@hardy8635 You do bring up a good point! My logic is that 500 high schoolers all on the same campus seven days a week sounds a bit like a recipe for disaster :)) I know that being with my friends in the same area for that much time may drive me crazy
From a parent’s perspective, it seems like you don’t end up with the same group of kids all weekend every weekend because of EC commitments. Athletic contests will bring different groups together, school activities such as ski trips will interest some students and not others. The list goes on… We did not apply to Milton because of the high number of day students and although we are less than a hour away from the campus, DD would have boarded. I think that Loomis Chaffee is trying real hard to lose the “day student” label to avoid being a suitcase school.
It’s hard to explain until you experience it, but every boarding school has a “bubble.” The more rural a school’s setting, the thicker the bubble. While right now you think you want a less rural setting, you may be surprised at how satisfying “life in the bubble” can be.
Also, life at a boarding school during term time is very intense. The amount of work expected is staggering. Students love “sleep ins” because they need the sleep. The formula for keeping hundreds of teenagers safe and productive is keeping them very busy. So there isn’t a great deal of time for off-campus adventures.
And yes, schools vary in how many students stay on campus over the weekends. There can be an upside to students heading home for the weekend–often they invite friends home. It also gives the pressures of living together a chance to simmer down with some time away.
Good point, @Periwinkle. But being close to a nice town, especially one you can walk into is still a good convinience. It’s not like any one will be “forced” to go even when they have that convinience, but every now and then, getting out of the bubble without an arranged bus trip or an excuse note is stilll nice. Unfortunately, very few BS have that sort of location and setting.
@MAandMEmom That is the reason why I believe that I’m not going to attend Milton! I don’t really want to be in a place where half of the people leave every day…
@Periwinkle Yeah I’ve heard that you don’t really understand it until you’ve visited… I am so excited to visit and actually see student interactions, campuses, dynamics, etc.
@panpacific I am definitely the type of person who hates being structured all of the time, so being able to freely walk into town like at Choate would be beneficial to me (at least I think).
I second that the towns of Wallingford and Concord are vastly different. As a parent of two very different to each other kids, one who is at a Gow in Buffalo, NY and the other will go to Middlesex, it depends on the kid and the school. Gow has Saturday classes, super scheduled, my Gow son prefers downtime be quiet, in his room, preferably alone. So a nice dorm room is more important to him with food delivery if possible. He wishes the restaurants were better when we go out to eat there. But otherwise, he doesn’t care. The school does organize a lot of activities out of the school. And I think it changes for the high schoolers. He is in 8th grade there.
My older son prefers to spend his free time exploring things, outdoorsy and cultural. When we visited Choate and MX, he did make an observation that he thought Concord is nicer than Wallingford (I’ve tried to get him to join this forum). I’m not sure how he will get into town, but my understanding when we visited the schools were that there would be school organized activities into surrounding towns, big cities, if possible. Also, you will likely make friends with day students and possibly visit them at their homes. That being said though, MX also has a nice outdoorsy campus. The pond, forest, etc. Those features also appealed to my son. He likes cross-country skiing and archery as well and I think MX offers that. He will be doing at least 2 team sports at MX, so he won’t have a lot of extra time because of team travel. He has also looked at the clubs and arts at MX and is excited by it all.
Side note: In the handbook it says MX students are allowed to order food to dorms…
Choate students can order food to the dorms or from the food trucks that pull up nightly in front of Mem House during evening study hours.