Boarding School "Fit" Assessment

heartburner
Mon, 20 Oct 2014 16:03:12 +0000

A very common theme I have come across here is the idea of “fit” for a kid. I’d like to try to understand how other parents and their kids gauge this. I have been taking an approach of ignoring college placement results for a moment and imagining how my son will live his daily life and what will be the best environment for creativity, learning, and personal development. After all, I think we can all agree that our children are much more likely to be successful in life (and probably in boarding school over the 4 years) if they learn how to learn and how to develop meaningful relationships in a respectful way with others – Isn’t this the reason we are not sending our children to the LPS?

After visiting many schools, we feel that Choate was most likely to be the best fit for us (student and parents) - but this was only after a 2-3 hour visit and interview. We haven’t visited Hill or L’ville yet and these schools appear to be possibly good as well, so not sure what the eventual ranking will be. How can we really assess what makes a school a best “fit?” I paid the ridiculous “premium” fee for the prep school review site - not helpful. I have put some time into reading posts on CC, which has actually proven to be the most useful online tool available.