My 8th grade son is applying to several boarding schools, including Choate, L’ville and Blair. He has visited and likes different aspects of all of them and we believe they would be a good academic fit for him. However, I find it hard to get a better understanding on the different cultures of these schools and hope that somebody here can give me a bit more insight into the following:
- Transition and academic pressure during first year
I get the impression that during the last few years, L’ville has been trying to take the pressure off. For example during the first semester of 9th grade there are now several pass/fail classes. Is there anything else worth mentioning that would help with making the transition a bit easier. What about Choate and Blair? Anything you could point to that shows that they want to relieve the pressure, especially initially when the kids are getting used to boarding school life. What about the new Block schedule at Choate? How is that working out?
- Athletics
My son is an athlete and is especially interested in football, basketball and wrestling. The football program at Choate has a great reputation and L’ville seems to be on the up and coming and the school is clearly investing into their football program. Though the L’ville coach has not been there that long and has jumped around a lot between coaching positions. Blair is known for basketball and wrestling. Any insights into those specific programs and coaching staff at those schools? Are the teams dominated by PGs (postgrads)? Do the kids who are coming up through the programs get chances to play their junior and senior year?
- Parent Community and School Spirit
We are interested to be involved with the school and would like to go to games etc. What is your experience with the parent community at those boarding schools? What distinguishes their vibe, for example during athletic competition? Which school would you say has the most spirit?
- Diversity
Would love to hear about experiences of minorities on campus, especially when they don’t want to be defined as athletes only and have many additional interests.
It is an exciting and stressful time!
My advice would be to see where he is accepted and then go to the admitted students days. You will get a much better sense of the schools and their cultures that way.
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The Blair Academy wrestling scandal ended in 2021 or 2022 with the coaches resignation. If your son is an exceptional wrestler in search of a D1 scholarship there are only a few boarding schools to consider. Serious wrestling programs will have multiple coaches (maybe 4 or 5) and a history of sending their wrestlers to D1 universities on scholarship.
Lawrenceville is an excellent school with a large student body (for an elite prep boarding school). Beautiful campus.
OP: You are wise to ask. There are only a few boarding schools that I would not recommend due to a hazing culture, culture of wealth, or dominance by PGs. Other than as addressed above, you have not named any of the other schools.
My son was a student at Lville. I’ll try to answer some of your questions
Transition: the first term pass/fail has been in place for more than a decade now. It seems to be a good way to get the students used to the high standards. As with other schools of this caliber, there is generally very little hand holding. But the house masters and advisor will do a nice job of keeping the parents informed if the student struggles.
Athletics: Lville has a strong student-athlete culture. Plenty of opportunities for students new to a sport to play. But getting onto a varsity team as a freshman can be tough. I’d like to note that Lville is a 3 sport school. Which means that students generally need to switch sports each term, although some exceptions. So for high level athletes who want to train in a single sport the entire year will find it difficult. Also if your sport involves outside clubs or transport it can be problematic as Lville will require you to do that on your own. Saturday classes used to be a problem for some athletes who have tournaments on weekends, but I’ve heard they have since reduced the # of Sat classes.
Parent community: I was on campus a lot and had regular contact with my son’s advisor and housemasters each year. Also volunteered a lot for the weekend feeds and the parent weekends. Overall it was a positive experience and the school really welcomes Parent involvement.
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Not to split hairs, but this was true over 15 years ago. The idea was that it helped new students understand the expectations. It may be re-cast a bit differently now.
Totally agree that when you have acceptances in hand, you should attend revisit days at as many as you can. Sometimes, being turned on or off by something at one school, even one that may not have been of a lot of interest, clarifies what matters.
In your case, reaching out to coaches and team members at accepted schools will be very helpful, particularly with questions about how an athlete will progress through their program, outcomes (if you think college play may be of interest), multi-sport athletes, etc.
These 3 schools are all excellent and all have different feels to them. My hunch is that when revisits happen, one will feel more “right”. And yes, as a parent, you are asking the right questions! If sports matter to your kid, being in a place where they can develop and compete matters. Academic environments matter as well. You know your kid best on this front and can help them figure out where they will thrive (and still havetime for sports, clubs, friends, etc.) With a fall sport, your son is likely to have a lot of older teammates who can be supportive and provide good counsel, so that’s a plus!
Exciting times!
Yes, exciting times indeed! We are coming from far away, so coordinating revisit days and making it to all of them (fingers crossed that he will actually get into any of the schools!) might be a challenge. Do you know when revisit day schedules usually come out?
Sometimes you can look at the school calendars and see them. Someone on this site usually starts compiling a list. Not sure if that has started yet….
I sympathize with the travel. Schools can sometimes offer you a full shadow day if it’s not a revisit day, so you could conceivably visit Blair unofficially the day after L’ville’s official day with some help from Blair’s admissions office.
The bottom line is that most schools are eager to yield the kids they admit so will probably try to work with you.
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Interesting. However, this will not be the case at many boarding schools. Also, not sure that the encouragement of parental involvement (beyond donations or a brief presentation or help securing internships) at a boarding school is a positive.
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Thanks for everyone’s responses.
We are new to boarding school, but not independent schools or sports. My son is already in touch with some of the coaches at these schools and is getting positive feedback - of course I understand that is no guarantee that he will get in and I agree that foremost the academic fit is important. I have two older kids who are current college athletes in totally different sports. One on the D3 level, who is very happy and found a great fit. The other one started at an elite D1 program, but did not like it and transferred out. Speaking to coaches is great, but these kids get influenced by the facilities and how the coach sells the program. That’s why I was hoping to get insight into the culture from somebody who was or is part of it at these schools.
The parent community is important to our family as I hear that in boarding school kids often stay weekend with other kids, or bring kids home at times.
A few boarding schools are composed of 100% boarding students so weekends at another student’s parent’s home would be uncommon. However, as you already know, there is a significant day (non-boarding) student population at the Lawrenceville School and at Choate Rosemary Hall and, to a lesser extent, at country clubbish Blair Academy.
Not that uncommon. Lots of “local” boarders.
You see those parents at sporting events and its not unusual for some “Sporting families” to have kids from the team over for meals, take them out for dinners, etc. Coaches usually cool with this and sometimes attend.
Not at all. Any kid that goes home can bring a friend.
OP, parent involvement at the school may not correlate with how easy it is for a student to go home with a classmate. Most BS parents we knew - day and boarding – were delighted to host our kids’ friends. Even day students are so absorbed in their all-day, 7 day a week school life, so the opportunity to have that youthful energy in the house again is very welcome.
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That’s not at all true. Yes, there may be the outlier, but even for most 100% boarding schools, there are families living locally.
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- Parent Community and School Spirit
We are interested to be involved with the school and would like to go to games etc. What is your experience with the parent community at those boarding schools? What distinguishes their vibe, for example during athletic competition? Which school would you say has the most spirit?
OP can you say more about your expectations regarding family involvement? We don’t attend any of those schools, but are at a comparable. Our school has an Office of Family Engagement whose primary role is to keep families connected with the goings on at school, help with vacation transportations, etc. Again, I would be surprised if your three don’t welcome and encourage coming to games, concerts, theater performances, etc. And these are old schools with great alumni pride and sporting traditions, so I would assume high on the school spirit meter.
What type of engagement are you looking for?
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I was going to apply to Choate this year, but I decided against it because of its financial aid, and the school community. Because Choate doesn’t give as much financial aid as the other schools, it’s hard for people like me, and because of the financial aid, it has majority of people who are full pay (High-Income). I’m not sure if this is accurate, but it’s just waht I heard
I agree with this. I was worried as we live very far away. But the invitations to join a friend and family out for a dinner or a weekend off campus have been lovely. Kid will couch surf all of New England by graduation if he can swing it.
As parents, we usually get in touch in advance to be sure his presence is welcome. And we remind him to send a thank you note when he gets back to school. Good penmanship and stamps go a long way if you are in this position.
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