<p>As I sit here continuously reading posts, I started thinking, not ONE of my kids' friends are considering prep school at this moment. A few here and there are considering religious private schools, but NONE at all are even remotely considering boarding/prep schools. We live in an area ABUNDANT with excellent prep and day schools, and yet it seems that no one around us seems to even notice! So I started thinking, Why haven't these kids or parents considered prep schools? AND of course, my next thought was, why did WE start considering it???</p>
<p>Which brings me to ask you guys, why? What made you start looking into BS or prep schools? Was it something you've always dreamed of? Or lack of good school choices near you? Is it that you think you'll have better chances of getting into a good college? Or the fact that you are an eager learner, dying to "spread your wings" in an environment where learning and being smart is "cool" rather than frowned upon by peers???</p>
<p>I can tell you OUR reasons, which you may or may not have in common with us: First off, our public school in town is one of the worst in the state (not only academically, but athletically as well, which didn't used to be the case, but it is now). Not only that, but pretty much ALL our neighborhood kids go there, and we live in a very tight-knit neighborhood, so ANY school drama becomes neighborhood drama. People stop talking to each other over the stupidest things, and then get their kids involved, and vice versa. Just recently, there was tremendous drama and right now about half the moms in the neighborhood are no longer in speaking terms with one another. Yeah, you can SEE why I would want to avoid that (both for myself and for my child). We have been homeschooling our son for all his life, and we've done a bang-up job. But we wanted him to be able to 'spread his wings' in an environment where passion and curiosity are nurtured by teachers with excellence in their respective fields. I'm a great mom and a great teacher, but I am by no means an expert in any field whatsoever. The third reason is to give my son a chance to play for a winning team (for the first time in a long time). His sport of choice has been in decline in our community for a few years now, and the opportunity for him to play in a quality team has gone down the tubes. Lastly, we simply fell in love with the school while just looking at it for curiosity's sake! LOL!</p>
<p>So here's your chance - why did you decide to enter this grueling and gut-wrenching application process to go to BS????</p>
<p>This is a loaded question. I could pour out my reasons, I’m sure there are way too many to count, but mostly because I’ve always felt more home at places where I’m more independent and free to do what I am able to and want to do.</p>
<p>Also, I went to CTY over the summer, completely convinced me.</p>
<p>BS was not really on my radar screen because it is uncommon in my country. However, my former preK-12 intl school suggested to my parents that they explore other opportunities as I would exhaust their math, science, and foreign language curriculum by the end of 10th grade. The dual enrollment/community college route is not available where I live.</p>
<p>For me it wasn’t exactly gut-wrenching. I applied for 9th grade but would have been happy to remain at my former school through 10th if I didn’t get in. For that reason, I applied to far fewer schools than is the norm.</p>
<p>This has been entirely DDs own initiative. She seeks more challenge and substance that at her current day school and wants to gain opportunities for growth by spending less time in the car being shuttled from one activity to the next.</p>
<p>Because it’s about money. BS really only makes economic sense for very wealthy kids or for kids receiving FA. For the earners in the middle, it’s a hard sell.</p>
<p>If your family earns too much to qualify for FA and you have good local public or day school options, then why would a parent want to fork out $50+k a year for this pruduct before forking out for college?</p>
<p>@GMTplus7 - that makes perfect sense, although most independent day schools in our area are not much cheaper. Tuition is still around $3-$35K a year! YIKES! We do have some private religious schools that are between $12 - $15K, and some that are just under $10K, so some people do make the sacrifice to send their kids there (though we checked these schools out and they honestly were not at all worth the sacrifice!!!). I also think that we live in an area where there isn’t much “push” to excel academically. That’s one of the biggest reasons we ended up homeschooling in the first place. It’s like if everyone around us is OK with just “getting by” and doing the bare minimum to get through school… This sentiment has even permeated a lot of the homeschool communities, sadly. The few kids we know who are going to prep school all say the same thing, “We chose this because we were tired of being made feel ridiculous for wanting to excel in school.” Some kids shared that even their TEACHERS had no desire to help them excel. One kid who will be at Moosieboy’s school next year told me that when he asked one teacher what he could do to raise his grade in one class from a B+ to an A, the teacher basically told him, “I have kids who won’t be passing this class. I don’t have time to worry about how to bump your grade from a B+ to an A!” That’s what kids in this area are facing, sadly But yeah, we didn’t even begin to consider prep school until we were made aware that we would qualify for substantial aid… A lot of people I know would most definitely qualify for FA, but they probably aren’t aware of it or know their kids would just not have the grades to compete for a coveted FA spot :(</p>
<p>Do you live in my town? lol I live in Central MA and feel I could have written your post. While I’m an alum of a HADES school, I swore upon graduation that no child of mine would go to boarding school. I was still smarting from the isolation from home (parents in Ohio, me in New England, no Skype, no cell, no email…it was the 80s after all). That said, here we are. Our local high school is a giant regional high school that has perennial budget issues and a pathetic matriculation rate (low 70s). My daughter is clearly not challenged in middle school. The local options include two independent co-ed schools and one all-girls parochial school. We are applying to one of the independent options as our local option. My intent is to have my daughter to be surrounded by kids who are academically motivated, who have parents that share a similar outlook and interest as I. I would like her to have choices and diversity in her studies and extracurricular activities and have those be on a level that makes her stretch, challenge and achieve. </p>
<p>I have also cautioned her not to speak too much to local friends about boarding school because we know of no one else in our town who would pursue such an avenue. My sense is that our interest would be viewed as elitist and if Monday doesn’t yield positive results, I wouldn’t want my daughter ostracized or to be misunderstood. Also, my daughter attends a sleep-away summer camp for 8 weeks each year so she is well prepared for the live-away-from-home experience, another hurdle most students find challenging, at least at first.</p>
<p>BS involves financial costs beyond tuition. There are significant additional logistical costs. </p>
<p>There are also considerable emotional costs. There’s not much talk on this forum about the sadness of something as simple as missing out on watching your kid’s soccer games. There’s also not much talk on this forum about the intense stress of living 24/7 in a bubble-- of the kids not being able to get away from everything in the evenings at the end of the school day. </p>
<p>BS is not all a bed of roses; it has its own set of issues, good, bad & ugly. Be careful of what you wish for.</p>
<p>To me, a school is first and foremost about learning, so we look for schools with the best teachers, the best selections of courses, best after-school activities, etc. Unless one lives in NYC or Boston, it is nearly impossible to find local schools that are better than the top BSs. Just like everything else, there are always pluses and minuses. There will be a lot of sacrifices for both parents and the kid.</p>
This has been one of the surprise disappointments at S1’s school-- a much pursued school. The silver-haired star teachers at the famous schools do eventually retire, and they don’t all get replaced immediately with new stars. It wasn’t until junior year that S1 didn’t have at least one newby teacher who was a complete dud. </p>
<p>It wasn’t just S1 who was underwhelmed. We also watched these teachers in action during Parent Weekends and were not happy paying 50 grand a year for this. One of these teachers was not asked to come back the next year. </p>
<p>I live in an area with plenty of private schools as well (the public schools around here aren’t the best). I started looking at boarding school last year during my 8th grade year at a Pre-k/8 private school. The reason I started looking was because there was a large amount of my small 8th grade class that was looking at boarding schools. I had never heard of anyone applying to boarding schools before 8th grade and it was pretty much off the radar for me until I went to private Pre-k/8 school (I only attended for 8th grade.) The reason for this large number of students looking at boarding school at my old school, however, is because there is a boarding school in the same town (right down the road from former Pre-k/8 school,) and the Pre-k/8 school is the little brother-sister school to this notable mid-Atlantic school. Not enrolled there currently - got WL’ed last year - but applying there and other schools all over the East Coast this year.</p>
<p>@GMTplus7 - do you think it was a case of the school putting their “best face” while you were visiting, as in having everyone at “their best” as sort of a “show” for the prospective students and their parents? I wonder how much of that happens, where you get one impression on Visit day and then it’s a “whole 'nother story” when you get there for real… I guess there’s always a small bit of disillusionment, but I wonder if at some schools it’s even greater than others. @prepschoolwannab - that’s kind of how it is in parts of our area. There are just so many great options (public school NOT being one of them), but they’re all expensive. Choosing to go the BS route just depends on (a) how good a candidate a student is and (b) whether or not his or her parents can afford it. I’m just shocked that they’re still in the minority, even for parents who in my opinion could readily afford it. But like GMT said in an earlier post, it’s not always about money - I just hadn’t even factored that! I figured anyone who could, would…</p>
But yeah, we didn’t even begin to consider prep school until we were made aware that we would qualify for substantial aid… A lot of people I know would most definitely qualify for FA, but they probably aren’t aware of it or know their kids would just not have the grades to compete for a coveted FA spot :(</p>
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