Assuming the admissions folks know she has been away before and done fine, I doubt her age will matter at all. Good luck to you guys!
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Second Concord. Their girls XC team is very small but has a great coach who has coached excellent kids before and will know what to do. They have a small track team as well. Also look at Dana Hall (all girls) they have always had girls from expat families. Dana doesnât have track though â does she have a different spring sport ? NMH is also fantastic !
Pomfret perhaps? Canterbury ?
@RoonilWazlib99 , each school will look at each applicant in the context of their school. I donât think itâs quite as simple as whether a kid can live independently but whether they can thrive in that schoolâs community. They donât want to set a kid up to be bullied at worst or just not fit in.
With that said, being at the "normal " point in the progression is unlikely to be a detriment in and of itself at most schools. I wouldnât worry.
Also, fwiw, often if maturity is the only thing that is a concern for a school, theyâll say as much and encourage you to wait or reapply.
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Both my kids were standard age when going to school and were just fine BUT both had a super solid foundation of our family being very open about these issues and they stayed very much in contact with us about what was going on.
Is your daughter ready to be thrown into a situation where many of her peers are sexually active and drink and do drugs? The drinking and drugs is certainly minimal on campus but the sexual activity is not. For example, how will your daughter react when the XC team has their version of hazing where the seniors make all the freshman go around and tell what theyâve done with boys and then the older girls tell explicit sexual stories. My kids are unfazed but thatâs a fairly minor example of what to prepare her for. I donât mean to imply that it happens on every sports team but it happens often enough that Iâve heard a constant stream of âthe boys soccer team did xâ âthe girls basketball team did yâŠâ
Of course there are kids not engaging but the environment is there nonetheless.
Hi! I think so many of your questions and concerns are applicable to lots of families thinking about the prospect of boarding school. We are lucky in that we live in Boston and have lots of options to choose from in a 2 hour radius of schools. Have gone through the process twice- last year with my step-daughter who was applying for 9th grade (class 2025) and now my son who decided to apply out from his private day school for grade 10 next year (also class 2025).
What was under review and discussion for each of our kids was VERY different. My step-daughter had a really small list of schools (TWO!)she was interested in applying to and that was it- she is an amazing kid, incredibly strong student and knew she would be a fit. Sheâs at Andover and having the time of her life! My son on the other hand had a pretty extensive list but we narrowed down to three and none of the schools that he considered and ended up applying would be considered pressure cookers/competitive- they fit the kid based on our research and his own impressions from visits and online events.
Based on what youâve shared about your daughter, would consider looking at some that might not have been mentioned already based on a quick scroll: Northfield Mount Hermon, Concord Academy, Governorâs Academy, Williston Northampton, Pomfret.
Good Luck!
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@RoonilWazlib99
Seconding Mercersburg! I have two very different daughters there who arrived at MB through very different paths.
Also, one of them turned 14 literally the day we flew out to move her in, and it has been zero issue.
My DD3 (the Mercersburg freshman newly 14 year old) considered mostly all-girl schools so happy to answer questions about them as you go through the process. (To answer a question someone asked above, Dana Hall fell off our list due to high day student population. ). That said, we still kept Madeira on the list and fell absolutely in love with it, and it was hard to turn them down. So, go figure.
Iâll add about kids going away: itâs actually easier than I expected. Sure, harder the day I came home from the airport. But easier in that I am hearing how much they are LOVING their lives, and being inspired and stretched into their best selves. Their joy from the amazing opportunity makes my personal sadness so very tolerable.
Anyway, happy to answer questions as you go through the process.
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Very informative, as usual. Thanks!
Just wanted to update that after a couple months of thinking, our daughter has decided to move forward with the exploration phase of boarding schools. She is going to research and see what looks good over the next couple of months and if she still wants to potentially pursue this path, we will pick a few to visit while we are back in the US this summer. Not an ideal time to visit, but weâll take what we can get.
As of now, her very long list to start her research is as follows in no particular order:
Mercersburg Academy
St. Markâs
Loomis-Chaffee
Deerfield
Emma Willard
Middlesex
Millbrook
Berkshire
Choate Rosemary
St. Andrewâs
Hotchkiss
Miss Porterâs
Pomfret
Tabor Academy
Williston Northampton
Taft
St. Georgeâs
Westminster
Concord Academy
Putney
Exeter (her dad wants her to at least take a look)
Are there any you would add to the list to have a kiddo check out that is looking for a moderate to high level of challenge (not extreme), is into Theater, camping/backpacking, running, reading, and science? Not a fan of mathematics, but still does well (on level, not advanced - on target to take Algebra in 9th grade).
Will achieve Star rank in Scouts by June and working on a very large self-directed leadership and service project for her Silver Award in Girl Scouts (will also likely have finished by June, but has until September 2023 to finish).
At 12 years old, runs around a 22:00 5k and 12:30 3k (these are XC times, not track). For track, she runs a 5:50 1500. Not astounding times, but good enough to be impactful at almost every school on her list. Qualified for the Junior Olympics in a very tough region in XC and track (track was for the 1500m racewalk).
Interested in watercolor art, drama, and other artistic pursuits. Willing to try just about anything. We moved overseas this year and she jumped right in and tried all kinds of new activities.
Very responsible and independent, but also shy around new people. Not afraid to speak up in class, though. Her English teacher gave them an impromptu speech topic last week and she recorded our daughterâs speech to use as an exemplar for all her other classes.
This turned into more of a novel than I was expecting! Thanks for reading this far and for any advice on schools she should put on her list.
Your child might be interested in George School.
If youâre looking for a non-pressure cooker environment, avoid Exeter.
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@confusedaboutFA - She dismissed George due to watching the slog her brother and his friends went through doing the IBDP at the local public school.
I understand about Exeter, but as mentioned in the first post here, her dad and uncle both attended Exeter as day students and her dad wants her to at least take a look. He did say that there is no way any kid of his will attend Andover, though! Those rivalries stay with you forever! 
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@RoonilWazlib99 , there are plenty of non-IB options at George at all levels of rigor and with different concentrations. I wouldnât dismiss it because she doesnât want to do the IBD. (Neither does more than half the senior class!)
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Um? âYou know nothing Jon Snowâ is all that comes to mind.
The kids I know in boarding school love it. I donât know where you are getting your info but you are woefully misinformed. I kind of assume you are just a â â â â â trying to stir up the prep school threads 
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Not a BS parent but you do understand that the kids who are applying to BS here are high school age - they arenât 8 year olds being âsent awayâ from their families. These kids want to go to BS - they are the ones driving the process. It takes a loving parent to send their kid away from home but they are doing it because they want to do what is best for their kid, not what is best for them.
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Personally I do not correlate love with abandonment. However, I do see some kids actively perusing BS and wanting to go and thatâs fine. But from this tread and the original posters comments, it seems to me that like in many more instances of parents sending their children to BS, it was the parents who tentatively suggested boarding school in this case. And that tentative approach and having to convince the child to go is not a good place for the child to be. There are about 34k children in BS in the US vs 15mill enrolled in High School. That alone is telling, there is always another way and I am suggesting the poster puts the child first. There is no compensation for a loving home. Again I am not trying to antagonise, from first hand experience and the wealth of research done on BS, the abandonment and abuse cases readily viewable online I cannot fathom why a parent would risk that with a their child. At 13/14 you only have a couple of more years to go, to be present everyday in their lives and love them, is something you could never regret.
The question of why the OP and their child wants a BS is a valid question.
The question of why one would choose a BS Is off-topic, and deserves its own thread. Although it has been asked and answered many many times on this site over the years, so a search might elicit better info than rehashing would.
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The poster said they were âconsideringâ BS, my comments are in that context
This comment made me cry, you sound like a loving mother, just keep her, continue to lay beside her each night and read to her. You wonât regret it.
Most US boarding schools, and certainly most, if not all, of the schools on the OPâs daughterâs list, delve to ascertain who is driving the process, and base their decisions accordingly.
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