Am I the only one that gets upset by the fact that all/most of these people apply to Exter or Andover as if they are the only good boarding schools?I mean every thread where someone asks to be chanced they put Andover or Exter even if their grades are bad?Look elsewhere and also if they got in to other schools they applied to except those two they get upset and not take the oppertunity at other schools.Why dont I hear people talk about George and those type of schools.In my opinion all boarding schools are good and what seperates a student in those top schools is fit and most here dont fit tbh.
People look for prestige and a good name, regardless of their qualifications. Even if another school might suit their interests and academic capabilities more. Iâm applying to Exeter and Andover, but only as reaches; i.e. I donât expect to be admitted, and even if I do, Iâm likely not to attend. Many other schools on my list seem better to me.
I looked at Andover and Exeter, but nothing really appealed about them to me. I found schools with a size I feel like is MUCH better and had all of the same technology, facilities, and opportunities and even some ones not found at A/E. Iâm not saying A/E donât offer some amazing and unique things (which they do), but I am saying that the schools I chose offer more in my areas of interest. I did love how many clubs they had because I am ver excited to join many clubs, but since I am so excited, I already have a very long list of clubs I want to join (Science/Math team, debate, Model UN, French club, Investment club, Student council, etc.), so pretty much any school with a decent offering would be able to satisfy what I want, and may even be better since there is not so much that I feel like I am missing out and neglect homework/friendships to be in them.
I may have visited on a bad day, but I found some of the students at Andover to be a bit rude and snobby, and that is not the environment I want to live in for four years. Even though people donât say it does, I donât want to be âa number in the systemâ or âa small fish in a big pondâ. I want the teachers at whichever school I go to to know who I am and be able to look out for me. I also hope to stand out in my school through my math and science abilities, and it would be so much harder/impossible at A/E, whereas I met with the science teachers at NMH and they said to me that if I came, they thought from what I have been reading/doing in camps and on my own at home that I would be one of if not the top student in the school and they had contacts with labs in Boston and they could give personalized attention to me and I may be able to do an independent study in my sophomore year (!!!). That actually is much more of the reason why I want to go to BS in the first place.
My ideal school size is 400-650 so I looked at Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Govâs, Holderness, Choate, NMH, Taft, MX, Tabor, Kent, SPS, and Berkshire, and would recommend that others do the same. That list had schools with pretty much something for everyone. I decided to apply to Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Choate, Govâs, and NMH. I am confident that all of the schools I chose are a better fit for me than A/E would have been. Most small boarding schools offer all that A/E offer in addition to a more personalized education and a better chance to stand out.
No, I donât get upset that many young students asked to be chanced for the two largest & two most famous boarding schools in the country both of which proudly boast of an astonishingly high SSAT score of 94% out of a possible 99%.
Why ? Because, in reality, they are asking for the guidance & wisdom of College Confidential posters to tell them their strengths & weaknesses and to make suggestions of alternative schools to consider.
A & E are just the most well known and they are archrivals. We had never heard of Choate where my 2 ended up until someone mentioned Deerfield and we looked into its archrival. New Englandâs landscape is dotted with so many terrific boarding schools, you just have to look past A & E.
Also, there are so many outrageous opportunities for high school kids who think outside the box. I had found an AFS program for my high school student to spend her last year of high school at a public school in Switzerland through AFS if she hadnât gotten into a BS she was happy with which would have afforded her with a year abroad and living with a local family studying Economics in a country with the worldâs best economy. Donât sit back and pine away for A & E. Look for your opportunities!
@shavvy @FunintheSun1211 @brassarrow I applaud your maturity and thoughtfulness in this area. I donât think hearing about PA/PEA (and letâs face it, many other touted acronym schools) so much as it saddens me that many kids seem to be missing out on so many opportunities that would be available to them, if only theyâd take their blinders off and look. It also worries me that should they get in, theyâll only be going there because of the name & prestige and will completely disregard whether or not itâs the right fit. I respectfully disagree with @Publisher that kids who ask for chances for these schools benefit from cc suggestions to others. I feel the majority of those posters cling to the positive feedback and disregard all other suggestionsâitâs easy to tell whoâs open minded and who has tunnel vision.
For those of you, though, who have figured out youâll get a top notch education and wonderful opportunities at the âlesser knownâ schoolsâŠlook at it this way, less competition for you to get where you know you want to be & where youâve figured out fits you!!
In any regard, know you have plenty of CC folk behind you and rooting for you come M10!!!
Thank you, @buuzn03 ! Itâs true that A&E offer so much in terms of⊠everything, but I havenât felt any connection to them. I find it difficult to picture myself among the students. Not that thereâs anything wrong with them, theyâre just not my type of school.
And @FunintheSun1211 , Iâd prefer to be a slightly big fish in a medium pond. At my current school, Iâd say Iâm a big fish in a pretty muddy pond because barely any students care about their grades. In my grade, I think only around ten or so students genuinely care about their academic life. Iâm not very comfortable being a big fish, but Iâm not sure I want to be just âa number in the systemâ as youâve stated. I think finding the perfect school size is very VERY important.
@brassarrow, I agree with your analogy there. I could count on one hand the number of people in my school who care about their grades, and I go to a very large school.
Being an international student, Iâd say Andover is the most (and one of the only) known boarding schools by those around me. I have neighbours and family friends that go to boarding school, and weirdly enough ALL of them attend/attended Andover; I guess itâs a bit of a cycle, people think itâs well known so they apply, and if they get in they tell those around them, who then hear about this school.
Being an international student, no one around me knew what college-prep schools are. Me, too, until I did some research.
*knows
I went to a well regarded college prep day school (with some limited boarding students) in the Midwest. I remember a really brilliant classmate leaving after ninth grade to go to Exeter and that was the first I heard of it. Then when I was at college I met students who went to Choate, Deerfield, Hotchkiss and thought that was so interesting. I had no idea of how they all stacked up. My dc goest to a day school in NYC and expressed an interest in bs after seventh grade. We looked on a very limited basis for hs and have day school acceptances and waiting to hear from two bs (George and Westtown). I didnât go by prestige factor but was so impressed with both of these programs and communities. I was actually turned off by a couple of websites for the acronym schools and their suggestions to âdress for successâ when visiting campus. It just rubbed me the wrong way. I think my kid would have been eaten alive at one of these pressure cooker schools but if she chooses bs at WT or G, I"m pretty sure she will have an incredible experience.
I only applied to four schools - A/E and Baylor and McCallie in Chatanooga. Iâve already gone through this like a dozen times on CC but Iâma go ahead and say it again. Andover and Exeter are fabulous schools with amazing students, insane opportunities, and incredible academics. When I first started research on boarding schools, these were the ones I immediately read about. And when this is what boarding schools look like to you, you immediately get picky. Suddenly, any school with more than a 20% acceptance rate doesnât have as good students, and no school whose band doesnât go to Shanghai annually has a good music program, and itâd be impossible to become president if you donât follow the Bushesâ footsteps.
But there is so much good at any school you attend. I mean, throughout this year I joined a dozen new clubs at my public school and Iâve realized that there are so many opportunities at my school for which I didnât even try to look before, and itâs made me wonder if I really care to leave in the first place. And if you go to McCallie, whose rank as the 42nd best boarding school in the country is NOTHING (obvious sarcasm) in comparison to Andoverâs 1st, you will find a sense of community that doesnât exist nearly as much in the north.
McCallie has no presidents nor did it invent the Harkness table. But wouldnât it be frustrating to go to school with 200 other people who are gonna do something incredible one day, and have to have fist fights over who gets to be the teacherâs pet? Baylorâs academics arenât as good as Exeterâs, but by how much? Both are top notch. Having to go to McCallie rather than Andover isnât going to hinder your chances of becoming a billionaire, because that really comes from your own character.
(Geez, this is getting long!) I firmly believe that if I went to Andover, I would be at the bottom of my class. I also know that if I went to Baylor, I would be at the top. At Andover, I wouldnât get nearly as much attention from my teachers, because they would be focused on the âbetterâ kids, but at McCallie, I know I could really abuse my academics, befriend my teachers, and be who I want to be without having to fight somebody whoâs already taken that spot. (And have you ever been around smart kids who know theyâre smart but donât think youâre smart? They can be obnoxious!!!)
So sure, at Andover, youâll get to take one of the 450 courses they offer. But at McCallie, youâll get to be remembered when you leave, because McCallie doesnât get that many Andover kids. And personally, I think thatâs better.
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As I tell my girl often, what you do with your education is much more important than where you got it 
And there is much more to adolescence than preparing for college-level academics.
@preppedparent Exactly. A&E are the most well known, which is why people mostly apply to it. From a personal perspective, Iâm a student whoâs been in the public school system all my life (and so have my parents and pretty much everyone I know). Iâve never met a boarding school student in real life before. In fact, I didnât even think that boarding school couldâve ever been a possibility for me (I had the previous stereotype that only super rich kids could get into schools like that). When I first dipped my toes into the boarding school âpoolâ so as to speak, A&E were the first schools to pop up, and I just went with them. Unlike other parents who know about these small boarding school gems, I knew nothing.
@randomfloridian us, too. We only knew of the acronym schools because they are publicized so much. Luckily we stumbled onto DSs school one dayâŠhe couldnât be happier. I continue to be surprised at how many quality BSs are out there!
^ My family makes 20k a year. Boarding school felt like it was impossible for me because I thought snobby rich kids attended those schools. When I first started researching, A&E where the first that popped up on Google. They were also the ones who sent the magazines, postcards, letters and the first that showed me that BS was different and financial aid was a thing. It took some more research to find the âgemsâ of BS and the level of advertisement is just nonexistent for some amazing schools. Itâs just that A&E are the most popular so everyone wants to go there, but they were also the first ones that exposed me to âboarding schoolâ, if you catch my drift.
A cautionary tale - talk to your kid ahead of time about BS admissions politics, yield, etc.
So that when a top BS calls his/her current school counselor to say âWe really liked his/her essays. Where do you think we stand on his/her list?â your DS/DD would know what to say.
^^ less likely than knowing where a school sits on your list ie the top, and student gets his/her heart broken because its so darn competitive. A cautionary tale- talk to ou kid ahead of ime about BS admissions, politics, yield etc. so that on Mar 10 if they donât get into their top choice, they will realize that it isnât them, the school can only take so many.
@preppedparent - agreed - we did the 'schools are so competitive, etc speech. We just did not think to do the âif a school calls your school in Marchâ speech and one school did just that yesterday!