<p>In about a month (wow) I will be going to one of the best schools in America! When people ask me why I am going to boarding school, I give the standard answer "it's a great opportunity". I was just wondering what some of these oportunities really are. I know about a lot, such as great academics and athletics. I will also get many skills that I will have for the rest of my life. Does anybody have any examples of other "opportunities" that boarding school has offered you or someone that you know?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Btw I'm thinking that this post was not too logical lol. Hopefully bs will teach me to write better.</p>
<p>You probably won’t know how to answer this question until you get there. There are a lot more opportunities in just about every field, so you’ll have to wait and see what opportunities you care about and you can take advantage of.</p>
<p>But anyway, opportunities that I took advantage of…
Way more math competitions than my public school offered, choreographing for several student run dance shows, figure skating as my sport (something I’ve always wanted to try), starting a club, scholarship money that I used to volunteer in Ghana, way more math/science electives, learning to write, learning with people who are actually interested in learning which leads to a higher quality of classes, learning to play handbells just for fun, and probably some other things I’m forgetting…</p>
<p>thanks
I thought it’d be interesting to hear how other people had benifitted from boarding school.</p>
<p>I really think it’s the “boarding school experience” that makes all the difference. As I head into college this fall, I feel so ready; I know I can live on my own, I know how to handle stress, I know how to manage my time (somewhat…)</p>
<p>I actually can’t say that I got a better academics experience than I would have had I stayed home. I think that I could have gotten a similar education taking classes at a state university, although not in the Harkness style. (That for me is part of the “boarding school experience.”)</p>
<p>As for extracurricular activities, this is where I really saw my classmates shine. I learned SO MUCH about leadership, excellence, and passion. Amazing, amazing, amazing.</p>
<p>The people you meet at boarding school are amazing. My friends and I kept each other going - we inspire each other, motivate one another. When I think back to my Exeter experience, I mostly remember the small moments spent in the common room of my dorm, the jokes around the Harkness table, and well, the midnight screams, the walk to dunkin donuts at 5 am. Sure, I remember the grueling work and the stress - I loved that experience, too, in retrospect.</p>
<p>I really think that it is what you make out of it!</p>
<p>If anyone has questions about Exeter, PM me! I’m a recent graduate :)</p>
<p>There are so many advantages to a BS education over even the best pubic school educations…having experience in both here goes…</p>
<p>Higher caliber of academics (including dedicated professors that often live on campus)
Interaction of students with teachers
Developing independence
Time managment skills
College counseling services vs. guidance counseling scheduling offices
Athletic opportunities
Recruiting opportunites (coaches generally have alot of connections to many colleges if you are a recruited athlete)
Matriculation stats for selective schools
Alumni connections (lifelong if student chooses to be involved)</p>
<p>I completely agree with springisintheair.</p>
<p>I love the fact that I can call or email one of my teachers at almost any time, and they’re more than happy to help. I’ve also babysat for one of my teachers, and I’m often at one of their houses in attempt to understand various concepts.</p>
<p>At boarding school, no one is going to hold your hand. You have to get all of your work done on your own, and you learn how to take care of yourself.</p>
<p>To give you a prospective with matriculation, 8 out of about 100 people in the senior class went to Ivies + Caltech at my boarding school. 33 out of those 100 when to “top” schools (Carnegie Mellon, Williams, Amherst, Carleton, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory, Northwestern, etc.) The rest went to colleges like Rhodes, NYU, USC, etc., which aren’t the best schools in the nation, but they’re definitely not bad at all. The public school in my area (I live relatively close to my boarding school - about 1/2 hour away) had 1 go to Duke, out of about 400. The majority of the rest went to our state school.</p>
<p>EDIT: I didn’t mean to say that Rhodes, NYU, and USC aren’t good schools. I was just saying that they’re normally not considered Ivy-caliber schools.</p>
<p>@sciencefrenchie:</p>
<p>There have been several threads on here about public vs. boarding schools for college - there’s little doubt that, in general, the quality of the average student at a BS is better than at a PS, and your stats reflect that. It is worth noting that the stats do not show that a BS helps with college placement. I know you never said that, but I figured it would be worth mentioning so no one gets the wrong idea.</p>
<p>@OP</p>
<p>More opportunities include traveling abroad with the orchestra and the ability to create and take a course one-on-one with a teacher and receive full credit and a standard grade for it…in this sense, the course offerings become almost unlimited. And as mentioned before, there’s a huge difference between college counseling and guidance counseling - my college counselor had been an admissions officer for some time at a respected college before taking the position of college counselor. These people know what colleges are looking for and can give you a good sense of your chances. As stated above, the opportunities depend on our interests and what you’ll get into. If you’re doing this for college, you’ll have many courses and ECs that PS kids won’t (lots of BS students are recruited for crew, for instance). If this is for life-success, there’s networking. If you’re bored in school now, chances are the courses will stimulate your mind, as well as discussions out of class with some of the brightest people in the world (students and faculty). If you’re a math person, there are the competitions and potentially courses above even calculus. If you’re a humanities person, there are numerous history, social science, and English courses offered. If you’re a language person, you could take Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, German, Latin, Greek, and/or others. If you’re an artist, there are many art courses for you to shine in.</p>
<p>You brought up an interesting point. What is the difference between guidance counseling and college counseling?</p>
<p>In high school the guidance counselors spend time on a variety of tasks, such as picking course schedules, student/teacher issues, vocational/career counseling, monitoring the lunchroom or whatever else the school hierarchy wants them to do. Oh yeah, they also might spend a little time helping kids with college issues and writing recommendations for the 100 or so kids they sometimes barely know.</p>
<p>At boarding school most of those issues are addressed by faculty advisors, house counselors, etc. The College Counseling Office (CCO) is precisely what the name implies - a group solely dedicated to helping students get into the best school for them (First Note: Let’s not get into the debate over whether best always means a university with green stuff growing on the walls). At Andover that means a staff of 7 plus a support staff of 4 to handle about 320 seniors. Other schools have similar arrangements. Thus the counselors can get to know the students better, provide more meaningful counsel and write better recommendations. Many have also been working in the CCO for years so they have relationships with the adcoms at highly regarded schools and can help make a case for a student.</p>
<p>Second Note: That last sentence is also controversial as it is always debated how much influence they have and whether it is applied uniformly. Since we aren’t privy to what goes on behind the scenes that generally involves speculation tossed back and forth between happy students/parents and unhappy students/parents depending on their particular results. At the end of the day what is clear is that students have to make their own case first, but the counseling office may be able to help in some cases. How many is a ??? For whom is a ??? In my daughter’s case we thought the world of her counselor and the CCO, but she also got her desired result. Cause? Effect?</p>
<p>I’m thinking that the way to get the pull of the counselors would be one of the top applicants in the school. Hopefully I can do that :p</p>
<p>I kind of thought about this a little after my first post on this thread, and I realized that yes, I had the “boarding school experience” but I also missed out on the “public school experience.” While boarding school definitely has its advantages, I think a public school education also has its advantages. They each make you grow in different ways, and for me the boarding school experience felt right.</p>
<p>And as for the college counselling discussion, I always hear speculations on cco’s and relationships with adcoms, and whether or not boarding school gives an advantage in admission, but I think that’s just silly. In my opinion, the most important advantage to getting more individual attention from counselors was in making my college list. I felt they knew my standards and interests well enough to introduce me to colleges I might not have applied to otherwise and to narrow down my choices in the end.</p>
<p>WHERE IS FIGURE SKATING A SPORT?</p>
<p>Wow! I didn’t know any school had figure skating, but this is amazing, since I just recently quit figure skating because of the steep private lesson prices.</p>
<p>IF SOMEONE COULD TELL ME, THAT WOULD BE AMAAAZING.</p>
<p>I think Andover offers “Skating Instruction”, for two of the three trimesters.</p>
<p>Thanks, jaharrison!</p>
<p>But is it considered a sport? Are the teachers actual figure skaters? Or just people who “know how to skate”. I’m assuming the first, since we’re talking about a first-tier boarding school like Andover… but confirmation would be nice? hehe.</p>
<p>Yep, it’s considered a sport. “Sport” is pretty loosely defined at Andover. You’re required to do a sport, but that can be satisfied by anything from Varsity Football to Yoga. There are four coaches that rotate (there are two coaches per day and each typically takes two days per week). All of them can do at least single jumps and most spins. At least two of them were former competitors. One won’t tell us or show us much of what she can still do, but the other can still land a number of double jumps. Skating Instruction is offered in the fall and the spring, but not the winter, because apparently hockey thinks it needs ice time. To be honest, the class is geared at beginners. A bunch of us who were bored stiff convinced them to start teaching us jumps and spins, which they now do, but every term the first week is pretty easy. Because the coaches also train advanced skaters at the skating school held at the PA rink, I think they’d sometimes rather have fun than teach people far below their normal level, so often the class got stuck learning a synchro routine near the end of the term. Nothing wrong with synchro, but when most of the class are beginners it can be a bit tedious. The more advanced kids in the class whined loudly about this and last term we didn’t do one, but I don’t know if that’s permanent. </p>
<p>If you’re really interested in taking more advanced classes, you can take group lessons at the PA skating school. They’re relatively cheap, but only go up to Freestyle 6, I believe. They also offer private lessons, though these are quite pricey. Your PA ID will get you into any free skate for free. This is really nice, but unfortunately most of the free skates are during the day from 11:30-1:00. This goes through 4th and 5th period. Whenever I had a free cut, I’d go to the rink and I almost always had it to myself. There’s also free skate on Sunday and Saturday during the winter, but these are crowded enough that practicing skills is difficult.</p>