<p>My aunt explained to me that I should pick a school where I would be at least an average student. She also told me that it is not a good idea to go to a school that I would be considered below average. Do these statements have any truthfulness to them when it comes to boarding schools? I am preety sure most bs do not rank there students, but what do you think?</p>
<p>Go to a school that fits you. Don’t worry what rank you are. Being part of the student body is an accomplishment itself. They typically don’t rank students, I know Exeter doesn’t.</p>
<p>I think your aunt’s words have some truth to them. It would be difficult to go to a school where you were below average academically–I think you’d probably feel much more pressure and stress and have to work much harder than many of those around you to get the same grades. I think that’s part of fit.</p>
<p>That said, I’d be surprised if a school would accept you if they didn’t think you’d be able to handle the work. </p>
<p>A small clarifiication: Exeter doesn’t rank students, but it does let them know generally what percentage of the student population they fall in to. That is, the ranking would tell them that 20 percent of the preps had an A- average or better that year. So while you won’t know your exact class rank, you’ll definitely know if you’re below the average.</p>
<p>I pretty much go along with Pittsburgher. Schools like Exeter won’t accept you unless they’re really confident that you can succeed there. They receive applications from 3-4 times more qualified students than they can accept. And their attrition rate is so low (1-2%, I believe) as to suggest that they do a really good job selecting students capable of succeeding. Something like 80% of Exeter students go on to the top 80 colleges in the US (which does not include kids going on to very strong colleges outside the USA, like Cambridge, Oxford, McGill, etc. And those top 80 represent only 4% of all the American colleges, so lots of “below average” Exeter students do fine getting into excellent colleges. </p>
<p>That being said, however, students who are below average in their middle school will have an extremely difficult time being accepted at he HADES, etc. prep schools.</p>