Best private schools in Greater Boston?

Daykidmom
Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:34:05 +0000

It does depend on the ratio of boarders/ day students. At Deerfield (not on your list, I know), there are only about 12% day students, so they’re much more integrated than kids I know at schools with a higher percentage of day students: most of my son’s friends are boarders (though not all), and each day student is assigned a dorm, invited for any and all meals, and can sleep over in their dorm as often as they’d like. It seems like some barely go home. And it’s not always clear who’s a day student and who’s a boarder. And, yes, we do sometimes have boarders stay at our house over break, or I’ll drive a bunch of the kids into town for the evening or a movie, which is fun for them. The one down side is that the school doesn’t always think about day students as having outside commitments, so scheduling can be hard-- lots of meetings, practices, rehearsals are at night or on weekends, and sometimes meetings get scheduled or rescheduled at the last minute, which can be challenging for parents of day students. A friend of mine, whose daughter goes to a school with about 40% day students, says the kids are much less integrated there (day kids hang with day kids), and the school kind of clears out on weekends (at least somewhat.). On the plus side, her school is very considerate of day parents in terms of scheduling, and is MUCH better at communicating with them than they seem to be at Deerfield. So you need to look at the ratios at the various schools you’re considering, and realize there are some pros and cons of being a day student at a BS. But I have to say, my son really feels like he has the best of both worlds-- there’s always stuff going on at school if he wants to hang out, but he can get away and be on his own–as well as schedule things outside of school when he wants.