Does it makes sense to consider boarding school?

allyphoe
Sun, 28 Dec 2014 05:44:56 +0000

DD is currently in 7th grade, and has gotten a postcard inviting her to apply for the Caroline Bradley scholarship, which would cover day tuition. None of the local private day schools are good fits for her, so an interest in boarding would be the only reason to apply. I have no reason to think she would have an especially high chance of getting the scholarship, but I believe she meets the application criteria.

Pros to current situation / cons to boarding:

I would need to get the other parent to agree. I’m the school parent, so the issue is “hasn’t been researched and discussed,” rather than “there is opposition.”

Fostering a sufficient interest in boarding school to get her to turn in a good application is likely to result in an interest in boarding in general, and there is likely not enough parental enthusiasm that we would be cheerful about paying school-defined need. (The chance of being rejected due to need is not a con; having to say “we got your hopes up then decided we didn’t choose to afford it” is. NPCs will let us nix potential colleges due to unaffordability before DD has her heart set on them, but I have absolutely no idea what to expect at the high school level.)

DD is very young for grade due to an earlier skip, and would be barely 13 at the beginning of 9th. There would be much more parental enthusiasm if she were turning 15 soon after the beginning of 9th. No one would be on board with a repeated year, and that option would not be compatible with the scholarship in any case.

DD is in a good social situation at her current school, and I anticipate that will improve, rather than deteriorate, for high school.

DD’s current school district is a reasonably good one, and not a horrible academic fit. (Elementary was a horrible academic fit for her, with the skip improving her social situation in the long run, but only improving the academic fit in the short run. Middle school has been better.)

Current school has a very reasonable homework load. DD is smart, but not super-speedy, and tends to spend more time on some assignments than other kids with comparable academic performance.

She has historically not done well away from home, although we’ve mostly identified the reasons behind that and they are less likely to be an issue at school.

Assuming past performance has some predictive ability, there is a decent chance she would be a NMSF in our state, which has a low cutoff, and a decent chance she would not make a higher cutoff.

Same assumptions, she has a better than average chance at one lottery college with generous aid, and her chances would be higher with the geographic diversity of staying home. I personally do not think it will be her first choice, but you never know. We can afford 4 years of boarding + 4 years of generous college. We can afford 4 years of public school + 4 years of less-generous college. We can afford 4 years of just the boarding cost (so assuming she got the tuition scholarship) + 4 years of less-generous college. We cannot afford 4 years of boarding + 4 years of less-generous college. Because she does better as a small fish in a big pond, it’s less likely that she’ll be interested in guaranteed merit schools, but you never know. There is no amount of maturity that would give a 12-13yo the wisdom to know which choice would be better.

I am the travel parent, and I have a very seasonal job that allows zero time off during fall and spring breaks. We would not be able to visit her at school much. DD is comfortable and experienced traveling alone.

We are fairly well off (probably top 25%, but not much higher) compared to her current classmates. To the extent she cares about having nice stuff, she is not noticeable for her lack of nice stuff. She can invite classmates to do fun things that they otherwise would not get to do. At private school, she would be one of the kids without money for extra stuff. (One of the local day schools would not be a good fit because of issues with the full-pay kids bullying scholarship kids.)

We’re looking forward to her going to college at 17, but have no particular desire to have her out of the house before then. Likewise, she’s looking forward to going away for college, but is in no hurry to leave her parents now.

DD has some minor ongoing medical issues, and a good relationship with medical providers local to us. It’s possible that scheduling appointments for school breaks would be sufficient.

Pros to boarding / cons to current situation:

DD’s current school is not a great academic fit for her. Even in the fastest-paced classes, the amount of review is more than she needs to learn the material. Her weaknesses get minimal opportunity for improvement, because her overall level of performance is high. School is easy for her, and her eyes light up at the thought of moving fast and working hard.

Her current school sees school being easy for her as a feature, not a bug.

She has always done better in situations where she was the weakest kid in the group, working hard to catch up, so long as it’s been within her abilities to catch up by hard work. DD effortlessly near the top expends no unnecessary effort.

She gets her challenge from overloading on extracurriculars, but because we live far from everything, she spends a lot of time in the car, with minimal time to hang out with friends outside of school. (She has maybe 10-15 hours a week of scheduled activities, but is out of the house for 25+ hours due to travel.) Heavier school load would be offset by everything being on campus. For various reasons, not having to spend 25 hours a week driving her all over creation is unlikely to increase our household income, but it might.

She is a fish out of water where we live (PM me if you think the details would be relevant; they’re somewhat identifying). She has several close friends, but she hasn’t really found her people, and might not until she leaves the area we live in.

Fish out of water details regarding religion make all but one of the reputable private schools local to us unsuitable; the last one we know from discussions with current parents would not be a good fit. Neighboring public school districts rarely-to-never accept transfers, and those that do have similar issues as the current district.

Given all of that, does it make sense to seriously consider boarding school as an option? Are there any cons that are generally deal-breakers? Is there anything else that we should be thinking about?