<p>Maybe it's my own liberal arts grounding...but even among the engineers and MBAs from my own school the attitude is that college very much shaped who we are as people -- citizens, parents, friends, etc. In terms of looking at college as a glorified vo-tech, where the purpose is to prepare for a career or trade, the preparation and pedigree was not nearly as important as we thought, in our youthful exuberance, as it would be, especially over the long haul.</p>
<p>I can't possibly agree more with laxtaxi about some students starting out college with that sort of worldview and focus...whereas others (who? me?) figured out the storyline right around the time the show was coming to an end. If BS gives a student that sort of vision going in to college (or, better still, in choosing one), then that alone is worth it.</p>
<p>Laxtaxi,
Your experience parallels my own and is also one of the reasons I decided to begin talking to my oldest about a strong college-prep bs at a young age.</p>
<p>laxtaxi,
I agree also. I will never forget sitting in first year english class at a very preppy lac. The prof began with "now of course you have all read milton,dante,etc,etc and I looked around the table and everyone was nodding their head but me. I kinda wondered what I had been doing the last four years.</p>
<p>LAXTAXI, you summed up the reasons very well...I do have the concern with S satying at ps, that since he even finds the hardest courses easy for him, requiring minimal effort, that when he gets to college, he will not know how to buckle down and commit to the intense study required at that point. On the other hand, this morning, I was talking to someone who had a same age nephew at the same school where S is on the waitlist and she told me that some parents are actually pulling kids out of that school for 12th grade so as to enable them to get their GPA up high enough to qualify for free tuition at the state universities in this state, which can be attended free under the lottery funding assuming you meet certain (high) GPA requirements. You get no extra GPA consideration for attending a difficult prep school. That is sort of scary....I mean, pay $19k/yr for ds, then pull them and let them graduate public so they will have a higher GPA in order to go to college free? sort of a warped way of doing things I think...</p>
<p>In Massachusetts if you get a certain score on the MCAS test you can get free tuition at the state school - but it is only the tuition. The fees are not covered and they are MUCH higher than the tuition and frankly it would not be worth it for us. Seriously, the tuition is just a fraction of the total cost of attending. </p>
<p>It's about being challenged and engaged. My daughter is like some of the children you have mentioned - she would seek out additional work, she would challenge herself. When we made the move to private from public for elementary school, we moved them both. Although even then we realized that she would likely do well anywhere, but she was just going into 2nd grade. It was hard to really know and we left my son in a few years too long and he developed bad habits (not studying, doing just enough to get by) - habits he is still working on breaking. So, we moved them both. Now, when it's time for her to leave their current school (3 more years) the public school would be a better option for her than it was for our son, but how do you put a girl back into a public school who hasn't been there since 2nd grade? It will be interesting to see how that goes. She will definately need strong athletics as she is a very talented athlete - we can see that already. I think the school search for her may be different in a lot of ways.</p>
<p>"You get no extra GPA consideration for attending a difficult prep school. That is sort of scary....I mean, pay $19k/yr for ds, then pull them and let them graduate public so they will have a higher GPA in order to go to college free? sort of a warped way of doing things I think..."</p>
<p>I disagree....schools submit their profile to the college and the top prep ds and bs certainly do have a more respected profile. The colleges recognize the rigor of these schools and they know that it is not apples to apples when comparing the public to prep school gpa's.</p>
<p>keylyme
I agree, sort of.
One BS rarely gives As. They submit their profile and colleges see that. However, some schools (U of Pa comes to mind) has a computer that looks at GPA, test score, class rank and comes up with a number. There is no human input.</p>
<p>Finally the Harvard, Stanford, Yale admissions from SPS, E, A had the same numbers as the admissions from school B. There might be more at the above BS, but the qualifications are the same and the college admission people I have spoken to, state it does not matter. One needs to standout at whatever school they go to.</p>
<p>plus, out public school has an advance math course where the kids have done geometry in middle school and start HS with Alegebra II and precalculus. Alot of parents are pulling their kids out as a B is usually the top grade.</p>
<p>The college counselors at my son's school have told us that it does matter and that the colleges recognize certain schools and know the academic rigor. There are several Upenn admits at my son's school for this year, and I know they are not all 4.0's (because that is extremely rare). There must be some human input, because how would they differentiate between schools that weight grades (my son's public school is ridiculous.....anything considered a "college prep" class....any foreign language, math, social science, etc....is weighted 1.25, and any honors or AP class is weighted 1.5 times. This makes for some very high GPA's. The bs does not weight anything. Highest you can get is a 4.0. I can't imagine they would not look....what if you were a 4.0 student form a public school, but had never taken an honor's class?</p>
<p>I think this is why some independent schools use a different grading scale. A popular scale is the 6 point scale used by Andover, Taft, Blair & others. It might force colleges to look at the profile. Many independent school don't rank, and I think this is true of more & more public schools.</p>
<p>I was referring to Princess'Dad's comments above.</p>
<p>Keylyme, you misunderstood my comment. I was referring to the state edication commission that awards the H scholarship in this state for the free tuition. For example, if the GPA cut-off to qualify is 3.8 and the ps student has a 3.9 GPA and the DS kid has a 3.5 GPA in the private DS, he would not qualify for a free tuition scholarship because the state doesn't 'spot' the private school student extra points because his school was more difficult than the public school. The student in the private DS may have learned more even with a 3.5 than the kid in public with a 3.9, but that is the way it works, all based on GPA. I'm not saying that makes sense or is fair, but that is how it works, and apparently some people here have decided to game the system even at their kid's expense of graduating from the better DS. Of course, there is always the possibility that that is just an excuse for lack of funds for tuition the final year. Overall, I would still rather play it safe and go with the best school, which is usually the BS or DS, but then budget and logistics come into play, so the question is, how much future pain can we bear to make it possible given the expected benefits? Is with most everything it often comes down to a cost/benefit decision for which there are no clear answers...</p>
<p>It was surprising to me that some applicants on this board did not have graded essays to submit with their applications. One applicant wondering about this came from a highly regarded public high school, and she had several months of 9th grade under her belt. When my son was in 8th grade applying to bs and coming from an independent, he had 3 graded essays he liked and selected one for applications.</p>
<p>To return for the moment to the original question - why are we doing this - I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of the "boarding" element of boarding schools. For the right kid being on their own (in a structured/supervised environment), living in a dormitory with other kids their own age, being around committed adults who are not only teachers, but also coaches, advisors, dorm parents, etc can make a huge difference in their personal development. </p>
<p>To some extent we have already seen this with our son, who's a freshman at BS. Already he seems more confident, more independent and more mature. For example, he was unhappy with a Spring elective he'd been put in. He contacted registrar and teacher of the course he wanted to transfer into and got the issue resolved entirely on his own. We didn't even find out about it until after the fact. </p>
<p>In addition to getting an absolutely first rate education, being surrounded by bright peers, having the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of sports and EC's and having access to facilities that would be the envy of many small colleges, I think one of the great values of BS is the sense of self-reliance and self-confidence it instills in our kids. </p>
<p>Also, living with your classmates 24/7 creates bonds of friendship that are difficult to equal at a regular high school. Finally, I think for the bright, motivated, ambitious (and maybe somewhat nerdy) kid, those friendships are easier to form. Although this is obviously a generalization, in many high schools bright, hardworking nerdy kids make up a pretty small minority of the class and can sometimes be ostracized, looked down upon, etc. Boarding school is filled with these kinds of kids and I think there is generally a much higher tolerance for the bright, nerdy somewhat quirky kid than there would be at most public high schools.</p>
<p>P.S. - Ultimately as parents I think we need to focus on what the boarding school experience does for our kids not the degree to which going to BS will have a big payoff when it comes time to applying to college. If the ultimate goal is to have your son or daughter go to an Ivy school, the best strategy might well be to take your bright, motivated 9th grade son or daughter, move to North Dakota, put him in the local high school, and hope he ends up at the top of his class. The truth is that when applying to Ivy League colleges, it's so competative that unless your kid in unbelievably exceptional it's a total crapshoot. I've been doing alumni interview for Penn for the last few years, and I continue to be amazed at the qualifications of some of the applicants who are rejected.</p>
<p>Finally, it is important to remember that some of the matriculation figures released by the top BS's can be misleading. Yes, Groton, Andover, Exeter, etc. have a significant number of kids going into the Ivies each year. However, they are also likely to have a very high number of students who are legacies at these schools (sometimes 3rd or 4th generation legacies). Or have parents with connections to someone on the board of trustees. Or have parents who are extremely wealthy and in a position to make a large donation to the school. Or have kids who excell at some "preppy" sport not offered at most schools (like squash or crew) and who are recruited athletes. If you were to separate out these all of these kids who have "hooks" of one kind or another, I suspect the matriculation level at most Ivies would be significantly diminished.</p>
<p>prpdd, I agree, the real benefit of boarding school is the experience, not just the end all of getting Ivy acceptance. I was a day s at a BS and I always questioned how the BS parents decided to send their kids to BS rather than raise them at home. Many of course were from remote areas with bad schools, but some were from the heart of the city with much better schools than ours within a mile of their house. I'm not at all opposed to BS, just uncertain when the role of daily parent should shift from us to 24/7 coaches, teachers, headmasters, etc. I guess it is more of a hard sell to me because I have so many great choices close to where we live. If I were from a remote/rural/small town area, I would see things differently. Also, if the top 10 were evenly remotely possible for us, we might see things differently, but cost and time for travel visits would be prohibitive for us.</p>
<p>I am not from a remote/rural/small town area... you'd be surprised how few choices some of us urbanites have!</p>
<p>(My D has basically had her bags packed since age 3 and otherwise had her heart set on early college entrance. Yikes. At least this way she is in a more supervised, structured place while getting some independence and exercising that brain of hers.)</p>
<p>Hopeful Dad, how do you like all the ferrying around for EC's? For me that's the real dealmaker. Let her get there on her own and get me out from behind the wheel...</p>
<p>Someone once told me the biggest benefit of boarding school is that as a high school student, your child will not drive. :) As my son is getting closer to driving age, I'm not entirely sure that person was joking. (of course he'll drive summers and vacations but not to and from school)</p>