brains, personality), but it’s definitely there. There’s a competitive feel to almost everything that I don’t see so much of now that my DS is at a coed school. And I think the faculty and administration have a certain “boys will be boys” attitude, that tolerates a little too much of the hierarchy, and even a certain amount of bullying (for example, they’ve said, “well, it’s very difficult to tell when boys are just involved in friendly wrestling or actually physically bullying.” REALLY???) on the other hand, I think they do look out for each boy, and will intervene if they’re aware of a real problem. They DO have a lot of different activities to include all boys-- including “quirky” ones-- not just things like the arts or computers or whatever (many of which are very good-- everyone has to take some of the arts classes, so they feel more confident in those areas and less like they have to be really talented in order to try them)-- but they also do things like weekly evenings with your adviser group with dinner and games or a movie overnight camping trips (mostly optional), river rafting, movies, etc., so your son would mix with different groups of kids. In other words, I think they designed their program quite thoughtfully to encourage social interaction. Again, however, the place has a competitive feel, and they have this big thing about the boys learning to “self-advocate,” so a lot of times they do not intervene for social issues and problems. That’s what I mean by not touchy-feely. And there definitely aren’t any “let’s all be friends and treat one another respectfully” activities or games or exercises. The school ended up being good for my DS in some ways, but I don’t think he was ever really that happy there socially-- his current school is a much better fit. He wasn’t miserable, but I think would have been happier in a less traditional or socially competitive place. I guess I would say it depends what your other choices are, though, since I think some of the aspects we didn’t like might have been a function of it being an all- boys school, and there definitely WERE some things we liked. The thing I said in a previous post about the school taking every boy and figuring out how to challenge him in every way (but not overdoing it or expecting every boy to achieve the same things) I think is true, and is probably the best aspect of EBS. Do you have enough posts to PM me? I’d be happy to answer any questions you have, or I could be more specific in a PM.</p>