ajadedidealist

hm - I've got to say, I see where lbftw is coming from here - I don't see the trolling. As a soon-to-be graduate of a school similar, presumably, to lbftw's, I've found my experience and level of happiness there to be equally...not so good. Sure, I'll be coming out with some "tokens" of success - I'm going to First Choice X College, I've got xx.xx GPA and xxxx scores and in x many clubs and what have you - but in retrospect, I'm not sure I would have traded the last years of my childhood, my happiness, and - in some sense - my idealistic innocence so soon. It really can be a miserable place; I'd say 30% of people at my school love it, 30% absolutely hate it, and 40% have a destructive love-hate relationship with it that might be even more unhealthy than the first two options. (Most of the seniors I've seen graduate find it really, really difficult to function outside of the bubble.) I may not agree with the extremity expressed by lbftw, but I don't think his experience at boarding school makes him uncannily "immature" or lacking in self-awareness.

ETA: I'm also concerned by the assumption I've seen that success at boarding school and enjoying boarding school go hand in hand: ie, that "of course boarding school isn't for everybody, but it is for those kids who are EXTRA special/self-motivated/hardworking/smart, etc..." That sort of attitude propagates the idea that boarding school is something that you have to be "good enough" to want to do, as well as get into, and fosters a competitive sense of wanting to be "good enough" for happiness. But, truth is, no matter how smart/driven/mature you are, boarding school MAY (not IS) not be right for you - you can maintain an A-average at Exeter, be head of tons of clubs, have friends and still hate it.