Can we talk homework?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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Despite rigorous academics, varsity sports participation or its equivalent (one also participated at the highest club level outside of school and then another indoor team in the winter just for fun), both participating in the orchestra each semester (plus concert band AND jazz band for one of them), participating in several clubs and other activities as well as numerous leadership positions for the last year or two in the school community (one had 3 very competitively strived for, much desired leadership positions senior year), my kids had time for:

often leisurely meals with friends both on campus and off, including hanging out for a long time at the favorite Sunday brunch and “early brek club” for one (the other chose to sleep in skidding into chapel barely on time if that)

lots of lounging on the rafts and swimming in the ponds when weather allowed

ice skating on the outside rinks with friends, weather allowed

sledding in the snow

sleepovers with friends from other dorms

going to movies

hanging out at Tuck eating french fries in the evening

taking hikes in the woods and long walks at night

having romantically involved boyfriends and girlfriends and spending time cultivating those relationships

going into Boston occasionally for shopping and concerts

the occasional visits home toting friends along with them for movie binging and lots of home cooked food

babysitting for faculty children

playing board games

cooking and baking with friends in the dorm

meals with advisors, coaches, other favorite faculty members

lots of special dances and events scheduled throughout the year including surprise holidays off from school

volunteering by playing their musical instrument at a neighboring nursing home and/or helping cook and serve at a place in town serving meals to the homeless

for one, too much time on video games but fortunately not near as much as some of his dorm mates

watching tv (very occasionally in the common room - each dorm had a weekly show they watched together) and movies occasionally

reading for leisure for one (the other to my chagrin has never been a big leisure reader)

making crank calls back when each student had room phones (usually in conjunction with those previously mentioned sleepovers)

Wasting some time on social media but a lot less than most of their non-BS peers. They preferred to interact in person and living 24/7 with their friends and classmates gave them plenty of opportunity for that.

getting into mischief, some of which I only found out about after they graduated, some I became aware of at the time but I won’t detail it here to protect the guilty :slight_smile:

This is only a small fraction of the list that could go on and on and on.

In other words, social teenager stuff.

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@doschicos Sounds wonderful. Thanks for doing that; it does give me perspective. What school(s) are we talking about, how much daily homework on average did they have, and how much daily down time?

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SPS. I’d say 3 hours of homework on average but it could really vary by day to day. Some days less, some days it could be much more especially if they procrastinated on stuff. I wouldn’t say my kids were models for time management and often prioritized non-academic things including socializing over classwork. :slight_smile: My kids were pretty social and very involved. Some kids were more organized or those very driven kids who studied a lot more, often to the detriment of being social or engaged on campus. It really does vary from student to student. Same goes for daily down time. It varies per day and per student so really hard to quantify. And even if there wasn’t a lot of just total lounging time, they were engaged in activities that interested and excited them so that was their fun. One took an extra course load to do triple arts because that was a cathartic release from academics, for example. So that cut into “free time” but was something this child benefitted from (as well as allowing for an opportunity to stand out in an area given talents which is always a good feeling on a campus full of impressive kids).

Bottomline, it really depends on the student as much as the school, IMO, and that includes each student’s and family’s goals and priorities from the BS experience.

And, like any high school student anywhere, they had some good days and bad days.

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I think an important distinction is first semester of freshman year vs the rest of school experience. Those posters with already graduated/senior BS kids will mostly remember and relate the experience of knowing what you’re doing. Those people with freshmen are relating the “oh my god highschool is so crazy” experience. We have friends in the LPS. Kids are doing 5 hours of homework at times. These are kids in mostly low level classes and I’d say have time management issues (which I’ve subtly tried to point out to parents). But the point is even for kids in the easy classes first semester freshman year is a butt kicker!

I get @Pincite ’s point. Does it need to be? I can’t answer that. It wasn’t like that for me but I was in a k-12. I know adults who went to the BSs my kids go to, no where near as much homework back then and lots more wild shenanigans. But the oldest one was back in the day when he said I want to go to yale and the GC just called yale and informed them he was coming so I can see how the college stress would be non existent!!

I do wish BS would be more interested in parent feedback. The dismissal of parents annoys me a lot, although I don’t think it’s universal.

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First, I don’t think many BS are into giving busywork. Most of the work covers areas so that the students can keep up a rapid pace and uses the time outside of school to review, write and read. I don’t think@pincite that the trend toward more work outside the class is likely to change in the next few years.

At my kids BS, there are many kids who work hard, there are some kids who are perfectionists chasing the A+ ( and sadly many of these kids are pushed by parents to get a perfect GPA). My own kid goes to bed at 11 sometimes 12. Some are up til 3. The difference in GPA is nominal maybe .2 For some that matters.
Like many others on this board, my kid plays varsity sports and does something else on a very high level ( takes 10 hours a week), also does some volunteer work and socializing. It’s a full load.
I don’t think it’s bad with few exceptions. My kid is busy doing productive things and really self motivated to do it all. Not all kids want that or will thrive in that environment. But many BS kids are there especially for a full, rigorous experience.

I think BS is very different from public school both in approach and results. Clearly the work done in BS spills over into college.
Really, if you consider the number of classes and the hours of homework, there isn’t a direct correlation. By definition, things have changed a lot in the last decades. My Algebra II book was about 200 pages, my kids was 1200+ ( and they completed it). So much faster paced classes, lots of writing and research and it all results in more homework.

I think as parents we are getting our moneys worth and the decision was the right one for our child. I think any parent has to ask themselves if it’s fit for their children and their expectations. If you know your child and ask the right questions, you’ll get the right fit. There are many BS where the academics are softer and the workload less and that’s great. Kids want different things. My kid wanted an excellent academic experience and a great sense of community. S/he chose the school for balance and rigor. And avoided another school known more for rigor and less for community. Our current BS applicant will have to make a similar choice if accepted to multiple schools.

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Thanks for the update. I’m glad to hear the homework situation has ameliorated. I’m very enamored of your child’s school. Their (comparatively) more structured schedule especially for ninth graders is appealing to me given some of these potential time management issues.

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Just to summarize the feedback from the thread and my sense of it:

Whether it is around 3 hours of homework a night (the median, which I think people are confusing for the average) or 4 hours (the likely average), or something else (and I don’t think the parent thread is the best source of this information; the kids are), the median is clearly not 2 hours (which I would find more appropriate).

One need not be one of “those” students, who is working to an extreme of sleep deprivation. In that sense, there is “wiggle room” and student agency involved here. (I acknowledge this may be true around the edges; but I am surprised at the extent that people think their child’s “choices” in this matter came spontaneously from them — and were not largely determined by their environment). Of course, if it is a difference between a half hour or up to an hour and a half of possible “down time” per night, these edges are very important.

Down time is not productive if kids have it: they play vids, party, and watch Netflix — and whatnot. I thought that was the point; that’s why it’s called “down time.” I think it should be downright counter-productive.

Boarding schools mean well; they are not out to cause I’ll health to their students. Of course that is true. I wonder at people’s understanding of institutions and bureaucracy — and trust thereof — if they think that their “meaning well” is so, well, meaning-ful.

Acronym schools may not be for me. This is almost certainly true, but my time was a generation ago: I would not be applying and, even on the parental front, there are two of us — not one. Anyhow, this is one criterion; only at the extreme I’ve posited, which most posters deny exists, would that criterion be dispositive. Nor do I sense this is an acronym vs. non-acronym school issue: the next rung or two down the latter, I would assume, have some or all of the same issues. Having said that, I appreciate your pointing to some of the other schools named on this thread which I had not heard of, and will definitely check them out.

These schools won’t change in time for my son. I could say this comment is enlightening, but then most, but not all, readers would interpret it as sarcasm. And I would want everyone to understand my meaning


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IMO the biggest problem comes along when kids get sick. Kids at my son’s school do not take time off if they are sick. They just prolong their illnesses busting their behinds to keep up with all their work. I wish teachers would shut sick kids out of the classroom to force them to go to the health center.

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Sounds like many adults in the workforce. :wink:

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@Pincite Good post from a perspective that not many support in society today. (Sadly). We have found that kids at public also are doing much more homework than “back in the day” There are very few ( we know of zero) schools that have 1.5 ish. Not supporting things either way, I honestly think less is more but short of moving to another country or homeschooling, we didn’t find truly homework less schools with strong academics. Then again, we knew what things were like.
The acronym schools are going to grind kids down even if they are tippity top naturally and you are correct the nex tier down will as well. Seems like parents want to get their money’s worth.

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Until our son went to BS, we had a “homework optional” policy which I have posted about several times on this board:

Had he stayed home for high school, we would have stuck by the same policy. This is probably why I don’t really care how much homework the boarding school assigned as we always left it up to him to do however much of it he found meaningful/useful. Regardless of what is assigned, no one is forcing any student to spend unreasonable amounts of time on homework. BS students eventually learn to work smarter, set limits, and advocate for themselves. Those are some of the very important lessons they learn in this process. I think the fallacy in this worry is the false belief that every bit of every assignment must be done and must be done to perfection or else something bad will happen (second tier colleges perhaps?). Not true in my world, so we didn’t pass that belief on to our son.

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I certainly had more than 1.5 hours of homework nightly “back in the day”.

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@doschicos Me too. But many didn’t. Or they forget :slight_smile:

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And kids will have at least as much homework in college as they do at BS which is what the boarding schools are preparing them for. I don’t hear anyone complaining that colleges give too much homework.

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I did not have as much work at Williams as my kids have at BS. Partly because I had more free time and wasn’t taking 7 classes, but still. I wonder if times have changed and colleges are also drowning kids in work nowadays.

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Why is your child taking 7 classes?

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It’s standard for his school.

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That’s it right there. 7 classes. Yikes.

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Is that 7 academic classes or do you also count the electives there? At our BS you can only take 6 academic classes, not counting art or music electives. My college kid takes 5 classes, plus a job and two serious extracurriculars, so plenty busy too. The grind certainly can continue in college particularly for kids who already have their sights set on competitive grad school. If you are pre-med getting B+ in chemistry is a disaster of epic proportions. And all of the popular majors have serious weed out classes freshman year with harsh curve (B- average), so it is definitely no walk in the park, many kids change the track quickly . There are fair number of students who are taking easy classes and having a lot of fun, so it all depends.

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7 includes art which has enough homework to count imo as a “class.”

There are kids taking other electives which meet less often and have less work but you have to be actually talented in an instrument for that to work. Huge bonus that you get a big free period if you’re in this boat but my kid is NOT talented. Sorry kid.