How about if you prepare a side by side with the names of the schools at the top…and the things they both offer on the sides. Check off what each school offers. You need to be honest about this. Use this as a talking point with your family.
We looked at prep schools for one of our kids (day programs). At the end of the search, he decided to stay at his public high school. As a musician, it offered excellent music options that the private schools didn’t. Plus, he was in a precollege Orchestra that met on weekends…and the prep schools that we looked at had Saturday classes and/or sports requirements.
Some of these private schools are an excellent choice for some kids, assuming the bills to attend are somehow covered.
@Sue22 – Completely agree with your points. Would emphasize that those admissions numbers are over a four year period. So that means annually 3-4 admits to Columbia, Yale, Princeton. 4-5 admits annually to Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn. Not much better than high quality suburban public schools that typically get 3-4. And after accounting for recruited athletes and legacies, I suspect the admit numbers are nearly identical. Have a very close friend who is an Alumnus of St. Paul’s and her daughter just graduated from St. Paul’s. She (and her daughter) described the college process as “harrowing” given the BS overlay. For those focused on college admissions, you are probably best off moving to North Dakota and sending your child to an urban public school
wow, thanks for all the responses! i appreciate your honesty. i definitely agree that all of these reasons are pretty idealized, i’ll have to narrow them down or actually find schools that fit all these criterion. as for the “financial strain” part, my family technically has enough money in the bank but that is not where they would like to spend it. i understand that financial aid is possible, so i will try for that, even if it lessens my chances of admission. lastly, i did not go into the details but i’m attending a magnet school in baltimore and there are significant problems. thanks yall.
“Unless you’re advising the family to move to a different school district it’s a moot point, isn’t it?”
Well, we just don’t know, do we? OP listed a long list of attributes without specifically mentioning which are or aren’t available at his/her own school. If the current school has absolutely none of the attributes mentioned (good ECs, motivated students etc) then one kind of has to conclude it’s a pretty poorly rated school overall, which (yes assumption but) usually implies a lower income area, by implication making the cost of boarding school a problem. We also don’t know what other options exist like magnets etc as a prior poster pointed out.
The bottom line is that we don’t have enough information to actually give OP, who hasn’t returned to clarify anything, any real useful information. S/He’s given us a laundry list of desirable outcomes at boarding school without specifying precisely what s/he’s unhappy about at his/her current school, what the other local options are, and what (if any) the financial issues are.
Granted, the days when the dean would submit his lists to Harvard and Yale are long over, but I don’t know of any nonspecialized public school that regularly gets 35-40 kids into Ivy League schools.
Of course these are kids who have already gone through a competitive admissions process, and the things their pool was winnowed based on were the same colleges are looking for (grades, score, EC’s, special statuses, ability to present oneself well in an interview) so a kid who can make it to the top of their class at a public school may do as well as an average kid at a BS with a large percentage of high achievers.
One of the “harrowing” things about applying from a school like this, (although isn’t applying to college these days harrowing in general?) is that everyone is applying to low admit rate schools. Pretty much no one is applying to high acceptance rate publics except as backups, so no one feels particularly good about their chances. This can be the same in a high achieving peer group at the local public school but I think it’s magnified at BS. That 1460 SAT score doesn’t seem so great when it puts you in the bottom half of your class.
That your parents have you in a public magnet school in Baltimore, instead of one of the umpteen good to excellent private institutions in and near the city, is telling. Almost all of the things you think you can get at a boarding school are things you can get right where you are if you make an effort. So do that first. If your parents can see that you have truly exhausted the opportunities at your school, and within the city of Baltimore and nearby suburbs, then maybe it will be time to re-visit other options for completing high school.
May want to post in “Prep School Admissions” to get feedback from students and parents of students in boarding schools.
I think your list is true of boarding school, and I’d add quality friendships developed in a living/learning community.
Wait…you haven’t even identified a boarding school…and you think you know what “they” will offer? You ar definitely putting the cart before the horse.
We have lots of family members who attended private prep schools, some as day students and some as boarders…at a variety of schools. These school were very different!
You and your parents need to view this application process sort of like the college search and selection process. First…read about some schools. Visit some schools. Interview there. Meet students. See what you think about what EACH school has to offer. This will vary.
You can’t make an informed decision…or convince your parents about anything with zero information except a gut feeling that boarding school will be better.
Think about what you might do to make your public school a place you want to be. What are the most challenging courses available? Are there certain teachers you feel you can connect with? Take as many as possible of their courses, as well as any extracurriculars they supervise. No debate team? Start one! No chess club? Start one! Seek out and befriend other academically-minded students, even if they are not “popular” right now. Especially if they are not “popular” right now! A “posse” of academically-minded students can change classroom dynamics for the better. Your group enthusiasm might even help the admin get funding for new honors courses or after school programs. Moreover, taking the hardest courses available, and showing leadership & initiative in your public school will help your college applications stand out when the time comes.
Although the financial aid aspect may be harder to research at private high schools than colleges, since high schools may not have net price calculators like colleges are supposed to have.
Public School is “free” (paid by my property taxes). Why would I want to pay $$$$ when I will have to do that for college? (unless you can get a scholarship)
I won’t get to see you very much.
What is your public HS like? What classes are available? Activities/sports/clubs?
What are the students like?
If you are in a public magnet school then you have good classes and students who are into academics. Why pay more?
All of the boarding schools’ websites list the cost of attendance, and most attendees pay full freight. It’s always seemed odd to me that most of the boarding schools discussed on the prep forum, regardless of endowment size, end up with a roughly 70/30 split between full-pay and financial aid students. Boarding school is not as heavily discounted as colleges. Those seeking financial aid will complete and submit a Parent Financial Statement (PFS) to the SSS which will return an Expected Parent Contribution (EFC). Each school uses that EFC in its calculation of potential aid for the student, and the FA offices at all of the schools are very helpful and more than willing to discuss individual situations. But, due to that 70/30 ratio, applying for financial aid means applying for a much smaller pool of seats and, given that admissions at most of the boarding schools is very competitive and none of them are very large to begin with, FA applicants have a higher hurdle.
@skieurope: The OP might get more informed traction on this thread if it were moved to the Prep School forum.
Boarding school is extremely expensive. If that is out of the question is there a private day school close enough to home that might be a compromise? Sometimes these type of schools offer great scholarships. They are always less expensive than boarding school and they offer most of what you have on your list.
Would also emphasize that we’re talking about a class of 140. One-third of the class gets admitted to an Ivy every year, so not quite identical. Disclosure: I’m the parent of a junior at St. Paul’s school, who attends on a full scholarship. No legacy. No wealth. Living half-way across the country.
One of my step-children attended a local magnet high school, the other attended a local public high school, my daughter is in a boarding school, and my youngest is applying to a local IB and a local private school. So I have first-hand parent experience with every schooling option available, which doesn’t seem to be the case with many parents who commented that the OP has an “idealized” notion of boarding school. It is not. The BS my daughter attends is all of that, and more.
We all make different choices for our children, all with the best intentions. We may not fully grasp each other’s choices, and the sacrifices that go along with them, but that’s no reason to jump to conclusions. If you don’t understand why someone would send their 14-year-old to school on the other side of the country, just ask! But please don’t assume I love my kid any less or wouldn’t rather have her home with me. Happy Sunday!
