<p>I am new to this forum. My daughter is very interested in going to a BS for her 9th grade and she finally convinced my wife this is a good choice for her. (I have been more supportive.) Financially we can afford it without a FA. The big question is which schools to apply. (Of course, she is as bright as many other kids in this forum.) I spent sometime reading discussions about the great schools like Andover, Exeter, SPS, etc. I also heard the term of top tier, second tier, ... Do we have a definition of a top tier school, a second tier school, or even a third tier? Which schools should be considered top tier? Who belongs to the second tier? What about 3rd tier, 4th tier, ....?</p>
<p>There are never any clear lines when it comes to the different tiers. This topic always ignites a large debate amongst the different people who visit this board since it is hard to draw clear lines. Some schools could be considered on the border between tier 1 and tier 2 or tier 2 and tier 3, etc. </p>
<p>Here is MY opinion of the tiers</p>
<p>Tier 1
- Andover
- Choate
- Deerfield
- Exeter
- Hotchkiss
- Lawrenceville
- St. Paul’s</p>
<p>Tier 1.5
- Groton
- Middlesex
- Milton
- Taft</p>
<p>Tier 2
- Cate
- Loomis Chaffee
- Peddie
- St. Mark’s
- Thacher</p>
<p>Tier 2.5
- Berkshire
- Blair
- Emma Willard
- Governor’s
- Mercersberg
- Salisbury
- Westminister</p>
<p>Tier 3
- Avons
- Brooks
- Canterbury
- Concord
- Hawaii Prepartory Academy
- Northfield Mount Hermon
- Williston Northampton
- Suffield</p>
<p>Tier 3.5
- Cushing
- Brewster
- Holderness
- Lawrence
- Pomfret
- Proctor</p>
<p>Again this is my own personal opinion. Don’t take this too seriously. And this list only represents some of the more popular boarding schools. There are a lot more not listed. Take a look at <a href=“http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/[/url]”>http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/</a> to find even more schools.</p>
<p>^^Good list. You are becoming an expert now. 
I’d say that the only consensus ever reached here (or anywhere else for that matter) is a few schools that should definately be counted as tier 1/top schools. What others should be in tier 1 too, which ones are considered tier 2 or tier 3 have been heatedly debated. But this is a good list in that it gives you an idea where each school stands by “popularity”. That’s probably all you need to know(meaning it’s not so helpful to know whether a school is No 3 or No 5).</p>
<p>To have some fun, I am modifying 2010hopeful’s list based on my preference. I added a few school that have been discussed here, and eliminated tier 2.5 and 3.5. It’s hard enough to categorize a school in tier 2 or tier 3. </p>
<p>Tier 1
- Andover
- Choate
- Deerfield
- Exeter
- Groton
- Hotchkiss
- Lawrenceville
- St. Paul’s</p>
<p>Tier 1.5
- Middlesex
- Milton
- St. Andrews
- Thacher</p>
<p>Tier 2
- Cate
- Loomis
- Peddie
- St. Mark’s
- Taft
- Berkshire
- Blair
- Emma Willard
- Governor’s
- Mercersberg
- Salisbury
- St. George’s
- Westminister</p>
<p>Tier 3
- Avons
- Brooks
- Canterbury
- Concord
- Episcopal High School
- George School
- Hawaii Prepartory Academy
- Hill School
- Kent School
- Northfield Mount Hermon
- Williston Northampton
- Suffield
- Cushing
- Brewster
- Holderness
- Lawrence
- Pomfret
- Proctor</p>
<p>Thanks DA for throwing more of the Mid-Atlantics in there.</p>
<p>Wonder how many hackles are going to be raised by this particular thread?!? ;-)</p>
<p>So far so good. I agree , for the most part, W/ both lists.</p>
<p>Actually, this is extremely helpful. I have read a lot of posts (too many) that just concentrate on the top handful of schools. I’d welcome any other opinions on this list. As for me, I’m just learning, but this seems to jibe with what I have found out so far. We are very open-minded…it is not ‘top tier or nothing’ with us. What we are also trying to gauge…and maybe this is even harder… is which of these schools tends more toward ‘sink or swim’ and which are a bit more structured/supportive. There is a place for each one, depending on the student. I know an applicant who thrives on ‘sink or swim’, loving the independence, and another that would be almost certainly burned by it. The wrong place is going to make a student very unhappy indeed.</p>
<p>I really don’t think any of these schools are actually “sink or swim” - or even close to it. A common characteristic among the best schools is that they admit you to succeed - and then they do a tremendous amount to make sure that happens.</p>
<p>My hackles are raised.</p>
<p>@ThacherParent: Aw man, I thought you’d let the point-five part slide! ;-)</p>
<p>Remember that any of these lists are just a starting point.
All of these schools have websites packed with information, photos, team rosters, student profiles and lots of great data.
We found that one school we were interested in did not even offer my daughter’s main sport. Another school that she loved in every way had a head coach for her sport who was a “scary screamer” (her words) that she could not picture working with for four years.</p>
<p>If she is currently an 8th grader, you are going to want to start contacting schools for information right away. For example, Andover is doing a number of California visits over the next couple of weeks and anyone who has expressed an interest in the school is welcome to attend local information sessions.</p>
<p>Good lists. Miss Porter’s needs to be included whenever Emma is mentioned.</p>
<p>The interesting thing is that on CC, you hear so much about Exeter and Andover being in a class of their own, yet in my experience when you talk to any faculty, administration or admissions counselors from these two schools, they give the impression that their rival schools (Choate, SPS, Deerfield, Hotchkiss and Lawrenceville) the so called top tier are definitely their colleagues. They seem to have a healthy respect for their academics, team sports, matriculation data etc and at least have given me the impression that a student who has gotten into any one of these top tier schools is academically qualified to attend any of them among the top tier.</p>
<p>BTW, I would put Miss Porter’s in Tier 1.5 ahead of Emma Willard. Would Dana Hall go in tier 2 or 3 maybe?</p>
<p>^^The BS world is a small one. Many of the teachers are graduates of these schools and have taught or will teach in other schools. They are not rilvals to them - at all! And, they are right. Each of these schools are hard to get in and will provide you a superb education.</p>
<p>As for the list, I think the tier 2 is problematic anyway. Go ahead and make your call! :)</p>
<p>We have been very happy with the Saint James School, outside of Hagerstown, Md.
Our son has grown into a very fine young man.</p>
<p>According to the people at Mercersburg, Sauint James sends more students to the Ivy league than Mercersburg does. As if thats important.</p>
<p>Cackle cackle! Come on, haven’t we learned anything here on CC? I realize it can be fun for students and parents to make these fallacious lists but can be very misguiding for those new to the boarding school scene. How you determine or judge / rank the schools has to be relevant to the particular applicant. There are so many more willing and able students than there are well known boarding schools. The same holds true for faculty. The endowments are still larger than 35 years ago and the facilities coupled with seasoned faculty have made the less prominently known schools extremely appealing to those that have truly taken the time and energy to investigate. So many tangible schools are available than what are commonly considered 2nd or 3rd tier schools here on CC. I’m going to try and cut this short; in the end you want a good person, someone that contributes to society, the nation, the world and ultimately gives something back. That goal can be obtained from a graduate from any one of the schools listed, provided it was the number one school for that person. Ranking, I don’t know a DOA that doesn’t roll their eyes when they hear that. So now that I’ve kicked the hornets nest, where’s D’yer Maker when I need him?</p>
<p>It’s amazing how people who have applied to maybe 7 schools can have opinions about 50 or 60 of them, so detailed that they actually rank them.</p>
<p>Or how parents hang on the advice of gossiping young teens about what boarding schools are the best.</p>
<p>Really, this thread ought to die on the vine if it wasn’t the perfect opportunity to reacquaint CC users with the Bunkel Index, a reasonably-priced subscription service that will do what these “Tiers” fail to do…by offering the discerning parents with numeric indices that they can use, via the Bunkel Engine (watch for the app coming out on iTunes!) to generate ratings that match your own personal needs.</p>
<p>It’s all about “fit” people! And Bunkel fits everyone’s needs. Why? Because the Bunkel Index is really a set of 45 criteria (actually, if you look at subgroups, it provides over 200 evaluation points). You – the user – get to decide which criteria are most important and which aren’t. You even get to weight the criteria – so if you have a devil-may-care attitude about campus safety, then the triple-killing in the cafeteria at Exover last year won’t matter so much. And if you like sports, you’ll find out not just who has the best lacrosse teams…but (and this is key) who is desperate for players in the coming year. You can even narrow your athletic searches to specific sports. Or your academic interests to specific disciplines.</p>
<p>And, especially for the kids, the Bunkel Index delivers with a ranking of which campuses have the hot girls and buff studs (based on student surveys, not lecherous Bunkel Index statisticians).</p>
<p>You can even change Bunkel values yourself (with limits) so that if the campus drug scene is, say, 23.758 out of 25, you can hit the “INVERT” function if you’re a stoner, so that it’s a 1.242 (which really ought to bring you down, man).</p>
<p>But Bunkel isn’t just a customized ranking system. Bunkel delivers raw data and puts it at your fingertips! (See the above example for “Drug Culture” numbers.)</p>
<p>Saying that St. Bernard Academy has one of the “top tier” drug cultures tells you nothing, really. Right?</p>
<p>Bunkel is totally transparent because with Bunkel you see that it has a 23.758 drug culture. It’s far more accurate because then you can compare that to, say, Kempton Military Academy’s 23.753 and understand that, even though Kempton is ranked several places below St. Bernard, the difference is negligible.</p>
<p>Unless…</p>
<p>(oh boy, here’s where Bunkel is lights out better than anything else on the market)</p>
<p>…you break it all down further and look at the types of drugs. You might then see that Kempton has totally shut down the pot trafficking and it is all about heroin and freebasing (to the extent there are drugs, that is). And that may not fly with mom and dad. But Junior, being more experimental, might find it intriguing.</p>
<p>But Bunkel delivers on academics, too. Are you into Latin? Well, there are schools known for Latin because they have some fancy graduation rites for the kids who bulk up on Latin and then there are schools that have the most amazing Latin scholars and use the most amazing Latin texts and even have summer abroad programs to Latin America…all of which Bunkel factors in and none of which is discernible from a No. 5 ranking or a Tier 2.5 ranking. Bunkel’s numbers tell you WHY the Latin program is great. Sure Deerkiss gets a 77.802 compared to the 65.934 you see for Mrs. Gringleguss School…but look deeper into the Bunkel Engine and break it all out and you’ll find that Mrs. Gringleguss has a faculty that earns 36.888 teaching points while Deerkiss faculty gets 22.970. Deerkiss gets most of its Latin score on its study abroad program – that only 6 students per year qualify for academically (of which 2 can afford the cost). Saying that Deerkiss ranks higher than Mrs. Gringleguss doesn’t even begin to tell the story. In fact, it actually deceives the casual observer of rankings into thinking there’s quality when, in fact, there’s just lots of flash and tradition.</p>
<p>I could go on…and on…and on…because everyone here looking at rankings is totally missing the boat by overlooking the Bunkel Index. Just PM me, people, and I’ll hook you up. I get only a very small commission from Bunkel sales. It’s not cheap – so I’m hoping the NO FIN AID OP is still following this thread! – but it’s worth every dollar.</p>
<p>I have already pre-purchased the Bunkel Engine App. Thank you for alerting me to this useful application, and also for the heads up on Mrs. Gringleguss’. I never knew their teaching points score was so high!</p>
<p>Ronald Reagan: “There you go again”.</p>
<p>fif agrees with about 5% of D’yers post - the first two paragraphs. </p>
<p>Of the numerous prep/private rating sytems available in North America presently, only two have been consistently accurate in predicting the top 5 or 6 tiers. The Pierrepont Morgan System (PMS) version 1.5 has many supporters and has a long tradition of existence to its members. The only problem is that PMS is New York centric, with some Boston bias and ignores almost every school west of western Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>Surely, and as has been pointed out on this board many times, The WBTY Indices ( a FREE program by the way) offers everything a budding prepster and their parents could ever want. None other than William F. Buckley (Millbrook '39), Glen Close (Miss Porters '79) and Jane Fonda (Emma Willard '56) used WBTY when searching for the right school for their own children. There are just three of many celebrities who have used the time tested methods employed by the experienced professionals at WBTY, quite the testimonial!</p>
<p>As opposed to the confusing junk science employed by Bunkel ( I mean c’mon, even D’yer’s attempt to casually explain his system is enough to make your hair hurt), WBTY puts people on the ground where it counts. WBTY really digs into each school and leaves nothing to interpretation. Using four simple criteria ( Academics, Athletics, Social Life, Matriculation), WBTY can direct even the most reluctant student to the school of their dreams.</p>
<p>Gentlemen, I was hoping for heat maps? Does either product offer heat maps?</p>