My daughter just started as a freshman at a boarding school. We chose boarding school because she needs a school that specializes in bright, ASD/ADHD kids who sometimes need a helping hand with social or academic stressors. There are no high schools, public or private, near us that fit the bill. Our daughter is artsy, into music, Japanese, manga, etc. We did lots of research and believed it would be a great fit.
We dropped her off on new student orientation day and it seemed oddly void of potential friends. Her roommate was not around, and turned out to be sick, and was housed in isolation due to her cough. It was 2 days after dropping off that we learned that there are only 5 freshman, and only 2 of them are boarders - my daughter and her roommate. Their usual class size is about 25. I am aware that boarding school enrollment is down but we were not expecting this! My daughter spent the first 5 days as the only freshman boarder. Having one other girl in the entire freshman class is also not ideal especially given their first impressions did not go well.
I am really surprised we were not told before hand. Finding out after the fact makes things very hard because my daughter is feeling really stuck and scared and we were not at all prepared to help her through this.
Has something like this ever happened to anyone else where they bring their kid to a boarding school (or college) and it’s way different than expected. I am preparing for conversations with the school and our EC and I’m just feeling really thrown off.