Assuming either of these teach 9th grade, I have to wonder about teachers who believe that more than the standard (whatever the BS defines as a standard) amount of nightly HW facilitates learning. Is it a power trip?Napoleon complex?
Thanks for all the time people took the time to respond. Some helpful nuggets.
Iâm somewhat in agreement with @one1ofeach the jump to assume that itâs my kid whoâs âdoing it wrongâ might be a little less helpful.
I do think there is a systemic problem with over-burdening young minds and bodies at these schools. I also know someone who teaches at one of the âtop tenâ and they would agree with me that schools pretend they care about kids getting enough sleep but the kids do not, EVEN if they are not wasting time.
My daughter was told yesterday that she needs to spend EVERY free second doing homework during the school day or it wonât work. Is that allowing time for joy or discovering new ECâs?
@dogsmama1997 donât forget, your daughter is still in the 1st month of school, and still figuring things out.
Schools are aware and not laughing. Hotchkiss shuts off internet access at 11 for underclass kids. They moved the start of the school day later so kids could get more sleep.
Iâm not suggesting your daughter is lying, not at all. But what she is doing isnât working, so it would be good to figure out whatâs up and make some changes.
I think thereâs room for extracurriculars, but isnât your daughter a very serious soccer player? That right there is a huge extracurricular. My son, also a serious player doesnât have time to pursue acting, which he also loves. They canât do it all but they can do some.
Btw my son was also a day student for the 1st 2 years and now is boarding, and says boarding is easier/gives him more time to get things done.
I donât know. The two people I am referring to are quite good about limiting homework and making sure kids can manage it in the time they have. I cannot speak to other teachers who are not following the homework standard. My friends think it is just that the teachers are not paying attention. Just because a teacher can read x pages of Hawthorne in 20 minutes doesnât mean a 14 year old can. One of them actually had a disagreement with another teacher over exactly that example the other day. His advisees were telling him how much they had and he mentioned it to the teacher who said something like âwhat are you talking about thatâs not too many pages I can easily read it.â
I have been watching this thread with interest. I also have a 9th grader in prep school.
My child went to what is considered to be a very rigorous independent school for middle school and most of the kids go on to prep schools for high school. My 9th graderâs observation is that the kids in middle school who spent a ton of time and effort memorizing everything they were assigned to read for HW are the ones who are struggling with the HW load in high school. The kids whose goal from HW in middle school was not to memorize every word of the reading, but to get through it relatively quickly and understand the big picture and the main ideas, are the ones who seem to be getting through the first few weeks of prep school HW a lot more easily.
After reading your post, I wonder if that is what the dean meant when they said your daughter needed to learn to be less meticulous.
Of course, I donât think there have been many (?any) tests yet, so I guess we will see whether both groups of kids do equally well on tests and other graded materials.
It also reminded me of what a lot of my friends struggled with in their transition from HS to college. My college emphasized what I felt was problem solving (in STEM classes) and many kids arrived to college with little experience in problem solving and a lot more experience with memorization and were surprised to find that this did not work in college. They had to figure out how to adapt to the new expectations.
It is hard because the kids all come from different academic backgrounds. I think that talking to your daughterâs advisor, as opposed to a dean who might not know your daugher or your daughterâs specific classes/teachers, would be most helpful. And perhaps encouraging your daughter to talk to her advisor as well would be helpful.
For sure varsity sport + day student is a factor. Those are the reasons I pressed so so hard about homework. Luckily she is getting better about working in the car. We are both blessed with crippling car sickness so I am not quite sure how she is overcoming that. She actually had to have me pull over the other day on the way home from school and she threw up on the side of the road.
As an example - she has 25 minutes free today in her whole schedule (I am able to access this). After school practice, then there is a one hour mandatory program in the evening. That leaves very little time for homework. So before 9pm tonight she will have had one hour and fifty five minutes of homework time in the day. That does not include lunch which she is likely not to eat fully in favor of working. Certainly yesterday she had far more time and that was great but she didnât have all the homework assigned for tomorrow so no opportunity to work ahead and mitigate the load that will exist tonight.
Interesting @mairlodi she has, including today, had 4 quizzes and 2 papers due so the need to memorize has been real. Out of that, she said she over studied for one of the quizzes and said she wonât really study again for that subject. However, she has not gotten a single one of those assessments back so she really has no idea. She isnât a memorize for the sake of an A kind of kid. Her teachers actually commented on that at the end of the year last year. So if thatâs the problem with her homework I would be surprised. But as another note, one teacher assigns a grade for their reading notes which seems to me to indicate wanting a very meticulous reading. So some teachers want less meticulous and some want moreâŠhow fun for my daughter to have to figure it out.
@mairlodi: I think that your post offers great insight & advice. Same thing happens to many students during the first year of law school.
Although I only glanced at most posts in this thread, I was a bit surprised at the observation that 6 to 7 hours of sleep per night is not enough for a teenager. I think this varies by individual as 6 to 7 hours is fine for many. More important is the quality of sleep.
OP: As a day student, your child is taken out of the learning environment which may be a factor. Probably the most compelling reason for our familyâs decision in favor of boarding school was the absence of repeated daily commutes in big city traffic.
One of my kids was a day student at a boarding school. She actually got in trouble for sneaking into the boardersâ required study hall. She loved it because they took everyoneâs phones away and the kids had to stay in their seats for two hours. She got to be with other kids but without all the distractions that tempted her at home. She said she got much more done than when she worked in her room.
Iâm not saying this is what your kid is doing, but many students think theyâre putting their all into studying when in reality theyâre being constantly interrupted by the âpingsâ of incoming texts and instagrams. Even if they donât look at their messages part of their focus is lost.
It can be the case that teachers mistakenly pile on work at the same time. When that happens I would encourage your child to talk with her teachers. My childâs always appreciated a heads up when she was struggling. I would also echo the advice to talk with her advisor. The advisor can get a picture of her work from multiple teachers and distill it for you.
Adjusting to prep school can be a shock for many kids. The teachers tend to start the year right off demanding the amount and level of work they expect throughout the year. That can be a lot for kids who havenât been truly challenged before.
âHotchkiss shuts off internet access at 11 for underclass kids.â
Not sure they should bother. One of the survival skills the kids learn at our public HS is how to tether their cell phoneâs internet connection to their iPads, so they can do homework on the bus on the way to games or competitions.
Ah, but there is almost no cell service at Hotchkiss.
Not to say kids donât figure out ways around rules because of course they do!
Hotchkiss is a different animal. Without WiFi, youâre screwed. Hotchkissâ excellent cell service is an oxymoron. 
@skieurope is right. Itâs one thing if Choate cuts off WiFi, cause Wallingford has good service. Hotchkiss is in the literal sticks lol
If we need to stay up past internet cutoff, we can, which is really helpful. Work piles up sometimes.
The average advice for a teen is 8-10 BUT the reason sleep is a big deal to me is the research on sleep vs sports injuries. Injuries are linked to lack of sleep and kids who get (I think, I read this a while ago) 8 hours significantly reduce their risk of injury. Cut the risk in half or more. There was a study of a highschool that switched its start time from 8 to 9 and athletic injuries went down by 80% or something shocking. I guess you could argue that the kids were playing xbox for an extra hour and that helped them avoid injury but I kinda doubt it 
Sleep needs at this age, and even through the early 20s, greatly exceed what most kids get. Part of it is a body clock thing and part is that going to sleep is often less interesting than the alternatives.
But for anyone who remembers not waking on the weekends until after lunchtime, what your body was telling you it wanted at that age is pretty clear!
In our experience, one of the differentiators in homework time is reading speed. Kids that read fast have significantly more time for other activities. Learning to read quickly can improve grades, standardized test scores and quality of life in high school, college and beyond.
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Hundreds of kids at the school make it work, and apparently like it well enough to stay at substantial cost. The school is unlikely to change its program, so your child will need to adjust to their time management plans or choose alternate education.
@dogsmama1997 That is pretty much what you signed up for. My son struggled his first trimester and had two C+ at the mid terms (shocking for a 4.0 middle school student). He ended the year with highest honors. For him, it was using âoffice hoursâ/meeting with the teacher before exams. That helped A LOT and showed the various instructors he truly cared and was not just complaining after the fact (he did try that path first). He also learned to study all day with gaps and not just at night. It went from overwhelming to routine. He loves it there but there is certainly a HUGE, HUGE adjustment. All will be well with some shifts in what your child knew from middle school. I would not say they lie, Iâd say they are explaining what homework is like once students find their way to what works for them.
âLuckily she is getting better about working in the car. We are both blessed with crippling car sickness so I am not quite sure how she is overcoming that. She actually had to have me pull over the other day on the way home from school and she threw up on the side of the road.â
âThat does not include lunch which she is likely not to eat fully in favor of working.â
These two comments alarm me. Iâm surprised no one else commented on them.
How long is the commute between school and home? Your daughter should not be doing something that makes her physically ill. She can use car time to a) relax and listen to music, b) take a cat nap, c) catch up with you a little. It shouldnât be necessary to cram in studying.
Likewise, it shouldnât be necessary to curtail or skip in order to study. Meals are an important time in BS life. Beyond the obvious nutrition, itâs a time for socializing and relaxing.
Iâm taking it your daughter goes to Groton. Iâm not sure who gave you the impression that Groton, or schools of that caliber would be a cakewalk in terms of homework. 3 hours per night (sometimes more, sometimes less) doesnât sound out of place to me. Junior year, it will likely be even more, but not consistently. There is an ebb and flow to homework at BS. But, every class doesnât meet every day so it works out. There should also be time for socializing and ECs. Itâs not unusual for a freshman to play varsity sports. Yes, they will be busy but it is manageable. Students learn to use their free blocks to study during the day. Weekend studying is a good time to catch up. Even if a student doesnât finish sports and dinner until 7PM, thatâs 4 hours of time until 11PM to study. Finish at 6PM, thatâs 5 hours. Go to bed at 11PM, thatâs at least 8 hours of sleep. Of course, I donât think my kids got 8 hours or more except for Saturday night into Sunday but then again they didnât always manage their time as best they could. 
Thatâs why I ask about commuting time. Boarding school schedules are usually designed with the boarders in mind since they make up the vast majority of students.
In this day and age, being a high achieving student isnât easy whether at public school or at a private school. My nieces and nephews at public schools were also put in many hours of study in addition to sports and ECs.
Choate partnered with a company that provided a speed reading course. Our son took it (and a second one later), and it was a game changer both for HS and college (and test taking). His comprehension increased exponentially as well. Iâm still amazed at the amount of printed information he can devour in a short time. I highly recommend learning speed reading techniques. I didnât avail myself until one of the companies I worked for offered a course and regret I waited so long, but I really didnât know how effective even a short course could be.