<p>Hello all - been lurking around the boards for the last couple of months and finally decided to register and seek out some advice.</p>
<p>Son is currently at one of the top few private schools in Canada and is doing very well there. Plays a few sports (U12 soccer, swimming) and is competitive in those sports. His grades are very good, consistently in the top 10-15% of his class.</p>
<p>We are thinking of applying to some US boarding schools because we think the international exposure and ability to learn from people from all over the world is a great opportunity. Son is really excited by this as well. </p>
<p>What we are wondering is from an education stand point how much different of an experience will he have. His current school is intensely rigorous, use an IB program from first grade onwards, significant amounts of reading and extracurriculars from a very early age. I really wonder how much of an advantage he would have by going to a very selective boarding school over where he is now, and how difficult it would be to get in if he is not in the top 5% of his current class.</p>
<p>Any advice would be really helpful - he would be entering 9th grade in 2015, so a little time still.</p>
<p>There are a significant number of very high quality, rigorous private day schools. In my view, these schools will provide academics equal to the best BSs. Thus, the reason for sending your son to BS needs to rest on whether you believe he would benefit from other aspects of the expereince, including the direvsity of students he would meet. Some kids really benefit from BS, others have bad expereinces – only you know what’s best for your child.</p>
<p>Thanks - I guess I’m trying to understand what those advantages are, beyond the independence that my son would learn, the rigorous teaching (which I don’t know how big of an advantage BS would provide) and the diversity of students and the ability to learn from many different points of view. </p>
<p>Hoping people could shed some light on that.</p>
<p>The other is strictly about admissions standards - do BS give weight to the quality of the education given to date? Do they have any way of looking at past academic experience and “adding” or “subtracting” from GPA based on past schooling. The example I think of here is that AO at colleges would view a student at a highly selective BS who is in the top 10% of their class very differently than a student from a generally poor performing public school who is in the top 10% of their class - all else being equal.</p>
<p>BS AOs do factor in caliber of current school a student is attending. The forms they provide for teacher recommendations and transcripts include questions to help them know the school standards, besides which they may have other sources of information.</p>
<p>It is very difficult for any applicant to get into “very selective” boarding schools. Not being in the top 5% of his class does not rule your son out.</p>
<p>It sounds to me that education-wise, your son may not gain all that much from BS. Some parents on these forums are in the same boat but send their children to BS for other reasons, such as the ones you mention. There are also differing schools of thought as to whether attending a selective BS enhances or lowers a particular student’s chances at a highly selective college. A big disadvantage of BS is having your child away from home 4 years earlier than college.</p>
<p>I have one child currently in BS and another who graduated from BS some years ago. In our case the local schools could not provide a quality education so that was the driving factor. However, we were pleased to have a more diverse student body and seeing the giant leaps in maturity was/is truly astounding.</p>
<p>Another advantage to BS is that everyone is on the same schedule and has the same rules. No one will be trying to get your son to ditch his homework and go cruising, to the mall, or whatever, because they will all be doing their homework. And they will all be doing their chores on Saturday afternoon. I was/am much happier with the social scene for my children at BS than here in their small, rural hometown.</p>
<p>I cant tell you about my daughter’s experience bc she hwill be starting bs in Sept. I can tell you what drove our decision to leave a very good local private school and explore bs options. It was a combination of the dedication of the teachers ( we tried to focus on bs where most if not all teachers lived on campus) and the social scene. I liked the fact that everyone is on a schedule. Also strong focus on atheltics. Maybe it is different for a girl but I wanted her to be in an environment where it was cool to be smart and athletic. This was not the case in the local private school. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Are planning on a Canadian university? I have a friend in Montreal and she sent her sons to HADES schools for 12th grade (and PG I think) to avoid CEGEP and also because they were top recruited hockey players. </p>
<p>My feeling on US BS vs top Canadian private schools (day and boarding) is that they are more well rounded but I think Canadian schools are very rigorous so not sure he will get anything extra at BS.</p>
<p>This is all very interesting and I appreciate the input. I think there are a few things that may be helpful in terms of getting additional clarity. While I have read that there is a quite the debate about matriculation stats etc, it is a consideration for me (not my son at this point). We want to keep open the option (and also at the same time hopefully increase the odds) of attending a top 10-15 U.S. school, while not closing the idea of going to a top tier Canadian school (McGill, UofT).</p>
<p>I think in terms of school we really have no sense whatsoever of what the perceptions of certain schools are - sink/swim, diversity, size of international student base, % of boarder vs. day school. </p>
<p>My view is that size of international student body is tremendously important, as well as academic rigour and to a lesser extent matriculation. My son is also very outgoing, but at the same time very independent and a self-starter. We would also prefer a non-denominational school so St. Pauls and Groton would be out of the mix. </p>
<p>The school he is at now is very well regarded in Canada, but very local in focus (small boarding population). He’s made some great friends there, but they again are all local and the opportunity to go abroad is very appealing.</p>
<p>Given all of this information, are there some schools that you think would be better or worse? We want to do some visits, but without something to go on it’s hard to start culling the list. </p>
<p>I don’t know about Groton, but don’t throw out SPS because of religion. There is a minimal amount of required chapel and they work hard to be ecumenical in approach. Unless of course it’s non-negotiable as it was for my D. She would not apply anywhere with required chapel.</p>
<p>boardingscoolreview.com is your friend, for a starting point.</p>
<p>I’d second peteri’s comments, and add a bit more. You can find day schools (private and public) that have academic curriculum and expectations as challenging as the top boarding schools. To my mind, what really sets boarding schools apart and which even the best day schools can’t replicate, is the immersive nature of the learning. Your child will be around teachers and other adults 24/7 who have a passion for learning and teaching, and your child will experience that in class, on the playing fields, in extra-curriculars, in the dining hall, in the dorms on weekends, etc. Those teachers not only convey that passion to the students, but they share it with each other – keeping the adult community at a boarding school (meaning teachers, administration, and spouses) engaged and committed to learning. They are learning from each other, sharing ideas, collaborating on projects for inside and outside the classroom. Your kid gets to be the beneficiary of this!
I went to boarding school myself; at the time what I would have told you was that I loved it because I got to live with all my friends. Looking back on it many years later, though, my most enduring memories are of the conversations that I had with my teachers OUTSIDE the classroom – the time my favorite English teacher took a couple of us apple picking on a Saturday afternoon and then taught us how to press cider because it related to a book we’d read recently in class; the time my advisor took me to visit a college because my parents lived far away and couldn’t come do college visits with me; the zillions of times that conversations started in class about poetry or literature or biology were finished later that night in the dining hall or days later walking back from the athletic fields.
On top of that, you have kids who all want to be there too (ok, with maybe the occasional exception) and who think it’s cool to be smart, and accomplished, and interested in the world around them. And many of whom, as you pointed out, come from different countries, or socio-economic backgrounds, or ethnicities.</p>
<p>My kid goes to an incredibly diverse school–Exeter—and that was and still is definitely a selling point for me. But if we had an excellent private school at home, we would have stuck. It’s tough sending kids far away for school. Another way to expose him to more diversity might be a year or half-year study abroad program, which is what second son is doing.</p>
<p>Yep, I agree with @classicalmama. There are more ways to experience diversity than allowing your child to more or less permanently leave home at 14 and spending >$200K in the process. We wouldn’t have made this choice for any reason beyond academics even though all the other extras are nice. I can’t think of anything critical DS is getting from Choate that couldn’t be handily supplemented at home for way less than $200K if our local schools were academically solid. Also, don’t get too misty about diversity. Even though these schools boast students from almost every state and culture, they all arrive on campus and try their best to be as homogeneously American as possible (just read the what-should-I-wear threads to see how badly these kids want to fit in which is kind of ironic when you consider how hard they tried to stand out during the application process). Your child would have a much deeper diversity experience through a study abroad program or getting involved in community service projects that provide exposure to the elderly, handicapped, and underprivileged pockets of diversity that exist everywhere. It’s a big world out there; it doesn’t all have to be experienced in high school.</p>
<p>I appreciate all of the feedback. Part of this likely comes from the typical “Canadian inferiority complex”, in that if it’s Canadian it can’t be as good as what you may get in the US. With that in mind, my wife and I are lucky enough to have been able to send our kids to private school from a young age and if they want to be able to take advantage of the boarding school opportunity we want to give it to them. For us the cost calculus is not completely relevant because we will be paying the tuition for private school in Canada or in the US one way or another. We have our doubts about the public school facilities, opportunities for extra-curriculars and overall competence of the teachers, so we know private school is the right call.</p>
<p>@ChoatieMom - I understand your point on being homogeneously American, but do believe that getting different view points from students from Korea, Saudi Arabia, Manhattan, small town Mississippi are all valuable and that is not available to us at this point.</p>
<p>I also take your point of exposure to diversity in more ways than one.</p>
<p>Luckily we are still a little ways out from decision time, but fact gathering is important. From looking at Boardingschoolreview it really does seem like there is a great deal of variance between the schools, so coming up with a list of 10 or so potentials seems somewhat difficult.</p>
<p>Visit some schools and see if they feel substantially different from his present school to your son. I would let him take the lead with this decision. Sit in on classes, observe teams, eat in the cafeteria and look at the dorm. He will fall in love…or not. Good schools for a top 10% soccer swimmer to look at include a couple of reach schools (HADES) and some mid-range schools. Kent, Loomis Chaffee, NMH level. You probably want to stay in New England for the ease of travel from Canada?</p>
<p>College is looming, and also offers you the broader horizons you seek. So with a good local option,many families adopt a “go to a reach or stay home” approach. </p>
<p>My daughter attends Exeter and loves it. Our local school was good too, but Exeter offered a community of bright passionate kids that she preferred, and more coursework in areas she liked. But we do miss her.</p>
<p>To address your issue about the int’l broadening potential of attending an American BS, here are some thoughts:</p>
<p>As your C’s school is academically rigorous, u will no doubt want to apply to schools that are at least as rigorous. In contrast to BS in Switerland, at American BS there is an inverse relationship between school selectivity and the percentage of int’l students. Int’l students are typically full pay students, so the most selective schools which are also the richest schools do not “need” them to balance their budgets. </p>
<p>At the schools w greater percentages of int’l students, there are generally not more countries represented but simply more kids from the same few countries. The reputable schools try to limit the number of schools from any particular country. The schools realize that int’l students want to experience a new culture and not just see their countrymen. And when there is a critical mass of a nationality, those students often socially self-segregate. </p>
<p>I say this as a parent who lives overseas and whose kids have attended int’l schools in different countries: American kids & Canadian kids are not that culturally dissimilar. You will probably be disappointed if you are expecting a significant cultural broadening experience from being around American kids.</p>
<p>All that said, there is opportunity for OTHER kinds of broadening by attending a BS in the U.S.</p>
<p>I considering BS a gift of time for your child. More hours to be engaged in very positive ways and less hours in the car going back/forth to school, practices, etc. My child is actually more rested now then in 7th and 8th grade. That may change but for now that has been our experience.</p>
<p>…if what you value is those students’ opinions on American pop culture then, yes, you will get your money’s worth (although there may be some horizon-expanding South Korean influence these days with Gangnam Style). I do say that a bit tongue-in-cheek but, really, US BS is not a United Nations experience–these are teenagers, all texting furiously on their iPhones (when allowed) regardless of skin-color, accent, or clothing. ChoatieKid would look at me like I had three heads if I tried to ask him how enriched he feels by the diversity at his BS. His comments lean more to the “kids are alike the world over, nobody notices or cares where you came from, we’re all friends”, etc. Also, I believe rampant political correctness corrals much of what might otherwise be educational interaction. There is more (unlit) lighter-waving, shoulder-to-shoulder swaying than what I would call gritty challenges to anyone’s world view.</p>
<p>I am not trying to get you to knock Choate off your list as you will see that its student body comprises 35 states and 43 countries, but do not be fooled – the student body is actually made up of TEENAGERS. ;)</p>
<p>As a full-pay family, your child will no doubt get into a good boarding school as long as he casts a reasonably wide net. If you go to visit schools, it’s almost as sure a bet that he will fall in love with a school. </p>
<p>The real question is whether the diversity of the boarding school population (and I think ChoatieMom’s assessment of that diversity is right on) is a good trade-off for sending your kind off four years early, all other things being equal. It’s hard, when you’re looking at those beautiful buildings and that diverse student body, to really see the donwsides. </p>
<p>Now, obviously, we made that choice for one of our children, and for that kid, it was absolutely the right choice as he so clearly needed something different–he was really miserable at home, and there were not local options that would have improve things for him. So the amount we miss him is more than balanced out by how much happier he is there. If he had been reasonably happy and challenged at home, though, as his brother is, I think I would have looked to fill in the gaps in a less drastic way. By the way, I can completely relate to the lack of diversity you describe–we’re right there with you, geographically and demographically. But travel and immersion into a culture through study abroad might just achieve that end for you better than four years of boarding school, for the reasons ChoatieMom describes so well above.</p>
<p>(Me after observing a Parent’s Week-end History Class: That’s so cool the way you had a South Korean girl in class who could speak personally about the reasons why the U.S. siding with her country after the World War was so important.</p>
<p>Child: Huh? Yeah, I guess. That girl is really quiet…aaaaaa, where’s my book?! See that guy? He’s an amazing swimmer…)</p>
<p>Have you read through the downsides of boarding school thread? Given that everyone there is happy with the choice, that’s a good thread to read before you visit, to balance out the relative pros and cons of boarding and day school.</p>
<p>Another way to supplement local day school is summer camps.
Summer camps at US boarding schools or JHU CTY / Northwestern CTD are attended by diverse global kids.
Attending one during 6th or 7th grade would give him a feel of dorm life away from home.
There are many other special summer camps as well in US in arts, music, debate, math, etc.</p>
<p>These are all really great insights and very helpful for a parent in evaluating various options. I guess I did take for granted that everyone will be between the ages of 14 and 18 and will be trying to fit in and just be one of “guys/gals”.</p>
<p>I took a look at Boardingschoolreview.com and did notice that the international student body of the most selective schools was much lower than I was hoping it would be. Having said all that I do want my son to have the information available to him to make a good decision for him.</p>
<p>2prepmom had made a comment about “going to a reach or staying home” and that seems like good advice given that we aren’t trying to escape a bad situation, just trying to see if there is an even better situation out there. Son hasn’t expressed a whole-hearted desire to go to BS, just want to show him what’s out there and if it seems better for him than he can go.</p>
<p>Do people have views on places like Exeter, Andover, Lawrenceville, Choate, Hotchkiss - children who are currently there, or recently there? What their kids thought of the place, especially as compared to where they were previously (even better if they were in a private school setting previously)? Son is currently at an all-boys school, so that will clearly be one big change. What are the rules like at these places? I was looking at the Deerfield website and it seems to be incredibly strict, with very little tolerance for missteps. Is this the common approach, is Deerfield viewed generally as more or less strict? </p>
<p>Perhaps my views of this would be different if I knew for a certainty that my child was going away, but looking at it now it seems very harsh and very restrictive.</p>