<p>I've started reading CC by clicking "latest posts" on the navigation rather than just going to key areas (for me) and it's opened all sorts of discussions that i knew nothing about (including one on women's leggings :).</p>
<p>I've been coming over many threads about kids waiting for their boarding school acceptance and i guess I don't get it. Unless there are tough situations at home (parents separarting, etc) why would you want your kid to leave home early just at the moment they become such amazing companions and inspirations....I've LOVED getting to know my kids from 14+...I would be so incredibly sad to have given that up. In addition, wow, the money...I get it that there are 1% out there but surely only the 1% of the 1% could afford $40,000 a year boarding school and then maybe 20% more than that for college. And does it really help get the kid into these colleges....from what i've observed, it's grades, passion, and voice....not necessarily the school.</p>
<p>I worked at a boarding school years ago (combo day/boarding) and never understood the rationale of sending your young ones away. Fast forward many years, and I sent my 18 year old off to college this past fall. Hard enough to lose her at 18, but I knew it was the right time and she had made a good college choice. </p>
<p>Can’t imagine my kids away at boarding school, but like you, I am curious to learn why some parents choose this path for their children.</p>
<p>My one son boarded… It all started with going to private school. Loved the school, gave him opportunities that he would not, could not get at our local public high school. No question that the caliber of his educaiton and his activities was higher. It was a 10 out ot 10 in every way. But…it was a half hour a way when traffic was good. THat meant I had to drive there during rush houre, pick him up, and drive him back home every single day. And the way practices and things went, he would often go over the time that was usual pick up. Plus I had other kids at home. The commute alone would take away from his home work time.</p>
<p>So he boarded. In the time it took to go home, he was already eating dinner. Then relax time, and then required study time. Then more time with classmates who were boarding. The time with peers was especially nice since at home he was not with the kids going to public school and the social aspects of that were limiting. </p>
<p>But, yes, it was expensive. However, I was paying quite a bit for private music lessons and after school orchestra/music opportunities and driving to those venues, which immediately came off the plate. At public school, one couldn’t do the arts and the sports at the same time at the level he was doing them. Also the commute in terms of gas, wear and tear on both the car and me added up. Still was more money than even all of that, but we could afford it. Barely, and it hurt, but it was what we could give him. He loved it and would not trade the experience. </p>
<p>It does help with the college app process and the courses and opportunities were top notch. Worth the money? I don’t know. But it was what he wanted. In our case, he came home weekends, but still spent a lot of the weekend at games and other venues (sports,etc) rather than being at the house, and often was at friends’ homes as well. It’s not as though our neighbors’ kids were all at home either. One doesn’t typically see a busy teen much anyways. At BS, you know exactly where they are, most of the time.</p>
<p>I do know of some families who send their kids to very specialized boarding schools for a particular sport - skiing, hockey, horseback riding. Many of these kids will go on to full rides at some college so it may be a case of paying now or paying later.</p>
<p>I personally would rather keep my teens close but then I’ve never had one whose passion could be better nurtured away from home.</p>
<p>It’s a combination of 1) public schools not meeting the student’s or family’s needs, perceived or actual; 2) desire for social distinction/class signaling/acclimation to one’s class norms (the race for which begins long before college in certain regions); 3) family problems in which neither parent really wants to live with the kid on a full-time basis.</p>
<p>Many people who send their children to boarding schools do so for the exact same reasons that many people homeschool.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine doing this, either, but sometimes it’s a family tradition. In some of the families I know, people have sent their children to boarding schools for generations, and so they continue the tradition. There’s a lot of cultural pressure to do so in WASP families, just as there is cultural pressure in Asian families to excel in music or mathematics.</p>
<p>My D2 has a friend who is from a small town in the Midwest. The high schools in his area don’t offer much in the way of advanced classes. My D met him at the summer program at the Davidson Institute for the Gifted and Talented. This was a kid who just needed more academically than the schools in his region could offer. Although some more advanced classes were offered at community colleges in his region, the quality of student discussion and classroom expectations were quite low. He decided boarding school was something to look into, put together his own application,s and got himself close to a full scholarship to a school on the east coast. He graduated last year and is currently a freshman at a HYPS school.</p>
<p>I attended boarding school many years ago. My parents made the choice before I was 5, I think. They told me the public high school wasn’t good enough for me, and I believed them. Years later I realized that they had certainly exaggerated this. I know that there was a prestige factor at work, because my father spent much of professional life trying to impress people in a lot of different ways. Also, my father was a very distant parent who made me feel ashamed for being close to my mother. So sending me away was not a big deal for him, and it was mostly a relief for me as well. In another late epiphany, I realized my mom might have preferred to keep me close, but she never said a word about it.</p>
<p>Flash forward many years. I briefly considered sending my kid away because I live in rural Utah now and the public schools really are bad. But we didn’t, and I’m glad. I could not have stood being away from my kid during those years, and I tear up just thinking about her departure for college next fall.</p>
<p>Some reasons I’ve seen among extended family and some siblings of junior high/HS classmates:</p>
<p>Local public and private schools were abysmal academically.</p>
<p>Failure to gain admission to highly competitive local public magnets/local private day/Parochial schools or they weren’t a right fit.</p>
<p>Family tradition</p>
<p>Family desires for their child associate with “the better sort” rather than “mere riffraff” like what you’d find in local schools…including academically rigorous public magnets, parochial or private day schools. Many of these families are what some would consider “social climbers”. </p>
<p>Perceptions a given child requires greater discipline/instilling of family religious traditions than could be provided by family or local public/private schools so he/she’s packed off to a strict religious/military themed boarding school.</p>
<p>In a family with high gender imbalance among siblings, the only son/daughter is sometimes sent off to avoid being “unduly influenced” by the majority gender. An older uncle was sent off from his immediate family as he was the only boy among many sisters and his mother thought that he’d be better off in an all-male environment. Probably not practiced as often now as it was decades ago.</p>
<p>I attended boarding school.<br>
Honestly, the education I received was head and shoulders above anything available in my current location, including the public school IB program whose principal repeatedly insists it is “better than the best of private schools”.<br>
I had classmates whose parents worked for the State Department and were posted to places it would be inadvisable to take children; classmates whose parents were divorced and it was written into the custody agreement; classmates whose parents were successful actors and directors who were themselves away from home frequently; classmates who were raised in a social strata in which it is simply the norm…in other words, as many reasons as there are boarding school students. It’s not necessarily a case of “getting rid of” the child. That’s an old trope, and a generally wrong one.</p>
<p>In Illinois there is a public boarding school just outside of Chicago for grades 10-12. They require applications and they are required to accept a certain number of students from each part of the state (it may be divided by congressional districts, I am not sure). </p>
<p>It is free since it is a public school.</p>
<p>My D was planning on applying to it, then H got laid off from his job in February of her 9th grade year and found another one in another state. She was no longer eligible since she was no longer an Illinois resident.</p>
<p>It is a very high caliber school, better then many of the regular publics, and did not have high tuition tied to it.</p>
<p>I am not sure if other states have anything similar.</p>
<p>I have been wanting to ask this question on the prep school boards too, especially when parents seem so stressed out and worried about their kids.</p>
<p>Childhood is short enough. I couldn’t bear the thought of missing my kids’ high school years, or removing them from the community they have known all their lives.</p>
<p>ETA: bajamm, I know of an arts school in the Twin Cities that I believe is free for day students and pretty affordable for students who board during the week (they all go home on the weekends). The kid I know there absolutely loves it. It is only for juniors and seniors.</p>
<p>In the case of two families I know where they sent their kids to boarding school, the primary reason was that the private boarding schools had better track records in placing their students in prestigious universities, and in both these cases, their children did end up in pretty good schools.</p>
<p>SouthernHope- I think you’ve asked a question a lot of us have been thinking. I make no judgments and actually come from a place of ignorance re: boarding schools. I grew up in a lower middle class steel town and didn’t even know they existed! Even as we moved to the Midwest and had kids of our own the notion of boarding schools never entered our circles…I could not even have named one before coming to CC. Now living on the west coast very few people entertain the idea of sending their young kids to boarding school. One girl from my D’s high school left to attend BS on the east coast and I was flabbergasted that parents would let someone else raise their young teenage daughter. I couldn’t even imagine my girls being away during these formative years…BUT we did have several very good private school options in our area to choose from and I still remain ignorant on the very premise of boarding schools…the kids that post here seem very excited about the prospect so I am very eager to hear the replies!</p>
<p>The headmaster of her private school (kindergarden thru middle school) wanted us to at least visit a very well regarded private arts focused boarding school. We traveled cross country and visited, she hated it, I loved it, case closed. She went to a local private high school. I’m glad, because i loved the high school years. But for some students I could definitely see the attraction, especially if a student did not have access to the caliber of private music teachers that they afforded. Here in Los Angeles that was not an issue.</p>
<p>I worked at a boarding school for several years and after what I witnessed I would never send a kid to a boarding school. I currently work at a private school where the head of school worked at a boarding school for many years and hearing his stories I am further convinced. </p>
<p>The kids are generally wealthy kids who are shipped away not to be in the way of their parents who are jet-setting around the world (many of these parents had been shipped away when they were kids also - thus the tradition part.) Many of these kids feel unloved and unwanted and end up with social problems (drugs, drinking, unhealthy relationships). The staff is generally young (what old person wants to live in a dorm with a bunch of kids) and the social line between faculty and students is sometimes fuzzy. </p>
<p>There are probably many boarding schools with very high academic levels but not all (the one I was at was filled with special needs kids not high achievers.)</p>
<p>My personal experience with my own child was that I enjoyed watching her develop and become the woman she is today. All of the hours outside of school (I only worked during her school time), were precious - even just eating together, helping her with homework, saying goodnight each night, hearing the stories of her day’s activities were important to both of us.</p>
<p>I felt just as you, UNTIL touring a few boarding schools while researching possible PG options for one of our sons. The academic and EC offerings were far greater than anything available in our area. The schools we saw had a wonderful atmosphere and nurturing environment. The kids seemed fully engaged, happy and confident. We had friends with a D who attended boarding school and, even though I kept my thoughts to myself, I always wondered how they could possibly send her away for high school. After we visited her school, I called my friend to tell her that I now understood. BTW, their S was not interested in boarding school and attended the local public. There are definitely trade offs and it’s certainly not for everyone, but for the right student and family, boarding schools can offer great options.</p>