<p>I have no direct experience with SMS but a friend from the mid-Atlantic sent her daughter there and was very unhappy with the fact that there were so many parents of boarders who lived very close by to the school (Boston area) and were essentially there at the school at every opportunity, whereas her daughter, farther from home, did not have an advocate on site. She did not give me specific examples of where advocacy for children was needed and how her daughter suffered. This very same complaint can be lodged against any of the Boston-area schools it seems. She just was unhappy with SMS for her daughter, and I suspect would have been with any of the schools in the Boston area. However, it did dissuade me enough not to put any immediate Boston-area schools on our BS search.</p>