I agree with @Mumof3Boyz Groton and Exeter are my most intense with Andover and others a step down in intensity. Partly because of the way some of the classes are structured, free time, grade deflation, etc. Just my observation knowing kids at all three.
Sure some kids say that intensity isn’t for me. Some love it. But none of us can tell you anything other than what our kids chose. There’s no right or wrong answer.
@marvelcomics: No poster has enough knowledge about all seven boarding schools in order to accurately assess the academic intensity at each school.
My opinion regarding the intensity at Andover is based on discussions with several students over a period of years and articles about mental health concerns brought on by the stress.
Students at several of the other schools are permitted to check themselves into the school infirmary for a day of rest when feeling stressed.
@marvelcomics the people who most often knock PA/ PEA have very little personal experience with these schools (ie are alumni or parents of students). I would keep that in mind when you evaluate your child’s option come March 10. In response to your question
“So, is PA/PEA so competitive and intense to a point for smart and overachieving kids to turn down offers from such schools?”
In our experience the answer is a smart, overachieving kid will do just fine at any BS if it is a good fit. Fit has little to do with being smart or overachieving and much more or do with people and culture.
I really think any of these schools can be very intense academically if you choose the most difficult schedule and also strive to get A in each class. That is a choice that can be made one way or another, and OP knows the best which way is the student going to go.
I would advise to pay more attention to other things. Half of the schools on the list are large schools in suburban locations with significant (25%+) day student population and significant local boarder population on top of that. They tend to have more open campus environment with lots of kids leaving on weekends to pursue their ECs or other things (be it club teams for their main sport, their music or a large variety of other things, or just family event or birthday party of their home best friend). There are also parents on campus pretty much all the time. This can be hard if you live far away.
The more rural, smaller, 100% or close to it boarding schools are less likely to have this issue, and they also seem to have a larger number of well-rounded kids that do a bunch of different activities for the school rather than the pointy kids that are gunning for national level recognition in their one major EC. The flip side of it is that the smaller more rural schools may turn a bit claustrophobic after a while. For a child who is boarding for 7 years and is on older side due to grade repeat, I could definitely see the appeal of the bigger school with far more freedom and ability to do things off campus.
@417WHB - Thank you for your post.
Can anyone please comment on the potential material adverse effect caused by “aggressive local” parents on campus all the time (i.e., parents from Boston, NJ, etc)?
I just realized that local parents can take their children out of the campus over the weekend and have them “tutored” by outside consultants, tutors have a leg up on “true” boarders. Moreover, these parents can be at the campus building relationships and culling favors from teachers/admin on behalf of their kids. Obviously this would give a leg-up on the “true” boarders such as students from the West Coast.
Has anyone considered this?
I read @417WHB s post to mean it can be hard to feel like you are the only one whose parents aren’t on the sidelines for every game, popping in to take you out to dinner, offering support in person.
What you describe @marvelcomics sounds extremely unpleasant.
Yes @cinnamon1212 that is what I meant. I know there are local moms who volunteer at the school and what not but I think it is more to have something to do than culling favors from the administration. As for tutoring, the kids who need tutors have them, including the kids who have parents overseas. If the extra help and peer tutoring options are not getting you desired result hiring a tutor is the next option. In some instances, the school actually asks parents to do this, obviously this applies to struggling kids not the ones that need to move A- to an A. But Skype tutors are all rage now and anyone can arrange those and my kid mentioned even a couple of the overachiever kids have them. So if you want to get on that train you certainly can, no matter how far you live.
I have seen what @marvelcomics describes, not at our school, but very, very much at some of the day schools near us.
A day parent at L’ville told me they had several tutors for their 2 DD there, but I don’t know how common that is. Could have been just her! @sgopal2 is probably better dialed in as are some current students there.
Have you actually seen cases of this? I haven’t. Both my kids go to heavily boarding schools though. As far as I’ve seen (at my kids schools) day student parents pretty much are confined to attending games and cheering.
THINGS UNACCOUNTED FOR IN RANKINGS THAT MIGHT BE MORE IMPORTANT:
I’m sure there are lots of other criteria that rankings ignore.
I agree with @417WHB , parents – day, local boarding, and distant boarding – interacted with the school as spectators of sports and performances. Otherwise, we were all held at bay. Frankly, I think boarding schools pretty much have "parent disintermediation " down to an art.
I know that there are some here who think, and frequently say, that having day students increases misbehavior. When boarders leave campus to visit friends or otherwise (in Boston, NYC, or someone’s house), they get into the same trouble. This to me is more about the culture of the school. How “fast” a crowd are the student’s friends, what happens if you are caught breaking the rules (including off campus over the weekend or on as break), how tight is supervision, etc.
Anecdotally, I know of kids from a 100% boarding school in a rural area who were very boldly experimental at a classmate’s home in Boston on a pretty regular basis. And the kids I know whose friends in NYC have gone off report much of the same among their friends when they come home. Certainly not all schools, definitely not all students, but I think you would be naive to think kids who are separated from those roguish day students won’t be able to find their own trouble if they want it.
I also agree with @417WHB
The day students at my sons school are almost to a T either: brilliant academically, straight laced, young for their age OR serious athletes planning to play in college. Both groups are the least likely to break the rules because “the future” looms large in their lives.
Boarding schools do regular, anonymous surveys to better understand the student experience and culture.
You can see Andover’s results here: https://sota.phillipian.net/
According to this anonymous survey, 28% of Andover students say they have indulged in recreational drugs or alcohol on campus. In an anonymous survey of Thacher students, respondents estimated that figure at 3%.
So there ARE variations from campus to campus.
Are the variations due to the percentage of day students? Proximity to a city? Larger/less supervised campus? Lack of opportunities for healthy risktaking? Fewer structured activities to build community?
No idea.
But I don’t think all boarding schools are the same in this regard. It is possible that a similar percentage of kids indulge in drugs and alcohol, but schools vary greatly in terms of whether kids do it on campus and whether on campus usage is normalized in their culture.
Marvelcomics: no, there is no reliable ranking of schools for YOUR child!
The size of the school has to fit your child’s needs. If your goal is simply acceptance at a highly selective college, going to a very large school may put your student in competition not only with all the students applying world-wide, but also against classmates for limited number of slots.
A smaller school might allow them to stand out: but if that school does not have the course catalog allowing your student to shine, that’s not the right choice either.
“Lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most.”
Holden Caulfield
Catcher In The Rye
Every school is likely to have excellent Spanish language training: a much smaller number offer Mandarin, or Russian. Differences in the focus and availability of STEM offerings in general and Computer Science classes in particular seem almost random.
"More disturbing to some teachers is that Andover seems to be filling up with students who feel any earthly sacrifice is worth an Ivy League heaven. They work, work, work. …‘We get good grades so we can go to a good college - a prestige college. That’s why we’re here.’
Such a narrow view of goals infuriates some Andover teachers. ‘The spirit…is neglected in this school.’ fumes Emory Basford, veteran chair of the English department. …‘A little child likes to linger, to look at bugs and birds. Here they have to hurry away because they haven’t the time. This has become a strange, bewildering, killing place.’
…Headmaster [Colonel John M.] Kemper is inclined to agree…'There’s just not emphasis on the old dream of simply being a good parent, a good person."
“‘The important thing is not training the child’s brain,’ said Groton Headmaster Rev. John Crocker. ‘It’s having a decent person when you’re done.’”
Excellence & Intensity in U.S. Prep Schools
Time Magazine, October 26, 1962 [58 years ago]
Note: quotes altered from “He” to “They” since the schools mentioned are now coed. This change does not otherwise alter the views expressed.
If I recall correctly, @Garandman would advise us to pay attention to how many dorm parents/adults are affiliated with each dorm and what the ratio is to students.
That is another piece of information that is not considered in boarding school rankings but could be very important in terms of the student’s experience.
CaliMex, having spoken to many Andover students, they believed that weekend binge drinking was a result of academic pressure. That said, 28% strikes me as pretty “normal” at least for 11-12th graders.
When I see 3%, my gut reaction is that the students do not trust the anonymity of the survey, but I have no proof either way.
Along with dorm supervision, one could add the disciplinary philosophy.
If you ask at the Admissions Office “Is this a ‘One Strike’ school?” they will definitely know the answer. Some kids will succeed in the “My way or the Highway” environment, others rebel against it.
@Garandman I don’t doubt the Thacher figures. Remember that this is a school where kids spend nearly every Saturday night at the head of school’s Open House watching movies, baking cookies, dancing, singing/karaoke, playing board games, etc. It is THE social event of the week. It is also a very small school (just 260 kids) with a very structured schedule. Not a lot of anonymity.
My kid has heard seniors say that they regularly get drunk/do drugs when they are home visiting friends, but that is “just isn’t cool” to do on campus. (She heard a similar line from upperclassmen at St. Andrew’s School during her revisit, btw). There used to be an old-timer parent here with kids at several boarding schools. She said her St. Andrew’s kid was the only one who didn’t drink or do drugs – it just wasn’t common on his campus… but that he got addicted to chewing tobacco instead, which was prevalent among the boys at the time. (This was a decade ago, I believe?)
At Thacher, those who drink/do drugs are in a tiny minority also because the stakes are very high: You can be expelled simply for being in the company of those who are indulging.
To address @gardenstategal question about side-tutoring at Lville: YES, this happens a lot. Most of the day school parents have tutors for their children, and they’re very secretive about it. I didn’t know about this until after my son had graduated, and many of my parent friends confessed.
I’m sure this happens at other schools too.
@one1ofeach - I haven’t seen it but was curious about it to seek clarification on this forum.
@CaliMex mentioned about an arms race.
That is what I am afraid of with the non-rural setting schools (particularly with those schools close to a city like Boston, NJ, etc) where the day (local boarders) parents can really help their kids go from B+ to A- or A- to A with after school tutoring. Big cities usually have really good tutors. The full time boarders have to rely on what they learned at school. With college acceptance becoming so much more competitive, wouldn’t any parent want their DC to be an A student vs B, etc (particularly if tutoring can help)? Tutoring not just for studies but also in music, sports and arts etc. This creates an uneven playing field.
By default, I think most or almost all kids who go to these schools are very high achievers who have earned mostly all As before going to BS and most will want to maintain it (and the day students who can ask for such extra help will likely ask for it - or the parents who are really involved (and want their kids to “succeed” academically) will arrange for such extra help). Less concerned with 100% boarding or schools like Hotchkiss which is quite secluded.
Skype tutoring is great but nothing beats a good old fashioned in-person tutoring.
As M10 approaches, just a thought from a concerned, first-time BS parent about such “inequality”.
Thank you for your kind thoughts in advance.