When Boarding School doesn’t work out

Prep School Admissions
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Several years ago, there was a thread like this and it was really helpful to read the insights of students (or their parents) when boarding school just didn’t work out. It may have been about “When you leave a boarding school”…but also included experiences of those students who just struggled. Reading those posts during the process of applying and finding a right fit, really helped our student.

Please feel free to share your experiences and/or knowledge.
Hoping this may give another dimension of information to those of you starting your application journey.

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Do you have a link to this thread? I would like to read through it, but wasn’t able to find it after searching through the site. Thanks.

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I think it was “When you leave boarding school”….or “ Life after boarding school”…I believe the last post was sometime around 2017. I will try to find it, but it’s been a challenge. Maybe @SkiEurope remembers it?

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There’s this one:

I think there’s a link in it to the thread you are thinking of.

Don’t let the title scare you. Spoiler alert: The OP’s story has a happy ending.

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These threads, maybe:

I never would have imagined

Life after Leaving BS

And you can look up posts by @PelicanDad, @itcannotbetrue and, I think, @Vega1 who all had children who left BS and had happy outcomes.

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Thanks @ChoatieMom - the threads are several years old and one (at least) is closed. So, I thought I would kick start another one.

We know several kids from different boarding schools who left last year or who decided to not return to BS during the 2020-2021 school year. For those students, their journeys were on a variety of new paths. COVID brought reassessment of school or recruiting efforts. Hoping people will find this a helpful platform to share their journey or to learn about the experiences of others.

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I think this thread sort of implies the student is kicked out/asked to leave but IME there are plenty of kids who just decide the school is not for them and go back to their previous public or private school. There are also kids who jump from one boarding school to another, for variety of reasons. This is no different from kids transferring from public to private HS, or kids transferring from one college or another. Most of the time, it is just not the right fit, be it academically, socially, athletically or mix of all three. Or the student just realizes that they are not happy at a boarding school environment after all.
I think it is way too early in the year to make that determination now, adjustment is hard for a lot of kids and they may be slammed with work and other activities while still trying to figure out what’s what. So I would really try to give it a couple months before you start thinking you may not be in the right place. But if that indeed turns out to be the case, do not be afraid to make a change.

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No intention for narrative of the thread, just a forum for people to write about experiences and share insights.

Agree with @417WHB that the launch to BS is unique for everyone and it takes time to find your comfort zone, as well as just to settle in. For students who have never been away from home and/or for students from a different country/culture, it can be a very challenging experience.
Every year we saw movement of kids - either to another BS, to a day school closer to home, to a different school for sports, etc.

There are times when things don’t work out due to athletic commitments, personal challenges, not the right social fit, and/or financial reasons. On the older threads a few years back - students wrote about how much they learned from the experience of BS and how they moved onto a new path.