My son has been using the same Chromebook his public middle school gave him at the beginning of 6th grade. He’s attending a private high school this fall so I need to buy him a laptop for school work. I’m wondering if there are any recommendations from the community in terms of models and other specifications. We’re thinking getting him a Mac.
Thank you 
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Ask the school this question. Many have a “standard” that makes everything, from downloading files needed for class to IT support quite easy.
For what he’ll be doing, it literally won’t matter unless the school wants him to have a specific unit. I’d get the lightest one that fits your budget.
Light is good. If you need a larger screen you can purchase a larger monitor for the dorm room. Does double duty for watching movies as well… 
Some boarding schools give all their students laptops. Another votr for checking with the school.
Thanks everyone!
I wish his school could provide this, but they are a “Bring Your Own Device” campus. We received a letter from their technology department with some requirements regarding OS, hard drive, RAM, etc, but I wasn’t sure if there are certain models teenagers like to use nowadays.
We are going to get him a light one installed with the standards recommended by the school.
If it helps we’ve been happy with the Acer Swift series.
My boys both used Macs at multiple different schools. Tech folks were familiar with them. Not the cheapest option but long-lasting.
Our D uses a MacBook Air along with an iPad with a pen. The combo works very well. She also has a large monitor on her dorm desk.
Our S (CS major) wrote out class notes with good old pencil and notebook. He also had a Razer note book and a powerful desktop computer with enough GPUs to keep his dorm room warm in the winter 
I got a refurbished 2017 MacBook Air (base model) for ~$700 when I entered high school in 2019. I was able to do everything I need for school on it, and it lasted with no issues until the screen broke about two weeks before finals my senior year; by that time, I was thinking of getting a new laptop for college, anyway.
Just realized this is for a private high school.
Definitely wait until school starts and buy whatever everyone else uses. Peer pressure and fitting in is probably important considerations.
I bought my son a MacBook Pro at Costco because they have price protection in case the price drops. Granted I am a tech nerd, so I went a little overboard on the specs, but we liked the macbook pro over the air because it had built-in ports like HDMI, etc. Having all USB-C is fine on the Air, but you need to rely on dongles.
His specs were way more than he will need, but we got the M3 Pro chip, 12 Core CPU, 18 Core GPU, 18GB Memory and 1 TB Storage.
You definitely shouldn’t need that many cores or that much memory for a high school computer. I personally hate running out of storage on a laptop.
We are an all-Apple family, so going with the Mac is easier for my tech support.
Both my kids went to private high schools and I needed to get a laptop for each of them. Older dd’s school specified an Apple laptop while younger ds’s school didn’t care. Each of them have the basic MacBook Air and both have worked out well. I’d ask the school, but my guess is most kids will have a MacBook. Just make sure to get AppleCare, it came in handy for my older dd who needed to have a battery replaced. Also, the Apple back to school event should start soon where they should offer a gift card or something else with the purchase of a computer. Make sure to go through their education site for slightly better pricing. Sometimes Costco will offer better deals.
Thanks so much everyone! This is really helpful.
We will take him shopping soon and suggest getting a MacBook Air, but ultimately let him decide. We are unfortunately computer illiterate. If it’s up to me I will probably get him a ThinkPad, the type of work computers I’ve been using for almost 20 years.