<p>Boarding school students might know that certain classmates are fantastically rich, most are exceedingly affluent, some middle class, and a few from disadvantaged backgrounds, but they do not see the manifestations in front of them as they would at a public or private day school. You do not know exactly how big your roommate’s house is, or know what position a parent holds in the same company where your parent works. I explained this to my son when he expressed concerns, before he went away. I never even made an association between one rather mousey girl who attended boarding school with me, and the huge corporation that bears her family’s name. I found out later, when somebody who attended college with her brother mentioned it. I knew that one of my closest friends for four years was the daughter of a successful doctor; I did not know until later that her mother was heiress to an immense real estate fortune. There are people from all different backgrounds: children of “hippie” parents, whose wealthy grandparents pay their tuitions; faculty kids of modest means, who get to attend tuition-free; etc., etc.</p>