Moving with Child to Day School as Boarding Alternative

Last year, we were amongst the increasing number of overseas and domestic applicants to day schools who apply over a broad region (for us, our native New England) and then move to wherever their child ends up attending school. This amounts to sort of a boarding school on wheels, or reverse boarding school experience — with the parent being, well, the house parent. I ended up being that parent, with my spouse still in Europe.

I haven’t seen much on this phenomenon being discussed on cc, so figured I would, as an erstwhile lurker, start a thread. Our son was entering 7th grade, but I am sure that many families are doing this for 9th and earlier grades as well. Here are some observations, based on my own experience focused on the New England (not the NYC) region:

  1. The “7th grade” issue. In our case, our son was having a bad experience with the rote pedagogy — and lack of differentiation — at a public school in western Europe. Absent any international or private school alternatives where we lived, we couldn’t wait 2 more years for boarding school; this was the obvious solution. (We felt our son was not ready to board at a jbs.)

For others living abroad whose children do attend an international school, or those living elsewhere in the U.S. with the ability to move to the elite day school-laden northeast, the motivations may be somewhat different, but still compelling. One likely overriding consideration: many of these schools start in 7th grade and go through 12th. The high school issue is thereby “solved” in one fell swoop — and one family move.

  1. The “college outcomes” issue. Many of these day schools’ college matriculation lists compare favorably to top boarding schools, and many (though not all) are likely easier to get into than similar quality boarding schools. This applies not only for 7th grade entry to 7-12 schools, and pre-9th grade entry to K-12 schools at established entry points; it applies in many cases for 9th grade entry as well.

Some New England examples (defined as excluding Fairfield county) where this admissions leveraging, vis a vis similar quality boarding schools, is likely the case for at least some grades: Nobles, Hopkins in New Haven, Belmont Hill, Winsor, Milton, BB&N, Bancroft in Worcester, Moses Brown and Wheeler in Providence, and Waynflete in Portland. (Roxbury Latin is an exception: the non-legacy, non-Boston resident admissions rate is probably under 5%.)

My point is that these day schools are, at the very least, a viable boarding school alternative from the standpoint of college outcomes, and the financial aid offered by most (though by no means all) of these schools is equally as generous.

  1. The “fit” issue. In my experience, the “right fit for this school” rhetoric — at least for 7th grade admissions — was a red herring. (I mean this from the school admissions perspective, not from the parental one.)

Let me explain. Several schools spent the bulk of my son’s interview time quizzing him on academics — math questions, vocabulary, writing, even spelling in one case. One school asked these types of academic achievement questions during a substantial portion of the interview and, because that was apparently not enough, administered an IQ test thereafter. Unfortunately, there was a direct correlation here: those schools most espousing the importance of character and “fit” in their admissions materials spent, by a wide margin, the most time issuing yet another round of academic testing to our son — and the least amount of time figuring out who the interviewee, as an individual, was. That is not to say that these are not great character-building schools once students get there; but to say that this is an important criterion for admissions is laughable, the proof being in the interview pudding.

The two K-12 schools my son applied to were different on this front: their philosophy was for the student to spend the day there as a student. Interview questions for both my son and myself at these schools were friendly and laid back. No additional round of academic testing was proffered. Indeed, one interview with my son was very short because the admissions officer could tell he was having so much fun at a chess activity and didn’t want to pull him from that (I saw this as a major plus for the school).

  1. The “Latin” issue. This is not something that applicants to boarding schools come across much nowadays, but many prominent day schools are still stuck in their middle school Latin ways. For someone like my son, fluent in English (we are American) and near fluent or fluent in two European languages, including a Latin-based romance language, this turned out to be a big issue. Namely, what a school chooses to do or not do with Latin in the 7th grade determines its modern foreign language offerings. In general, my son would not have been able to take his modern language at schools with an inflexible Latin requirement. Since we were worried about his losing near-fluency in one of his languages, this was dispositive — an ironic outcome, in that he is a polyglot, humanities-type kid in the same, larger classical tradition which the Latin requirement is ostensibly there to preserve.

I would be interested in others’ experience with or reaction to what I term the “move where my child gets in” phenomenon, whether for the 7th or earlier grades, or for the high school years. It has worked out for us in that it is nice being back in our native New England, my son attends a great school, and my spouse and I really did have to get our son out of that European public school. Family circumstances have changed, though, and my son might have to go the boarding school route in 9th grade after all — in which case I will be in need of your advice later this summer!

@Pincite sounds like it has been quite the journey. Happy your son is doing well. We have had our own educational “journey”. I moved with our kids from the west coast to New England in 2013. Our older 2 were at BS in New Hampshire and out younger 2 hoped/planned to attend BS as well. My husband has commuted for the last 6.5 years- working from home in New England a week a month.
For our family, the choice made sense and it has been an extremely positive experience. Our youngest graduated BS in June and we were lucky enough to be able to live this crazy life throughout her time in high school. We are about to begin a new journey with me headed back to the West Coast (driving cross country next week) for an amazing career opportunity. Funny how the universe has a way of clearing the path when the time is right. It is such a gift to be able to support our kids educational paths where’ve that may take you. Good luck in the next chapter!

Nice to hear that this has worked out for you and, likewise, that your educational journey is coming to a well-earned end. A family I know in California did something similar for their children, with one parent moving to Vancouver with them for school and one parent flying out there every weekend. Enjoy your New England to California road trip — one I have done twice myself with dogs in tow.

This is not terribly uncommon in NYC private world either but I don’t think of it as alternative to boarding school at all. In my older kid’s grade at NYC private, there were probably 8 kids who came either in 7th or 9th grade from overseas. Most were kids of expats who always planned to move back to the US by the time their kids start HS, but some were kids from international families who also moved to the US for the kids to go to US schools. I don’t think any were FA families though, which makes sense as you need significant resources to make such a move if US is not your home base. In one case the HS kids pretty much lived in an apartment alone while parents were traveling for work/living in Asia which ended up being a mess, but the rest of the kids were very motivated, adjusted well and went on to excellent colleges.

BTW, I have noticed something similar with boarding school families, there is a decent number who acquired houses in CT fairly close to the BS their children attend, and spend significant time there. And I just heard that parents of one former classmate who just started at Cate this fall moved to CA, too. So yes sometimes parents move for the kids’ school or follow them after, but of course you have to be in position to make such a move financially and professionally, and it has to make sense for the rest of your family (other children etc) too.

I just want to say how much I love hearing about lifestyles that are so different from my own little world. Very cool. Sometimes it’s easy to think we are stuck in certain situations when really we can think more creatively how to live our lives. Thanks for sharing all.

It sounds like this was not a boarding school alternative for the expat families you describe; but some of us present or former expats are not as good at getting ducks in a row for a planned move back in a particular year. In those instances, if the local educational options abroad are unacceptable — but one parent needs to stay — the alternatives are, by definition, boarding school (including jbs) or the “day school move.”

I am not at all surprised that non-expat international families are doing this, though I would venture to say that New York City is probably not their best option. My understanding — correct me if I am wrong— is that many NYC day schools are harder to get into than similar quality boarding schools; I think the only school in New England proper that is like that is Roxbury Latin and Winsor (but not for Winsor’s 5th grade entry point). And New England has about a dozen other really excellent day schools…

I would think that this phenomenon I describe will become even more common, particularly for international families of means from Asia, in the next few years. The most sought after boarding schools are trying to limit their number of international students; to the extent this is not as much of an issue for day schools, these families stand to benefit, admissions-wise, from taking advantage of the day school “alternative.” I reckon they will, more and more, once the word gets out.

As you mention, there are huge financial (and other children) considerations here. We are not wealthy and get about 1/3 tuition support. Although my family has lived in NYC in the past, we did not even consider it: why do so when a house, albeit a modest one, can be bought in the Boston burbs (especially the southern burbs) or another New England city for a fraction of the cost of NYC? We have only 1 child, but if we had 2 I think we would have done the same thing — instead prioritizing K-12 schools for both kids.

Your description of the kids living alone in an apartment is downright horrifying!

This happens quite frequently with some says schools supporting it via family host type programs and others downright disallowing it ( kids living alone type scenarios). The schools you mention aren’t like BS in the sense that they are missing what I consider the quintessential BS experience namely a community that lives and studies together 7/24. My kid looked at the day school option( including some on your list) and found the resources and education different than BS. We also delved closely into matriculation and founds lots of legacies at these private days. So the impressive list was not applicable to all. These schools are great in many respects. A friend had a daughter graduate BUA and another friend graduated from the Commonwealth with excellent results. Both has classmates who moved from elsewhere to live and make it work as “day students” Not sure how it worked out. And many move to Boston just to get their kids into Boston Latin.
I believe some parents get/rent a second home near their kids BS. Sometimes it’s necessary to keep the kid afloat due to issues and sometimes it just makes their lives easier.
Parents from some nations seem to be more willing to move heaven and earth for education. That’s wonderful but I think less common among other groups.
I don’t think many families csn go this route unless they are financially very well off and work remotely.
Sounds like you have made it work

@Pincite I think for a lot of expats NYC has the best opportunities for jobs back in the US, for finance in particular. Most of the parents still have to make a living upon moving so they go to a place where they land jobs, and then line up schools for their kids, not the other way around. Some do end up in the burbs and may end up in privates there (Fairfield or Westchester Co.) , some just move to one of the excellent districts and do public HS there. As for NYC, yes you have to have top academic credentials if you want one of the top tier private HS spots, but there is a whole range of other schools to look at depending on what your children need.

I totally agree with your point that boarding schools are not like day schools (although some like Milton are both) — any more than large universities are like small LACs. I mean “alternative” in the classic either/or sense, not as at all equivalent in experience.

I actually crunched the numbers with matriculation lists at some of the schools I think you were referring too. This is a topic for another thread, but if you get into the granules of the data you’ll see that some of these impressive day school matriculation lists are, indeed, fully applicable. As one example: for the 111 graduates of the class of 2018 at Nobles (when I actually crunched the numbers for each individual student), 77% went to what I would classify as very good colleges (think Hamilton, Cornell, and Virginia type schools, with BC just missing the cut) or better, and 41% went to what I would classify as great/elite schools (HYPSM being classified as “elite” and the Columbia’s, Williams’ and their ilk as “great”).

Andover’s numbers for their 321 graduates that same year: 69% went to very good colleges or better, and 37% went to great/elite schools. Am I saying Nobles is better than Andover? No. But it is nonetheless darned impressive, credit should be given where it is due, and these numbers are across the board so cannot be attributed to a presumed comparative disproportion of legacies (an assumption I question in the first place; Andover did slightly better in the “elite” category — 14% to 10% — in any event, so if there was any legacy disproportion it likely accrued to Andover’s benefit). I have no Nobles pony in this race; my son didn’t even apply there and my spouse went to Andover.

It is funny that you mentioned Boston University Academy and Commonwealth: I had meant more traditional New England day schools — and was not strictly focused on Boston per se. Boston Latin is a great public school, but no match for the best private day schools in greater Boston or elsewhere in New England: I can see people moving to Boston to game Roxbury Latin admissions (a private school giving preference to Boston residents), but would question the wisdom of making a Boston move solely for Boston Latin. Anyhow, I believe you already have to be a resident to take the Boston Latin exam (so that would not work for families from elsewhere).

It sounds like your daughter made the right choice and is enjoying boarding school. Had my son been entering 9th instead of 7th grade, boarding school would have made a lot more sense. We probably would have applied in that case to both boarding and New England day schools — the two alternatives.

Junior boarding schools are another popular option…

There was a family at our school who had homeschooled through 8 in a pretty remote are out West.

The whole family moved when the kid was accepted to BS and the kid attended as a day student (rather than a boarder.)

I think what is more common for a family like yours (with a younger child) is to move to a place where they like the options. We’ve met families who moved to Philly, for example, because there were so many Friends schools and they were sure they’d be able to find one that worked.

@gardenstategal In a sense, what you describe for Philly was very similar to our situation. Although we didn’t hone in only on Boston, we could have — provided we could move to the area only after admissions decisions were made (lest, with terrible traffic and not the best pubic transport, the school be a 45-minute drive away; most of the top day schools are scattered throughout the suburbs).

@CaliMex We also considered junior boarding schools and my son even applied to two as a day student. But, although we were careful to apply to schools with a 9-12 boarding school just down the road (with the idea he would possibly go to the nearby boarding school — as a day student — with some of his classmates from the nearby jbs), we knew it was speculative and, ultimately, merely punted the high school decision, a decision that would still be between boarding schools and day schools.

One interesting tidbit: my son got no financial aid at one jbs and a very small “scholarship” at another. One went so far, in their letter, to say that they were precluded from giving aid; this was more than a tad disingenuous, given that this school guarantees all “unmet need” to applicants living in the same town as the jbs (I am sure some families in that town get similar letters). Day schools, meanwhile, typically offered almost 1/3 tuition for our “unmet need.” Anecdotal though this may be, it was pretty apparent to me that jbs financial aid is not nearly as generous as day schools or traditional boarding schools — for whatever that’s “worth”.

JBS endowments are smaller.

@CaliMex Not the ones he was applying to. In fact, endowments per student were significantly larger than the two day schools that gave us the most aid. I think the point is that these schools don’t give more aid because they don’t have to in order to attract the students they need. Day schools have to compete with other day schools. A jbs does not, for the most part: there are not many jbs out there, period — and they are in less urban areas to begin with, so are more insulated from day school competition.