Also want to say that my answers are in hindsight. 5 years ago, I was worried about everything on your list and anything else that I could think of in the moment! This was a big, unfamiliar decision! Plus, I had just watched the entire series of Gossip girl with my (public schooled) other child and was freaking out about private school in general.
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The parents that stick around here, my guess, mostly felt their kids did thrive or will thrive in boarding school. Itâs a self-selected group.
As a counter-point to the mostly positive experiences, does someone have a story where the kid or parent went in excited, but left disillusioned?
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Yes, this is very relevant.
If you are sending your child to BS for this reason, then at least send them to a BS that has experience with students with these issues.
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Our regional AO, who we know well, said that most kids who donât have a good BS experience were (in retrospect) not the ones in the family pushing for going to BS.
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I donât have personal experience, thankfully, of BS not working out, but Iâve seen kids crash and burn. the most recent one I know struggled academically â e.g. staying up until 4 am to get homework done â and also had some personal issues â e.g. getting cut from varsity b/c of attitude issues. I absolutely do not know what was going on for that kid, and whether he had issues before BS or if he had undiagnosed learning differences or something else entirely. But, it can happen and Iâm sure that family would not say boarding school was a good experience for them.
I was very worried. So worried and indecisive, in fact, that we left the decision to the last day.
Kids have been able to get the right classes to meet their needs. If they had stayed in local public would have been a different route.
I believe that you can take many paths to the same spot. My oldest has told me often that it was a great decision and is glad we made it. So Iâm going with that.
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Sure. There is attrition at all of these schools for many reasons (academic, behavioral, financial, just not ready or the experience not as expected). Our sonâs freshman neighbor stuck it out through first semester sophomore year but went home for Christmas and didnât come back. He never got over his homesickness. A few classmates were not invited back due to academic underperformance. All of these things happen, there are downsides. The worst case of buyerâs remorse Iâve ever seen on this board was a parent who was considering pulling his daughter out of Deerfield because her grades werenât good enough for an Ivy and the parent didnât think the financial sacrifice was worth an outcome the daughter could achieve at home. That was one sad thread. Or this one where a student was asked to voluntarily withdraw for âteenage mistakes.â Several posters here have had children leave BS for various reasons:
There was a poster here a while back named Center who was pretty salty about her sonâs experience with college counseling at Exeter. I tried to search for that but her screen name doesnât come up as a search option though her posts exist.
@ChoatieMom how in the world do you add those links like that to where they fit into your dialogue and everything? #askingforafriend
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[ Any Text ] ( link )
No spaces before or after any of the brackets or parens.
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All amazing information and links.Thank you!
I got curious about the college counseling case and did a quick search on my phone but couldnât find the post. Do you recall what was the case?
I believe she felt that her son was being harmed by the school advocating for others less deserving due to forms of favoritism. I can find posts by her in threads I know she participated in, but the search function doesnât pull up her screen name for selection. I think she was banned at some point. When I get more time, Iâll see if I can back into the discussion. If I find it, Iâll post it.
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Thanks, @skieurope. That helps get a list of all her posts, but do you know why using the search function to find posts by her name doesnât show that exact variant? Other versions of âcenterâ come up, but not that one. I guess I can just try â@Centerâ in the search stringâŠ
I always thought Center was a man. 
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I did @center and had to scroll down, but it was there
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@chemsider: Center was unhappy with what she perceived as the extreme liberalism at Exeter which she felt marginalized her son. I really donât want to wade through that bitterness for the thread about her sonâs college experience but she felt that others were going to unfairly step over her son. I only brought her up as one more example for @floating123 of a person who became disillusioned with a BS choice.
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If itâs not too much trouble could someone send me the link of where she was bashing queer students? Iâm pretty curious, but itâs fine if not!
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Gender Inclusive Housing @ Exeter - #15 by Center a whole lot of transphobia in this thread (I tried to link it to her comment directly but not sure if it worked)
Alright, thanks : ) hopefully that will also be informative about what things could be like if I get into Exeter!
I recall that some of @Center threads were insightful about college recruiting- her kiddo was a multi sport recruit. There were some challenges that she shared with us. Think all turned out ok!
Seems like the past year gave us a roller-coaster ride that will have a long term impact. COVIiD gave many of us a detour or at least changed the BS athletics experience.
You know how someone asked you or may have asked your student to consider âWhere would you Ike to go to school if you couldnât play your sport or do your most passionate activity?ââŠwell, for most of our kids (not all) that actually did happen! My kiddo has not been able to play one of the sports for the school team in almost 2 years now. This was an interesting âtestâ of sorts that proved we did choose the best fit school at the time. Life didnât stop, even though the sports did stop. New friends were made. New areas of interest were explored. The BS experience will be richer for our kid (at least), not poorer. The long term value of the BS experience for our kid will be greater than if we had kept Kiddo at home.
BTW, if you have something say about a school or insights related to long term value of the BS experienceâŠplease donât keep it to yourselfâŠDM me! 
Personally, I also want to know the tough stuff⊠so I can be better prepared.
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