Starting School Research

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
1

I am a little bit away from seriously looking at schools for my 3 kids, but for better or worse, I am a planner. I am starting to do some initial thinking and research about this topic.

Both my wife and I attended boarding school, not ones that are frequently mentioned on this board. We both really enjoyed the experience, and would like to do the same for our kids. We are pretty familiar with the boarding school scene, however we don’t live in a boarding school feeder area, so we don’t have any peer families to turn to for advice.

As parents, we have tried to foster a sense of independence and productivity in our kids. Our oldest daughter loves summer camp and starting spending 7 weeks at sleepaway camp quite young. We think she would be a natural fit for boarding school.

High level, we would be looking for as ‘immersive’ of a school as possible. I have a friend that went to Thacher and that seems like something that would be interesting.

We also want a school that is on the more ‘nurturing’ side. We would want them in a school that has an excellent community feel. We want our kids be able to do lots of stuff, experiment, and find things they like. We want them to play a sport, try out for the play, dance, play an instrument, etc. I would classify our kids as nice smart kids. I want a school that would help them develop into complete people. I know when they go off to school they are 14 and will make some mistakes.

We are on the West Coast, and our kids attend a more progressive school (ie teachers are called by their first names). Would it be too much of a culture shock to go to the school on the East Coast? I know that there are some schools that are more or less formal.

I would appreciate some thoughts from the more experienced parents to construct a larger list. I would like to show my kids a wider range of what’s out there, and they can help narrow it down.

If I had to construct a list now for my oldest daughter, it would probably look something like this. I can only base this on my impressions of the people that I know that went to these schools and speak highly of them, a perusal of school websites, and lurking on this board. There are probably too many ‘brand-name’ schools on the list, and I would appreciate some advice on the ‘hidden gems.’

West Coast
Annie Wright - Girls
Cate
Thacher

East Coast
Miss Porters - Girls
Hotchkiss
St. Pauls

2

This may help : http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1545276-2013-14-hidden-gem-applicant-thread-p4.html I’ve brought you to page four because there are blurbs and links to school websites but the entire thread is worth reading.

Also- If Thacher is on your WC list, I would suggest adding a school like Berkshire http://www.berkshireschool.org/ to your EC list.

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While I would love to encourage a Thacher track (and still do!), I want to emphasize the cultural advantages your child will gain spending four years on the other coast. This exposure to the different pace, attitude, climate, peers and parents etc is especially positive and has a lasting effect. It made a big and noticeable difference in my son’s life. The negatives are the cost of travel, the time it takes to get from here to there, and missing events that nearby parents easily enjoy. A cross-country decision is highly personal to be sure, but for us, the best school was in California, our son has always been wired for independence, and we were fortunate enough to have long visits 3x per year at Thacher, and then have him home on vacations. Worked great and we still say Thacher was the best education dollars that we ever spent on our kids, including college.

Final note: from your description, you’d be crazy not to look at the amazing St. Andrews. Get @SevenDad to clue you in on the school.

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Here’s the thread that I wrote back in 2011 after we had gone through process with older daughter.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1174214-one-family%C2%92s-bs-search-and-application-process-%C2%97-start-to-finish-p1.html

I do think St. Andrew’s should be on your list…arguably above a few of the East Coast schools you list above. For starters, like SPS, it’s 100% boarding, so the “immersive” thing is there. I also think the ethos you sound like you are looking for is very much a St. Andrew’s thing. Another school to consider is The George School in Newtown, PA.

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Another school to look into is Westtown School outside of Philadelphia. It has a progressive atmosphere (for example, teachers are called “Teacher [first name]”), and the faculty/staff is very nurturing and the students very welcoming.

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@PhotographerMom Thanks for pointing me in the right direction to look at hidden gems. I also appreciate the Berkshire school recommendation. I think that is something my D would definitely be interested in.

@ThacherParent I appreciate your thoughts on spending time on the opposite coast. That’s exactly why I want my kids to go to BS is to experience the wider world. I just don’t want them to feel out of place. For example, my daughters are never going to play or see Field Hockey where we live.

@SevenDad I appreciated reading your start to finish application thread. I liked how it was a whole family effort in your case. Do you have any thoughts on striking the right balance of parent effort to kid effort? I want my kids to be invested in the process, but they obviously can’t do some parts of it (specifically logistics buying plane tickets, and driving to the schools). And, we will definitely add St. Andrew’s to the list.

@FatherOfOne Thanks for the Westtown recommendation.

It’s interesting that both The George School and Westtown School are both Quaker schools. It’s definitely not a West Coast thing, so we have never thought seriously about it, but I have several friends on the East Coast that swear by Friends schools. I have read the marketing blurbs about what makes a Quaker education unique, but can someone translate that. Specifically, what made a Quaker education a special experience for their kid.

For the immersive experience - At what point, does there start to be a divide between Day Students and Boarders. My school was 50% day / 50% boarding. One of the relatively few things that I didn’t like about my school was the Day Student/Boarder divide. It was mainly that the day student parents could never imagine sending their kids away, so maybe our parents didn’t love us enough or we were bad kids.

Thanks so much. Even this little bit of advice and interaction has been helpful in further developing my thoughts.

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@Curious: I think every kid/parent/family dynamic is different in this regard. I probably did more than some parents in terms of helping her shape the initial list and requesting info/setting up appointments, etc. But as I think I noted on my “One Family’s” thread, my kids don’t set up their own doctor visits; nor do they do that much legwork when it comes to planning family vacations (something else that can require a bit of online research). Happy to report that 7D1 is happily and actively advocating for herself in her first year at college. Keep in mind that many BS applicants are only in 8th grade and my older girl was a year younger than most of her classmates at that point already.

I do think that while a parent can plant the seed of “going to boarding school” and help shepherd his/her kid through the process, the kid has to really want it to happen for it all to work. And of course, the kid has to write his/her own essays (though I believe parental proofreading is fine).

My younger daughter is a fencer, but after years in the sport, she still doesn’t select and register for tournaments on her own. After all, I am the one paying and driving (and flying sometimes) to these things, so I like to have a little more say in which ones we go to! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I have heard of other families where the kid “drove” the process more in terms of doing initial research, etc. Again, I think every family will have a different dynamic and a different vision of what feels right.

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The culture and the “vibe” at these schools are very different. Consider your basic intuition about differences between being on either coast, between the older Northeast “elites” and the newer mid-Atlantic, between the Episcopalian and the Quaker. 100% boarding is very different from near 50/50. 30-40% international is different from 10-15%. My son had very distinct perceptions from visiting St. Andrew’s and George. He could see himself fitting in at the one and not the other. That’s part of how lists get made.

Also, use social media and school publications to find an authoritative voice (say the Headmaster’s) and a student voice (school newspaper, for instance) if you want to begin to appreciate the differences from afar, before deciding which to visit. Some posters here on CC are familiar with multiple schools, but lots with just one; the posts here and private messaging can go into depth about what you find elsewhere.

9

We are also a west coast family and our daughter came from one of the “teachers called by first name” schools - actually, a Quaker school. She’s now a senior at SPS. She adjusted to the change in culture just fine and I’m happy that the she has the balance of coming from less of a fast lane life than some of her classmates. I do think that it can take a certain amount of self-confidence to deal with not being part of a prevalent culture so that is something for you to ask about when you visit schools.

I’m a big fan of Quaker education although I don’t know what it’s like for a kid who is first experiencing it in high school. At my kids’ Quaker K-8 there was very much an attitude of appreciation for what everyone has to offer, which made for a very healthy social and academic situation. I loved George school when we visited, but my daughter was done with Quaker school by that point and didn’t apply.

100% boarding was one of the attractive features of SPS. I don’t think it’s necessary for an immersive experience, but it does help contribute to that at SPS.

You will learn a lot when you visit schools. It’s very hard to really get a sense of the schools from their websites. Each one has a really different feel, and some of the ones you see will resonate for you and your daughter.

Good luck!

10

I think that it is a great idea to look at a wide variety of schools’ websites to get a sense of their size and the make-up of their student body and the ethos of the place. My kids took a few practice SSATs to get a sense of how they might perform on the actual test so we could refine our search based upon those. Then it came down to size, geographical location, ‘vibe’, and a strength in their special interest. And proximity to home ultimately proved to be important to them too.

11

DS thrived at a Quaker school. We live in a very homogeneous community, so it’s been fun to watch his closest group of friends evolve into an assembly of kids who are like none he knew when he started. I wish that I had his skills in managing confrontational/difficult discussions! He’s been nurtured but most definitely not coddled. I feel like he’s had more opportunities to be reflective than I did at that age. Mostly, though, he seems really comfortable in his own skin now, and I couldn’t say that about the kid who matriculated there.

I totally agree with everyone else here. It’s a good idea to look at the websites and get a sense of the places from the materials that are available there, but ultimately, you need to visit and see if the vibe is right for you.

12

The biggest benefit our kids got by growing up in the west and attending a Northeast prep school were absolutely due to the global community they joined. They had friends from all over the world. Every time a news story hit about a situation in a foreign country (Japan nuclear reactor, North Korea/ South Korea conflict, phillipines monsoon) it immediately was personal as they were concerned for their friends families. Their school is 80% boarders and has kids from almost every state and many countries.

They played water polo, rowed crew (although he hated it), play field hockey and girls lax. These were sports they never would have experienced in our hometown. Add in snowy winters and rainy springs and it was like an alternative universe.

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@Charger78 That is nice advice to follow social media as well as find an authoritative voice.

@Temperantia It’s important for me to get the ‘ethos’ of the place. In particular, it’s important to me that the marketing materials (who we say we are) matches the experience (how we do things).

I understand that whatever list we make will have some schools that are quite different. When the time comes, we will do a one week trip to the East Coast. We obviously can’t visit all of the schools. We can realistically do 5-7. I hope to help them come up with a great list of 5-7 schools that seem like realistic options. I want to have enough variety on the list, so my kids can find out what resonates with them. They do need to see some different stuff. I know there will be some schools that we love the marketing materials, but when we show up it will be a clear no. I also know that the reverse will be true. That is important, because it helps them figure out what they want. My main worry is that we do the trip, she discovers the combination of things she likes about boarding school, but we don’t visit a place that has that right combination. That’s why I do want to do as much pondering as possible before the time comes.

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I went to a Quaker school that is considered an elite prep school, but I certainly didn’t consider it like that as a young student. It was just a healthy learning environment and a caring community in which I thrived… subsequently my kid went to a Quaker school for the same reason, … Dewey kid is now at Putney, a progressive boarding school in Southern Vermont. While there is no Meeting for Worship, in my opinion it is entirely similar in principles and pedagogy. It’s a simpler campus than most of the schools you described, but that is part of it’s truly progressive mission as inspired by John Dewey. Have a look.

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@jdewey Some of the coolest kids I knew at my Ivy league college were Putney grads. (I do remember they were pretty into drugs, though…) Starting to look at schools for my STEM-focused daughter. I love the progressive pedagogy at Putney but suspect my girl will do better at al all-girls school.

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Yes the old days of Putney, it seem were pretty hedonistic :wink: … I think thats changed! I do love that universally people who know folks who have gone there seem to recognize the spirit and passion it fosters. My kid is STEM driven… instead of clubs I think a lot of STEM is pursued individually through self directed projects and research. This allows for a lot of specializing but also exploration and problem solving. Putney kids have to be motivated to want to pursue things… that’s their platform. My kid didn’t enter with an agenda, but has been building one for themselves. It’s very cool to watch. There are interesting courses as well, like Molecular Genetics…

17

I can only speak to the East Coast schools. Every single school you are looking at and that everyone else has mentioned would meet your requirements. One of the hardest things about this process is there are so many options to look at.

I first try to narrow it down a bit in terms of type of school: coed or single gender? religious affiliation (and, related, mandatory chapel)? Saturday classes? dress code? how strict? 100 % boarding or mixed? Rural, suburban, or urban? Within that find options that competitive and maybe less competitive.

Then look a bit at culture. Some kids love and thrive the “elite prep school vibe” and there is nothing wrong with that. Some are move looking at a place to explore and be creative about who they are.

If the top schools in the Northeast we found Hotchkiss and St. Pauls to be less on the nurturing side than some others although they are both amazing schools. We ended up with Loomis because it had more of a “family” feel and the kids don’t seem as competitive with each other. My son loves being able to walk into a town and get barbecue or breakfast with other students, but some don’t love the high number of day students.

Our friends are LOVING Milton, which is in a Boston suburb and which they find very supportive. NMH is great for a more groovy vibe and no dress code but gets a bit less respect within the prep school world. Berkshire is a wonderful hidden gem but, like NMH, is very rural and isolated.

Good luck and have fun.

18

In this area (PA & NJ), in terms of terms of nurturing and close-knit and your “excellent community feel” paragraph, Blair, George and Mercersberg are great. Blair especially so, which is a big reason we chose it. In New England, NMH and Concord and maybe Putney (I cannot recall) use first names for everyone and are also quite supportive and not high pressure. I agree that St. Pauls did not seem to be on the nurturing end of the spectrum.