Over the years, I have simply thought it because smaller schools with fewer students means less chance of anyone bothering to post anything here, so fewer people from that school or schools would have reason to read and post, and on, and on, self-fulfilling. That’s the simple answer.
Schools do lots of marketing. The smaller, less prestigious, less famous, less whatever schools do tons of it. That’s racing. But could they or should they be encouraging an online presence on third party media? Are they actively discouraging it? If so, why?
The fact is many/most of the schools-nobody-ever-talks-about-on-here struggle every year to get as many of the prime applicants, full-pay Americans, as they would like. (Andover doesn’t have that problem.) But it really is odd that even in the prime years of this forum, it was all about those same schools over and over, and the now-fading boarding school boom didn’t seem to lift too many boats…
Grier has Facebook page that I visit time to time. It also updates on other social media as well as promotional video clips on Youtube. It has never encouraged or discouraged parents, at least not me, to do anything for it. The way I see, it has no reason to discourage it, while it feels is manipulative and not genuine to encourage parents to do the marketing for school.
On CC, since it is an anonymous site, I don’t see how the schools can market here, not until CC puts ad banners from schools at least.
I think the problem is not with individual schools’ marketing but with the general public ignorance about what present-day boarding schools are like (which I shared until a few years ago). If all the parents who a) had children who were academically and temperamentally suitable for boarding school and b) could afford it actually knew what the schools offered and how they could benefit their children, they would be beating down the doors by the thousands to get their kids in, and not just at a few schools.
I believe that most of the schools out there are doing most everything they can to scare up the families with the cash, whether close to home or around the world, as well as encourage institutional continuity. But the lack of chatter regarding many/most schools is interesting.
I do know that interest in boarding schools in general is down among the less-traditional demographic; one idea gaining acceptance is that the endless bad publicity over the last decade has taken a toll and exacerbated the normal waxing and waning of interest among the non-traditional upper-class families. (Some are hotly denying this, which tells me that it’s probably got some merit.) Schools that have accept day students, and day schools, have seen a increase in interest, so that’s something. People who have the choice are sticking closer to home instead of branching out and “sending” their kids away if they’ve never sent kids away before or didn’t attend themselves.
None of this will hurt the elite schools much at all. They’re fine. But some of these schools are barely getting by. How much pressure can they take. 2025 will look not much like 2005 in the outer provinces of this little world.
Some people believe it is a sign of a lack of gravitas to advertise. So when you hear an ad for a private school on the radio, you can bet some old private school alum is just horrified to hear it. It’s a cultural thing. Long, long time ago people registered their children at birth for their prep schools. There is a feeling among some that advertising is a sign of weakness.
So a lack of online advertising doesn’t mean schools are hurting.
I think there is a cultural shift away from boarding schools (hard to helicopter there) but it doesn’t explain lack of mentions on CC where 90% have already decided on boarding school. I do what I can to boost the small schools here that we visited and liked very much- go Darrow ducks!
There are some CC colleges that also receive “crickets” from CC. Tulane and Emory both have just 1-2 regular posters answering CC questions. Emory is ranked in the top 20 by Newsweek and Tulane is always popular so this surprised me.
Although administrators at both of our kids BSs have reached out to us personally to solicit support, neither has mentioned parent PR (ie helping create word of mouth buzz to raise school’s profile etc) even though PR is Chimneydad’s profession. I think it might be a smart request for smaller schools to make of parents, even if it’s just a generic “don’t forget to hashtag us” request at parents’ weekend. Not sure why most don’t.
Some small schools are doing a pretty good job utilizing facebook, instagram, twitter etc. but parents voices are largely absent. I would advise applicants to follow schools as you can create a meaningful connection with the schools that way.
There certainly is a softening in the interest in boarding schools right now. It’s a cyclical thing, but the unrelenting negative press since the most recent peak is thought by some to have amplified the effect this time around. The largest and most exclusive schools are not in any danger, but some have modified their approaches regarding outreach and whatnot.
In a similar vein, summer camp attendance is also down. In our community it’s not something kids do. They don’t go to boarding school either. Through extremely good luck we found ourselves in a position to feel comfortable sending AppleKid away to camp for several weeks at a time over several summers and we believe this has been pivotal in the kid’s development. Moreover, I believe that had we not had this experience as a family, we would not have given boarding school more than a passing thought because of, as stated by @GnarWhail “the endless bad publicity over the last decade” which causes a parent to fear places where their kid is not within their control.
The extremely good luck I reference above was having the chance to meet a young person who impressed us deeply and who explained to us that attending, and later working at this particular camp, was what made this person who they were. (BTW @chemmchimney the young person attended Tulane!) I will admit that as parents DH and I needed to have this personal reference in order to feel comfortable sending the kid away to be under the care of strangers for an extended period of time. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I believe that there are families who feel similarly apprehensive and use the “fame” of the often-mentioned boarding schools as a proxy for a personal reference to mitigate their fears.
Originally Exeter was the only school we were going to look at because someone close to me went to Exeter; it was the only personal reference we had at the time. I hadn’t even really heard of Andover, or at least didn’t know I had; I was one of those folks who was confused by the Phillips name–was there one school with two locations, or was one a military school and one wasn’t, etc. It was my kid’s determination to find an alternative to the schools we have at home plus our realization that it was really tough to get into Exeter that caused us to look at other boarding schools, the more known AND the lesser known. Maybe its not just the parents who need to be targeted with promotional efforts, but also the kids. And social media would definitely be the way to do that. I would also say that it’s very important that schools’ websites be as attention-catching as possible and convey something about the school which will resonate with the visitor. (@twinsmama I really like the video on the Mercersburg site!)
[For a good read about the developmental benefits of summer camp, many of which I believe can also be gained through the boarding school experience, take a look at “Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow” by Michael Thompson who is also a co-author of “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys”.]
@AppleNotFar we ended up on our boarding school journey through schools promoting themselves to our kid. We lived on the west coast at the time and I had never heard of any boarding schools (I literally couldn’t name one). My entire view of BS was based on “facts of life” and “dead poets society”.
Our oldest came home from a school assembly in 7th grade where PEA was given the opportunity to “talk” to the kids and from there, our path was set. At the time he attended a public STEM magnet middle school. It had a rigorous curriculum and the highest concentration of PG ( IQ 145+) in our city. I did not realize that PEA had a relationship with this school until much later.
After our son was admitted to PEA, he and other current students were asked to speak at the citywide school counselors meeting to raise awareness surrounding the opportunities BS could offer students. The ask was simple, could PEA and other BS come in an speak to the students. Prior to that meeting, almost 100% of the kids who went to a PEA came from our kids middle school. Keep in mind we lived in a city with over 2 million people and were ranked bottom 2 in education in the nation.
For a brief period after this meeting, BS were allowed to raise awareness of the opportunities that BS could offer in schools. Pretty quickly, school officials realized that BS’s might be a threat to them maintaining their top students in their school system and put a stop to it. Even our kids middle school (that had previously had a close relationship to PEA) limited access to students. I can not imagine how different our life would be if PEA hadn’t promoted themselves to our son many years ago.
My daughter goes to one of these smaller schools and we love it there. I feel like a part of the reason they aren’t talked about as much, especially on this site, is because so many people are pushing for that handful of specific schools. Every year we see post after post about an applicant getting into B, C, and D school but not A or E school, and they’re willing to try and wait out a waitlist for A or E instead of being wholly satisfied with either B, C, or D. Unless it’s the “top tier” it doesn’t seem like there is any interest which astounds me quite honestly, because why did the applicant apply at B, C, and D if they weren’t willing to accept an offer?
I completely understand casting a wide net, but unless you’re willing to accept the offer from those schools within that net, why even apply?
That said, my daughter applied to 13 schools because we needed heavy FA, but the small school she is attending was always in our top 3 choices. In fact, she is best friends with a girl that was accepted to Andover, Exeter, Emma Willard, and four or five more schools and she chose to go to our smaller school because that’s where she felt she fit best.
There is something amazing to be said for a school of 175ish girls where every staff member knows my daughter’s name, knows what she’s involved in, and personally cares about her. Also, I love the fact that there isn’t a student at that school that doesn’t know every other girl’s name! There is a true sisterhood within a smaller all-girls school. Plus, she is receiving an education leaps and bounds above what she would get here at our local public school. We love our smaller school!