<p>I wasn’t going to go here but I know a lady who graduated from Suffield Academy and has 2 guys from Deerfield working for her. Be nice who you meet on the way up your tier level!</p>
<p>Agreed. Newyork22’s comments made me think - </p>
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Is that so? Why are people still trying to send their kids to these schools, driving the admitance rate ever lower? What’s the significant advantages really by spending $45K a year? Are they not seeing the obvious as newyorker22 pointed out?</p>
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But this is an expensive option for these struggling kids, certainly not available to all of them because there are way more struggling kids in this category than the ones going to Choate. Are there other econonmic ways for the these kids to be “on track to college again”?</p>
<p>It was an East Coast schools only list. I’m also not a big fan of rankings, even though they “sell” well. So…just as happy to watch the stale “tier” arguments from my warm Southern California “perch.”</p>
<p>Benley,</p>
<p>There are some options for struggling kids, but boarding schools really seem to do the job and do it fast. And by struggling, it might not be a disaster sitauation, but your typical 9th grade boy who used to get good grades, now gets Cs and is disorganized and blase about school. That is the type of situation that is worth every penny of the $45! The turnaround in a kid like that going to Gunnery or Salisbury is pretty amazing.</p>
<p>I’m an educational consultant, and I would never send a child of mine to a top tier boarding school. The more I work with families applying to these schools, the more firm I get on that. Well, if I lived in a part of the world with poor day school options, I would. </p>
<p>anyway, that is off topic on the post. But the point is that all my favorite success stories come from the tier 4 schools.</p>
<p>Newyorker22, can you elaborate why you wouldn’t send your kid to a top tier boarding school? It sounds like though you’d send him to a good day school so I assume it’s not because of the money.</p>
<p>Thanks for the good feedback, everyone. Newbie question here: what’s an OP? </p>
<p>Previous posts implied that the tiers seem to be correlated with the size of the endowments (and more competitive admissions) and inversely correlated with the availability of services for struggling students. Or is that too broad of a generalization?</p>
<p>We began our search with a dozen schools, chosen for proximity and program reasons. Upon digging around in publicly available financial data, we found that top schools are just a better value. At some schools, Brooks and Tabor for example, the amount charged in tuition is close to or less than direct program costs per student. At the usual suspects (St. Paul’s, Exeter, Andover), your tuition dollar might buy you $1.20 or $1.30 in direct program costs.
No, money isn’t everything, but it probably mean more options for your child.
I, too, want to hear more from NewYorker about why he wouldn’t send his kids to one of the top schools.</p>
<p>Obviously this can be dabated for weeks with no ‘real’ answers. But that list looks pretty accurate. Some schools could be placed in between two of the tiers. But overall the list looks pretty good as far as the academics are concerned.</p>
<p>After going through the system and working in it I agree with new yorker that the tiers don’t really matter as far as the success students achieve at the schools. Just because a school is known for having a strong academic program doesn’t mean its the right fit for your son or daughter. I wouldn’t go as far as blacklisting the ‘top tier’ schools, but they aren’t necessarily better either.</p>
<p>Vahmontah,</p>
<p>OP is Original Poster</p>
<p>And, yes, you pretty much hit it on the head insofar as ranking seems to be directly proportional to endowment size, which is a somewhat specious rationale – though, of course, not entirely! You are also right about the lower tiered schools offering more in the way of assistance/programs for students to get back to form, as it were.</p>
<p>I am INTRIGUED how newyorker22 as an education consultant has reached the conclusion that basically only “tier 4” schools are worth attending or at least worth the money. I very much want to hear her opinions.</p>
<p>As for the school ranking, I think it could be based on a combination of one or more of the following factors: endowment, student/faculty ratio, selectivity (admittance rate), yield, average SSAT, average SAT, placement of graduates to the most selective colleges, financial aid availability, reputation/prestige (subjective. For example, it can be carried from a good ranking of previous years). As for the availability of academic assistance, I may not understand this correctly, but although in top schools there are no formal assistance programs for academically challenged students, the tutoring sytem is functioning well. Teachers and student tutors are available almost every night for math, science, writing, and languages to help students with their homework and address their academics related issues.</p>
<p>newyorker should start a thread just for that topic. it might start a riot here!</p>
<p>I am sure OP wouldn’t care…</p>
<p>Yikes, I logged on and see lots of people wonder why I said that I wouldn’t send my kids to a top tier boarding school. Well, first of all, one of them is still in diapers, so it’s hard to imagine it.</p>
<p>I really shouldn’t have said that and shouldn’t discuss it here. But I’m biased since I work with kids applying to boarding schools, and honestly, they are often very sad stories. It’s really as simple as that. Also, I find that almost everyone I work with is going to boarding school for a very specific reason. To those who are undecided, I say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” So if your kid is happy, engaged, involved, has friends, is challenged, and is playing sports or music, etc. at your local public; then just leave him there, don’t think Choate will make him better. But if there is a problem, he is not involved, no friends, not challenged, etc., then you should consider a change. My hope is that my own children will be in the first category. Maybe it is the naive hope of a mother of toddlers!</p>
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But I sent my kid to a top tier boarding school TO “make him better”, not necessarily a better class rank or even a better college, but for sure better academic training, better opportunities to develop diverse abilities and a better high school experience in general, compared with his PS where he would do just fine. And I think we are getting that.</p>
<p>Newyorker, there is a heavy odor of “boarding school as a therapy” that runs through your comments. The calculus of most applicants and families on this site has little to do with that sort of remediation and everything to do with new experiences, everything to do with placing your child in a peer group that is equally motivated and intelligent as the applicant-family’s child. It is a choice, not a therapy.</p>
<p>Lower tier schools, however you define them, are instrumental life-changers to many kids just as you claim. But that claim has little if anything to do with “top tier” school choice. You’re applying your conclusions about one kind of applicant to all applicants…but one size does not fit all.</p>
<p>We have found with our own children and their friends that most of the kids ARE at boarding school for a reason- their home public high schools are not challenging (there are still some awful ones out there!), the sports or music that they need is not available at home, or the family lives overseas- diplomats or oil companies for example. They probably would not be admitted if they were not engaged with their studies, activities and friends. What we have also heard, in these hard economic times, is that some of the schools that are struggling economically have taken more troubled students this year.</p>
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I am not sure if “most” of the students attending top tier boarding schools fall in this category, but I understand that at least some of them do. My impression is that people who are applying only to a few schools (sometimes just one or two) of their interest are the ones who don’t HAVE TO leave their current school, while those applying to a bunch of schools with “safeties” sound like they are “escaping” their current school. </p>
<p>Of course, you have to have reasons to choose attending a boarding school (and it’d better be a good one to justify the $45k!). The difference is - are you trying to find the best option out there for your kids even though your PS or local schools are indeed functioning well, or are you just fixing the broken? It’s true that your PS is not as academically rigorous or challenging as a top tier boarding school, then again how many PS’s are? It’s true that BS’s have much more opportunities for you to attend a sport or music of your interest, but unless you are shooting for being recruted for that skill, is it really worth it? I agree with Parlabane, for many of us it’s a choice not a “fixing”. Some kids are just more adventrous, more mature and more “demanding” than others. Let’s face it, the “top tier” boarding schools are like good LACs in many ways. For your teenagers, it’s in a sense more like a bigger scale “gifted program” in your local schools. Sending your kids there is a choice, an expensive choice and a choice you don’t make lightly. You want to be cautious that it is not going to “break” him/her, as much as it is going to fix the “broken”.</p>
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<p>That’s a good point Benley, the school that my kids go to is like a residential school for the gifted, or a small college. They are just so much happier and more challenged than they ever would have been at their home public school. They love being surrounded by other bright, engaged kids who love academics. I’m so grateful that we had this option for them.</p>
<p>I’m glad you are all happy with your choices, and I think that especially for many of you who have weak public schools, boarding school is a great choice. I still stand by what I said—my clients at the top schools are bright kids, but more than half of them come from families of divorce, several of them are socially unhappy at their current school, many are leaving a home far away, reluctantly, but knowing it is the right thing to do. To me, this is all kind of sad. I worked with 3 kids kicked out of top boarding schools last year–two for drugs, one for drinking, 3rd offense. I do see sad stories coming in and out of schools like Groton, Exeter, Choate, etc.</p>
<p>Parlabane, you said that people on this site are considering boarding school for new experiences, so therefore I must be wrong about top tier boarding schools. I’m sorry to tell you that I am not wrong. Just because you percieve applicants on this site to be doing it for a certain reason, does not mean that the actual boarding schools are full of kids who are going for these reasons. </p>
<p>Benley, Some top day schools and publics do offer a comparable educational experience as Choate. I think it is all in how you evaluate it, and whether it works for your particular child. And as you said, you want a good “high school experience” and for some kids, boarding school might be great, and for others, it might not be.</p>
<p>It comes down to what it right for individual kids, and from a personal standpoint, it’s just not something I would consider for my own kids.</p>
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Isn’t that what I said too?
And by the way, I thought you used Choate as a generic term for top tier boarding schools. It looks like you thought my kid goes to Choate? :)</p>