I wanted to share a couple anecdotes from the sidelines of games because it really has brought home to me how important fit is when selecting a BS.
Game against one of the most mentioned schools on this board:
School spirit person is there trying to whip up school spirit, their team is wining so you’d think this would be easy. He is trying really really really hard. Large group of students sitting watching the game refuse to cheer, make fun of the school spirit kid the entire time he is trying so hard to engage them. Made me sad for him but happy that my kid didn’t choose this school.
Game against a highly competitive team:
They are CLEARLY going to win. Several parents walk up and down the sidelines of the game chastising their kids for every mistake. Made me really happy to be at a school where the parents are so gracious.
Most recent game:
Ref repeatedly has to correct a group of kids (who attend the school we are playing against) because of sideline behavior. Group of parents from same school are standing within ear shot and instead of stepping in and making the ref’s job easier they laugh and start to heckle the ref as well. Wow, that was eye opening. I am a “rules are made to be broken” kind of person but I was struck by how rude the parents were and how happy I was to have my group of parents.
Choose your school carefully! Little things like how the people behave really matter, or at least these little things really matter to me and my family.
Agree! I’ve listened to a few schools’ livestream of my son’s soccer games and the commentary really varies, and while it is always slanted towards the home school, which is fine with me, rude, unsportsmanlike comments are another thing. One school was so bad that I emailed the Head of school with a link to the video and said the kids commenting didn’t reflect well on the school.
I’ve found no parents to be rude, but the vibe at schools where athletics may take precedence over academics is different than when its vice versa.
@one1ofeach: Thank you so much for sharing. Anything that can be added to the “fit” side of the scale to counteract the “prestige/name recognition” side is a 10/10 post in my eyes!
Something similar happened to one of our girls’ team last year at an away game at a school - they were heckled by boys & girls inappropriately - sexist comments and cat calls - comments about specific girls. It was so bad that the ref had to address this with the host team’s coach. Confirmed our choice of “fit”.
Driving a Ferrari isn’t comfortable if you are 6’8” Even though it’s a great car it might not be right for you. It’s the same thing with schools. You need a school that meets your needs, not someone else’s. We really tuned into fit and community. After visiting several schools, we realized that the educational component was pretty easy to meet. Fit was much harder. Listen to your gut. You’ll know when you find your people.
@Happytimes2001: But I won’t be able to tell people that I have a Ferrari if I don’t buy a Ferrari! And I’ve been told the only way to get from point A to point B is in a Ferrari! And my neighbors have a Ferrari. So I am going to only consider a Ferrari. Or a Lamborghini. And if I don’t buy one fo those, I may as well take the local bus, right?
I am going against the grain but I happen to believe boarding school should provide excellence in all three As - academics, athletics, and arts (fine, music as well as drama). I don’t think it is or should be an either or proposition. You don’t have to sacrifice academics to have competitive athletic teams (or excellent drama productions or musical ensembles). Now you should not be a jerk on the field or on the sidelines, but I don’t think that is a function of focus on athletics, just poor sportsmanship.
And I have to say that we have not seen anything besides run of the mill trash talk at any of the games we attended. I have actually been thinking how much more chill the boarding school sports world is compared to the club teams my kids have played for in the past. The games are a lot cleaner as well, even when the refs are not on the top of their game necessarily.
I probably attended around a hundred matches/games many years, many seasons of prep school sports. I went to them all. I can only remember a couple incidents where fans/students/parents exhibited questionable behavior. Sometimes on the field, the play would get a little rough but that’s the nature of the beast and up to the ref to control. The reality is, at least for the sports I watched which were mainly varsity events, attendance was always pretty light ( I didn’t watch football). Many fellow students are off participating in their own events.
Fit means nothing unless you have the money to pay for it. I hear, “We’ll find a way somehow because my kid is smart and he got into Duke.” “It’s a perfect fit.”
Except you can’t afford it. Why is he applying to Duke in the first place?
@417WHB I agree with you. In fact, for us, one of the reasons for choosing boarding school is that the flow is arranged such that you can do academics AND V/JV athletics AND arts and don’t need to be pigeon holed into just one.
From what we have seen, the sportsmanship on both sides has been good.
I have to say, with the exception of the very large schools that are blessed with a plethora of choice from which to pull an excellent sports team, I have not found this to be true.
We have friends on several of the ISL teams we play and the top sports schools routinely let in athletes with sub 50% ssat scores. Maybe it doesn’t pull down a whole class but it means something. Kids who can’t get in academically aren’t admitted to my kids schools and the sports teams definitely suffer.
I think this probably varies based on the sport but for my kids’ sports there aren’t that many who can cut it academically and want to go to a top BS/prep school plus pay for it.
We’ve experienced the worst parental behavior by parents at one of the couple of day schools against which DS competes — it seems the parents still feel the need to run up and down the sidelines coaching their HS-aged students and yelling at the refs. In general it’s been a hugely refreshing change from youth sports, with parents enjoying the outdoors and socializing and players engaging in the usual chirping (and from what DS reports, it’s pretty harmless), though some games have an overall more or less sportsman-like tone than others.
That being said, DS2 attends an LDS, and at one of their games against a BS, an opposing player used a racial slur. Our school took action and engaged the whole school community in discussions, and also engaged with the other school to repair the relationship and develop an additional layer of rules going forward.
I agree and that was my point. I have seen very very often people on CC talking about a number of the ISL schools as if they were all academically on par. I don’t think that’s true but it seems the in thing to say.
Well I have noticed that sports are a bit more “refined” for lack of a better word. Parents yell for the colors and not their kids name.
We have a good friend who runs up and down the field yelling “pointers” to his kid. Always has. I’d hate to be that kid. Or the coach. Despite this kid is a great athlete.
I have not seen any egregious behavior at sporting events.
My kid had noticed that repeats who are often athletes are weaker academically. I don’t know by how much but few seem to be in the highest level classes. They seem to be recruited for certain sports/spots. Still they have to do classwork that is a higher level than any public school so they can’t be that weak academically. I’d doubt they are Subpar 50% on Ssat. But what do I know. One subpar 50 would mean a whole lot of 99% kids to keep the school above 85%. It’s statistically hard to balance out a 40-50% with such a small school. Maybe they can fo it at the bigger schools.