We are from Texas… we started doing informal summer looks when DS was 11. Usually, he was in NE for hockey camps, and we’d try to visit as many as we could while we were there…I’ll tell you, several of the schools he thought were his favorites without kids there ended up dropping significantly once we interviewed and saw the student dynamic. But, when you are that far away, you have to see schools when you can. And you can do your own, self-guided or as we liked to call them…“Discovery” tours. We’d download the campus maps and sneak into as many places as we could…back doors seemed to be unlocked a lot!!
As far as preppy?? You’ll have the spectrum at BS. DS is very competitive internally, but he doesn’t show it…he wears his Mickey Mouse or Hakuna Mattata shirts as soon as he gets out of class, with his board shorts and slides. He has not found BS to have any more elitists than his old school back home. Actually, there are much less so…
You can let DH know that almost all of these schools will be challenging academically…it is just how the school presents the challenge…just because it isn’t toxic, doesn’t make it a cake walk. You’re definitely right that the fit for your child needs to be there. A suggestion I have–if you’re going to look at PEA/PA or any of the other heavily publicized/glorified schools…look at a map and also check out any schools nearby (there are a ton of quality/academically strong schools in the Boston metroplex). We actually found DS’s school by doing this…I don’t think we would have heard of it otherwise, especially coming from rural Texas, where no one goes away to BS. And he couldn’t be happier!
Good luck!
PS…we are about to start this summer “Discovery” process all over again for DD… but it looks like we may be going West coast, this summer!