Are outcomes different for boarding school kids?

Prep School Admissions
21

Great question @EastoftheWest . We have three children - oldest and youngest attended LPS. Middle child went to BS.

As we see it, working off the assumption that you have a child who actively wants it and is prepared to be on their own, if you have the resources where $50-60k per year in tuition isn’t a concern, then go for it. If you’re dealing with limited resources but a very precocious child who has achieved a great deal early, then 100% go through the process, which can be really, really fun for that kind of kid, like a professional athlete’s free agency tour. Most of us here know how generous some of these boarding schools can be for a child that they would like to admit. This kind of browsing can be a wonderful family experience.

However, if you’re a family that is stuck in the middle - household income between $250k to $400k and it doesn’t appear that your child will receive a scholarship or aid - that’s quite a big pill to swallow. What do you think about your local public school system?

Our journey through public school sports politics was not great, for a kid dealing with coach’s making decisions based on town relationships and not statistics, and then having a BS coach invite her to a tournament, having her sit on the bench during the game with the team and then have her join the team in the locker room during halftime to go over strategy was a next-level experience.

With those caveats, here are my answers:

  1. Do you feel that life outcomes are different (positively or in challenging ways) for kids that went to boarding schools?

Well, for the four years that she spent at the school, the extra-curricular activities (overnight trips and tours) are outstanding - of course, you’re paying for those, but they’re curated in a way you just don’t find at LPS.

In terms of life outcomes, I mean, it depends on the network of the given BS, right? Your mileage really may vary here. I would say this, if you already live in an exclusive neighborhood with a top-rated LPS, my hot take is that your child’s network through life may be just as strong as the BS network.

  1. Do they tend to have vastly different lives than those in private day or local public schools?

Kind of? Every BS has a handful of kids who live nearby and still throw house parties like every LPS. You can run into the same issues that you all teens deal with (clique politics, pockets of drug users, boy problems, etc.) so in THAT sense it’s no different. On the other hand, your child might become best friends with a kid from South Korea or Sweden, something that you don’t always experience in LPS beyond the random exchange student.

  1. Do they tend to be “set up” for a smoother life in any way?

See question #1.

  1. Are you glad that you or your child attended/attends a boarding school and specifically for current parents- why are you glad or do you sometimes have regrets that they aren’t in a day school?

We’re glad that she went because she found a level of academic rigor that she wouldn’t have been offered in LPS. As she says it, BS work was harder than college. We’re glad that she went because the athletic environment was not at all as hard core as LPS, where most kids on the LPS teams participate in travel sports and if you decide that AAU is not a commitment that you feel like making, you realize that many (ALL?) of the LPS coach’s decisions are informed by AAU results, at least in our situation it was.

More important, we believe that BS exposes your child to a world view thanks to all the international classmates. Often times, your LPS greatly reflects the politics of the town/city where you reside. Nothing wrong with that but it can be limiting intellectually in some situations.

Last thing, the admissions team at BS vs LPS? Again, it depends. Others feel differently, but I wasn’t enamored with her BS admissions team. Yes, the career fairs were excellent with some amazing schools in attendance (she met the school she ultimately attended at the career fair) but the admissions team was spread way too thin. Not because of the number of students (obv more kids at LPS) but because most admissions workers at BS wear like 10 different hats - teacher, coach, administrator, dorm watch, tutoring. Ours were spread too thin. That said, are there some admissions people with deeper relationships at top-tier schools? Probably.

So, do we regret our choice of sending our kid to BS? Not at all, but it wasn’t a significant financial commitment, so you really need to make sure it’s an expenditure that you can afford, especially with college considerations right around the corner.

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22

Your analysis is very helpful. Thank you for sharing a balanced perspective.

I think you have also just hit the nail on the head of why these school’s all struggle to attract “the missing middle” of the income spectrum. That is a tough issue to solve.

But perhaps one upside of boarding school is that kids learn to engage meaningfully across economic class lines with greater understanding that there are many world views, not just their family’s/local community’s? There is a certain grace and benefit to mastering this skill, in both directions.

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23

I wouldn’t put “engaging across economic class lines” among the benefits of boarding schools, at least the one with which I am most familiar. Like at any school, the kids form cliques of similar interests, abilities, race and class (both what year they are and economics).

Also, I think greater understanding there there are many world views exists at the school I know mainly because the HOS cares about it and because of a few faculty members and current students who have lifted the school in this way through thoughtful debate. In other words, it depends on the people there now. Will it last beyond them? That I don’t know. Does it exist now at peer schools? I have my doubts. These are wonderful institutions, but the faculty are very leftwing.

I think the main benefits of certain boarding schools are the connections with some of the faculty, the opportunities to try and even excel at activities the student might not even have tried elsewhere, and the hopefully deep, lifelong friendship and connections with some classmates that you only get by living together, sharing experiences, etc.

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24

JATS, replying to your original post, I would say that yes, I am glad my child is a boarding school kid. It has been a wonderful experience for the reasons I included in the response I wrote about engaging across economic class lines. Plus, my child has become confident in ways I wasn’t at that age, and much savvier.
However, I have noticed in my own life in business that a risk to attending at least a “tippy top” boarding school is that some who did so rest on their laurels, so to speak. They seem to have lived their lives as if simply being a graduate of one of these schools is an achievement on it own, instead of a springboard to a highly productive life. But that’s just anecdotal, I guess.

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Interesting observation. So does it seem that their lives end up sub par (relative to what one would expect) because they decide to just relax and coast after graduation?

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I would rather just say it’s something to watch out for, to explain to your child that a boarding school education should be a springboard to a lifetime of contributions, not just an accomplishment in itself. I have seen the same dynamic with some Harvard grads, also, to be honest.

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27

Only speaking for myself of course, and this is 30+ years ago, but there was no resting on laurels for me. If anything I think my BS made me feel like I could and should try to achieve great things. I don’t mean it was expected that I would solve world hunger, but that i would strive to make a positive contribution to my community.
I was a lower middle class kid back when financial aid meant loans. I chose a career path that added on many more loans (not complaining, I would do it again) so I had to work my tail off. My cohort of BS friends have also worked hard… in law, medicine, politics, higher education and social justice causes.
Certainly may be different with the younger generations, but I’d be surprised if it were a big difference.

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28

I don’t think speaking well is unique to BS but to excellent schools. My kids day school uses Harkness in some classes and there is tons of discussions in all classes.

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29

And that’s why @ameridad said:

and not something endemic. I didn’t see any resting in our son’s BS or college cohorts, but not all students are equally driven, and I only know what I personally saw which is, of course, anecdotal.

As I posted upthread, the message our son received during his time at Choate was “to him whom much has been given, much is expected” and “service above self,” but that may have been due to the ethos of the campus at the time and:

Though I would hope that all schools would instill an understanding of the value education such that their students would use that benefit productively, this message:

begins in the home and should be a mantra children hear and see modeled from the earliest age.

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30

Agree with the above statement at the most elite US boarding schools.

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31

I guess if you live in a very affluent area this could be more true of your BS than your LPS, but I would expect economic diversity to be much better in a LPS. That is, unless you are concerned your child would miss out on opportunities to rub elbows with the uber wealthy if they went to the LPS.

My son’s target school, which we would LOVE for him to have the opportunity to attend, made a big point of how diverse they are due to their aggressive financial aid packages. And while at first blush a statistic like “48% of our students receive financial aid with the average grant being about half tuition” is impressive, the reality is that it means 52% of their students – OVER HALF – pay the $70,000+ per year rack rate. THAT is not diversity reflected in a normal population.

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32

Economic diversity is only one kind of diversity. Gender diversity is also about 50/50 at most BS. Then you factor in all the other attributes of a typical BS class: states, countries, athletes, musicians, academics, races, religions, etc, and you end up with a pretty diverse campus.

Neither is the cherry-picked academic/intellectual skew found at many of the BS, but no one seems to complain about that.

Side Note: If your student attends that $70K school, you will be informed during the annual fund drive what the tuition shortfall is per student. These schools are expensive to run, and tuition does not cover the full cost of attendance so, essentially, ALL students, even full-pay, are being subsidized. At Choate while our son was there (2012-15), the full-tuition shortfall was about $12K per student.

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33

Where we live, the private schools do not offer FA. They do offer a few music and sport scholarships which are snapped up by wealthy families who invested in their kid from a young age. Zero financial diversity. The public schools are hollowed out. Low attendance with massive behaviour/violence issues. We’ll be thrilled if our son can attend a US boarding school.

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34

Yeah, I certainly understand there are differences among private schools (public, too), but I’m referring to the diversity profiles among the boarding schools most discussed here. I hope your son finds a perfect fit.

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35

At this point, we are just hoping he gets in to one. Fingers crossed. And :blush: thanks!

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36

WHAT?! that is bonkers to me. Do they not do fundraising? Is tuition cheap?

To my knowledge, private schools all offer FA around me, and in fact prioritize having diversity of income and a range of incomes (e.g. don’t just want super rich kids and very low -income).

The parochial/catholic schools have less (but are cheaper) but pretty sure they all have some aid.

37

Honestly, I assumed that is what they meant…but apparently not.

Not going to lie, being able to interact seemlessly with 0.1%ers and real “jetset” kind of families and kids was of real value to me having attended a BS. I got an excellent education, which was better than local offerings to me at time, but what was the most different was having international students (a lot) and uber-rich classmates. It was an entirely new culture and world to me at the time.

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38

We’re in the Chicago area…private and catholic day schools here thankfully do have FA. And the day school that accepted my son did offer significant aids. We also got a few local non profit educational organizations that award funds can be apply to selected Day and BS all over the US. So far in our personal experience and also being a family from multicultural backgrounds, the diversity in the student body during visits and shadows are not that different. In our experience the “vibe” of each school and its students as a whole is what made the most impression.

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39

Anyone from NYC? Wondering about a public school vs boarding when it comes to a school like Bronx Science.

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why is that bonkers - these are businesses that get to decide how to run their businesses. Yes FA allows for an important and different level of diversity, but FA is not an entitlement or a given. I just think while not directly related to your comments. It is an important reminder as after M10 there are always those that think FA should be a slam dunk without remembering that these are private institutions that make their investment decisions based on a host of factors. Rarely does the actual tuition cover the true cost to educate even a full pay student. Just something to consider. Sorry probably not fully directed to this, but I know many will feel this way forgetting the full picture.

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