My 6th grader really wants to go to boarding school, so she’s applying to Fay and Grier in addition to a few day schools in our area. Does anyone have experience with either school as boarders? I know that it’s a common age to send children to boarding school in the UK, but it seems so young.
@SculptorDad !! His D is at Grier…
There’s also Bement, Rectory, Rumsey, Indian Mountain, North Country…
She’s very bright, loves art and music, and her English ssat scores are good (around 90th) and her math scores are mediocre (around 70th). She hates team sports, but likes riding and dance, which is why she liked Grier. All of these schools seem great, but interchangeable to a certain extent. Thoughts on which junior boarding schools might be a good fit? I’d prefer to stay in New England.
I’d love to find someplace that would let her take two foreign languages. She takes 3 right now.
@Nantar you can check out the Junior Boarding School Association for more information.
Calling @PhotographerMom… Her kids and previous generations attended JBS.
My DD has been in Grier since 9th grade. And one of her very close friends who I met a few times during Summer was in 8th grade.
One good thing about being in a BS since junior is that, if the student is mature and academically advanced, she can make older friends and take advanced classes.
DD was a year younger than the most, but probably the most mature and academically strong student of her same grade was nearly a year younger than even DD. Once you are there, no one cares your biological age.
DD also hated team sports where teams compete each other. She did rock climbing before going to Grier, and didn’t do much sports in the beginning.
Grier has very strong dance and riding programs, probably the strongest in the region. DD had been riding for several years once a week, but she felt that majority were riding team members who were way over her level - semi professionals, and its traveling wouldn’t leave her enough time for other stuffs. But she found it much easier to blend in it’s dance program as a not pre-pro dancer. We were all very surprised to learn that she was dancing and enjoying it because she used to say that she would never do it.
Grier has been very flexible regarding curriculum for her, and anyone who is academically advanced for exceptions. The only inflexibility we found was it’s non-standard Calculus courses. Instead of usual Pre-Calculus, Grier has Trigonometry and Calculus as prerequisites of AP Calculus. DD started with Trigonometry and will take BC next year. Her friend had too take a Calculus in Summer to take AB Calculus BC in her senior.
Grier’s art program is focused on 2D design which is only visual art AP that it offers. DD did not find it’s ceramic and drawing program as adequate for her level and haven’t taken art classes. For Grier’s defense, she had taken more than 10 studio art courses at community college and had exhibited in juries shows for adults, so probably only few not specialized high schools are. Beside, she stopped homeschooling and went to Grier specially to change her future career from art to science.
I don’t know much about 7-8th grade curriculum. But DD’s curriculum has been very flexible. Taking two languages was not a problem at all, although she didn’t do it. The flexibility was very nice. She had taken a bit of community college classes before going to Grier, and could waive or skip prerequisite for several courses. She also could repeat a class AP Physics 1, which she felt she didn’t learn much in her previous college course.
She was academically above average when she entered Grier with 97% SSAT score. But she had not felt a class too easy, and majority of classes harder than her entry level community college classes. She had plenty of friends academically very advanced. She is taking a regular English class this year because she wanted to change her schedule after school year started which cause some schedule conflict. But her teacher insisted her to do honors class assignments anyway so that worked out. Grier’s course offering would not have worked out a very advanced stem student who need AP Physics C and post AP level stem classes. But DD was stronger in English and Grier still offers all other AP stem classes.
She saw Fay today and loved it. It seemed like a beautiful school with just the right level of academics. My heart is beating for North Country right now, though. I hadn’t heard of it before this thread, but I think I’m in love. It’s far, though. I’d like her to be able to come home on weekends.
Thank you for your comment, SculptorDad! My daughter is coming from homeschooling too. She is younger though and coming from a more haphazard educational history. She loves riding, even though she’s only done it recreationally for about a year and has never competed. She’d love a school with a riding program, but I’m agnostic about that being a requirement. I do love to hear that there’s some flexibility in classes.
Do you know about how many 7th grade boarders there are at Grier?
DD applied to both Fay and North Country schools too. They both seemed great. She was also accepted by North Country school and had seriously considered it.
But later she had chance to meet North Country alumni at Grier, and told me that she was very lucky to choose Grier for 9th grade than North Country for 8th. North Country looked like a dreamy experience, but farm life isn’t always as it seems when you actually live one. Some kids might not love to wake up early everyday to feed animals before breakfast and clean kitchen after, although nearly all parents would love that.
“English ssat scores are good (around 90th) and her math scores are mediocre (around 70th)”
DD also got around 70 on her first SSAT math, but 35 on her ACT math 3 1/2 years later. Good English skill is likely to affect on math performance eventually. Someone with 70% SSAT might not win a math competition or take post-calculus math in highs school, but good standard test scores and performance in high school stem classes can be achieved. At least it shouldn’t be a deciding factor on choosing boarding school.
Here is my review on Grier 2 written years ago.
There is a distinctive feather of Grier that it is a very isolated school, or a safe school depends on how you see. It is in the middle of nowhere and Boarding students are not allowed to leave school ground on their own on foot or on taxi. Weekend mall trips are chaperoned by faculty to each store door. Compare to most of other BS we visited, it has a feeling of nunnery in terms of safety control. It has occasional dance events with boys, but the joining boys school is more than 2 hours away and there is very little opportunity to develop any relationship.
I think that she would actually like farm life… she is very outdoorsy and active. It’s definitely not my thing, but I’d be glad to support it, so long as I don’t have to do it, too.
She is actually very clever at math, and even does some competition math with a tutor, but totally has a mental block about decimals and fractions. I’m sure she’ll get there eventually, and I’m sure that her math scores will rise.
Grier is tempting, because it would be nice not to have to apply again in high school. But it’s so far away from where we are… about 8 hours. That’s a long drive. Do you know if the school runs any shuttles to Philadelphia, NYC, or someplace that might have public transportation options to meet her at?
Riding is not a requirement at Grier and recreational riding is well supported. DD is introvert and probably didn’t like to be a recreational rider where there is a strong tight community of competition riders, nor she had time to ride more seriously.
My homeschooling was also very haphazard. I focused in making a good reader and logical thinker. I figured that standard math and writing can be taught when they were needed.
While it was difficult to jump to a structured high school life, more so as it is a BS. She now an extremely organized teen. The transition wasn’t easy and we needed to get help. But it is much better to have it in high school while her character was still developing, than during or after college.
Most BS we visited suggested her retaking core classes such as U.S. History or first year science so that she could build stronger relationship with her class. Although we didn’t mind doing it, Grier was one of very few who actively opposed the idea, and it worked out great. While most students still have to fulfill prerequisite for advanced classes, DD has seen exceptions made for her friend.
I am reviewing Grier’s course guide for this year. All students take their grade level English, in either College Prep (Regular) or Honors level, and History seems is fixed for 7-8th grades which are Western and Eastern. Math is purely based on prerequisite courses. Science for 7-8th is Life Science and Earth / Space. DD had prerequisites and started with AP Environmental Science in her 9th grade, although that wasn’t usual. Foreign language and most of art classes don’t seem to have grade level. She started with Honors Spanish III and had to quickly move to level II (They were speaking Spanish only!)
Grier is a very small school and there are even fewer 7th-8th graders. I don’t know the numbers, but surely fewer than JBS like Fay and North Country.
Liking outdoor activity and farm animals is not the same as waking up early in cold morning to feed animals, and kitchen chores after breakfast, everyday. Not that it is not fun for everyone, but it won’t be like a 3 weeks long Summer camp. Just thinking about it frightens me.
I also have noticed that my DD good at catching up concepts, but slow and erroneous with numbers. I figured that the part of brain for that is not ready for her, and decided to focus on something else for more enjoyable education as well as long term efficiency. So I used Mind Benders, which is words based deductive reasoning program, as her main math curriculum. We started to focus on standard math and writing only about a year before applying to BS. So the timing was perfect.
Grier is 8 hours flight with 2 hours on school van for DD but she has never complained. She preferred one far away though. Felt more independent for a preteen girl I guess. It picks up students at IAD, PIT, JFK, SCE, and AOO airports, as well as Amtrack and Greyhound stations in Tyrone and Altoona.
Thank you so much for all of your advice! We’re planning to go visit North Country and Grier in February, so we’ll see which my daughter likes. She really liked Fay, but it seemed like it could easily be snobby to me? Hard to say… so many Canada Goose jackets on the kids. I know boarding school will be full of kids with family, but thousand dollar coats on kids who are still growing isn’t my style. Still, it is nice that she could be a 5 day boarder there.
Good point about the farm animals! It’s definitely not my style, but my daughter loves barn life, and it would be good for my next younger child. 
Have you looked at Indian Mountain School or Bement?
I agree that the Canada goose coats are a lot on kids. But I did just want to point out that many of the kids you see at a BS are full grown. It seems no less absurd to me than every kid I see walking around with a $1000 phone in their hand.
I have a son at Rectory. We’re having a great experience there, and I highly recommend a visit.
60% of the student body is enrolled in the IIP (Individualized Instruction Program) which is one on one tutoring. 10% of the kids in the IIP are doing so for enrichment, so it’s definitely a possibility for learning a 2nd language. It’s a very family-oriented school.
We also looked at: Indian Mountain and Rumsey Hall as well as two all boys’ schools (Cardigan Mountain and Hillside).
These schools excel in understanding and guiding the social and emotional development of middle schoolers. They have solid structure throughout the day and supervised study halls. They know that it’s unusual to send kids to board at this age, and they are successful at helping the kids and families feel at ease.
I’m happy to answer questions about junior boarding school in general and Rectory in specific.
DS is next door to Fay at SMS. We considered Fay for kid2 at one point. I don’t think there’s an air of snobbery at the school at all and we are “from the hicks Texans”. That’s not to say there wouldn’t be any snobby kids there…no school is immune to that. We felt Fay had a great curriculum and very strong community atmosphere. They frequently interface with SMS, so although it isn’t like Grier where she could stay through HS, she could definitely transition to SMS and stay in a community she knows. I can’t say enough good things about Southborough and St Mark’s. We felt Fay had a similar vibe, albeit our time spent there was very brief.