don't go to boarding school

lbftw · 11-27-2007, 02:57 AM

i'm telling you, stay away from boarding school. i know most of you think it's great, but it isn't. many of you are probably being pushed into it by your parents; do everything in your power to avoid going. best thing is probably to bomb the interviews hard. but do what you have to. for the love of god, don't get sucked into it. especially if you are not some blue blood east coast wasp type. for every 1 person that likes it, there are about 10 people who hate it.

the admissions advantage is bs as well. you can get into harvard, yale etc. from any high school; boarding schools are just good at hand-holding. all the information you need is right here on these forums. the vast majority of my classmates did not end up at hyp, and a good percentage have burnt out hard. this is a common thing for prep school grads.

you have been warned.

crickett2324 · 11-27-2007, 06:19 AM

And how would you know this? Mabey this forum has the people who are the group of 100 out of 1,000! Ever think of that?

nhfootballer · 11-27-2007, 07:13 AM

ibftw, you need to divulge more about yourself and motivation. i see you have only one post to your name. suspicious to me.

MomofWildChild · 11-27-2007, 12:01 PM

If you do any research, you will know that today MOST kids initiate the process re: boarding schools themselves. Several decades ago it was the parents' idea, but today it usually starts with the student asking about boarding school. It is an amazing educational and social opportunity for the right kid. The OP seems to be a troll.

lbftw · 11-27-2007, 12:34 PM

i went to one of the select 7 or whatever its called; one of the ones that's graduated a president.

if you really, really want to go to one of these places, go as a sophmore, or better yet a junior. in my experience this is far and away the best route.

as far as kids initiating the process themselves, i don't buy it. maybe if you're one of these kids whose friends are all going to boarding schools and you live 20 minutes away from the school anyways. no normal kids want to go to these places. i suspect a lot of the "kid" posters on this place are actually parents who are embarassed about being so overbearing. no 13 year old is that verbose.

mddenise · 11-27-2007, 01:57 PM

What part of the boarding school did you dislike the most? Was it being away from home - or something else?

fun is fun · 11-27-2007, 02:22 PM

the trolls.

lbftw · 11-27-2007, 03:49 PM

the being away from home part is bad in the sense that your parents aren't there to watch over you and, as such, you can end up making some pretty dumb decisions. the house parents or whatever aren't like parents; they usually do little to nothing because they're either younger people who still have lives, or they have families.

mainly though, it's just bad. the students are some of the snobbiest, most elitist, over-priviledged brats you could ever imagine; either that or they're hyper-competitive, cutthroat, straining-in-my-seat-so-the-teacher-sees-i-have-my-hand-raised grade-grubbers. the teachers aren't that much better than you'd get at a decent public/private high school; most of are snotty 23 year old ivy league burnouts who are taking "a few years off" between applying to graduate school or whatever. as far as personal freedom goes, it's basically like the military. you do what you're told when you're told, you have almost no free time and your comings and goings are strictly monitored.

the admissions advantage is way overstated. the numbers look good on paper, but keep in mind that the average sat score at these places is about 300-400 points above the national average, and that the average kid comes from a wealthy, east coast family, so of course more are going to go the ivy league. take out the minorities, recruited athletes and kids with big connections (mom is on the admissions committee, dad built the library) and there are no big surprises: kids with 3.8 GPAs and 1550 (or whatever on the new test) SATs get into decent schools. the only thing i can think of is that the classes are pretty hard, so you're better-prepared for the ap, but they have books for that.

lbftw · 11-27-2007, 04:02 PM

i'm no troll; i feel i have more credibility than 99% of the posters on this board.

hockeykid841 · 11-27-2007, 04:18 PM

I think he is just trying to cut down the competition =)

Please don't come to this board and do this, you are putting ideas into peoples heads that just are not true.

fun is fun · 11-27-2007, 04:20 PM

You're a troll, and a dope.

iHerculez · 11-27-2007, 04:29 PM

haha. nicely said

lbftw · 11-27-2007, 04:30 PM

believe what you want. i'm guessing a few of you are freshman, in which case you'll probably understand what i'm talking about in a couple of years.

liv&learn · 11-27-2007, 04:59 PM

For some reason, I'd love to know what Ibftw stands for. Honey, you seem angry. I truly hope you will reason through what is happening in your life and realize that it's often not as bad as you think. I'll bet kids do experience what you are describing, however, there are more constructive ways to make your point. Hopefully those that do will seek help and understanding and work through it. Best of luck to you.

lbftw · 11-27-2007, 05:17 PM

i graduated a few years ago. i'm not being bitter, and the boarding school experience doesn't haunt me or anything like that. i'm simply trying to help people by telling them what these schools are really like. it's not the brochures or what you saw on your tour. i'm just being frank. yeah, it's not all bad, but the downside far outweights the positives.