Most Reliable Ranking of US Boarding Schools

Prep School Admissions
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@antirazor - thanks for your insight. Not debating, but it strikes me that the definition of prestige is important to this discussion. With bs generally opening up to a wider spectrum of students, the goals for a student attending one are broadening, too. I think your list makes sense from a “traditional” prestige perspective. By that I mean sets a student off on a path to Wall Street and connects to certain social circles. There is quite an overlap with your list and simply the oldest schools.

But a different list would emerge if the goal is best stem education, for example. That is a different kind of prestige. My understanding from other posters (who know way more than me) that families of those rarified circles that prestige-seekers seek to rub up against have branched out to other schools that provide something different than traditional prestige. Especially as the traditional prestige schools are being flooded with huge numbers of financial aid applicants.

It is a changing world, and those families with pre-existing prestige (aka options) are changing with it. Those chasing prestige, as opposed to the actual inner workings of a school, are a step behind. Not that there is anything lesser about traditional prestige schools, but other schools can get a kid on that Wall Street path just as well. And may serve your child better in the long run.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE:

For some reason, you misspelled “in my opinion” as “definitively.” Regardless, I said earlier in the thread that we will not be debating ratings and so is pointless for users to post their own rankings for discussion. Please don’t make me shut down the thread.

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@antirazor
Nope, you’re totally missing our point. None of us are really debating a “top ten list” (sure people can quibble a bit). What most of us are trying to explain to OP, you, every other person who refuses to actually listen is: IF a kid gets into multiple top 10/15 schools they should pick the school where they fit the best to attend.

EG: a kid who is admitted to Exeter and Groton should choose the school where they feel the fit is best. They should not be choosing Between those two based on “rankings.”

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I agree with @CateCAParent that definition of prestige is important here. In my opinion, what @antirazor and others call prestige should be really called name recognition. Yes more people have heard of Andover and Exeter than any other boarding school. But are they impressed upon hearing your child is attending such school? Not really. IME they are far more likely roll their eyes and inquire why did you send your kid away (assuming boarding students here) than be impressed by it. Boarding schools have fallen out of favor with the upper class/UMC in places like NYC and Boston for a variety of reasons many of them alluded to by @antirazor. The private day schools have equally good or better academics, better college results, and you retain much more control over your child’s life. Enough kids have been tossed out of the boarding schools on this list for infractions that barely got noticed when their parents attended back in the day that the dream of going away is not nearly as appealing as it once wasl. Kids can have much better social life back home. Now the international/largely Asian crowd is very different and there the prestige in going to PA/PEA/etc. is still very much alive.

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@CateCAParent You hit the nail on the head.
People “in the know” kick the tires in areas where their kid is likely to excel. A STEM kid, which is the example you used is NOT going to get the same experience at each school. Nor is a kid who leans toward languages. Departments vary, and school vary. Quite a bit.
I think there is a very limited number of people in the US who want to go back in time to a period when everyone got a job with their father’s firm. Nor do many want to go back to a time when educational opportunities at BS were limited to men. This was in my lifetime and is considered ludicrous today. I don’t think that’s a privilege, I think it’s silly. And honestly, I think many BS parents worry that their kids will have a small X against them going into the college process due to this kind of thinking.

Statistically, the world and the US is becoming more ( not less diverse) and that means inclusion rather than exclusion. This isn’t only racial, but also economic and geographic and so on. So, while I’d admit there are folks in Palm Beach, Boston and NY who base school decisions on the popularity of the name in “smart” circles: Most parents will heavily weight name alongside many other factors.

It’s silly ( and retro) IMO to base choices based on what happened in the 1930’s, 80’s or when their grandpa went to school. Just as there are no more smoking lounges, education has changed a lot. It’s harder to get in every college today than it was 30 years ago, or even ten years ago. Likewise, BS are harder to get into.

Early admission to an Ivy is possible from at least the top 30 BS in the US. So, I’m not sure why that matters to some people. Often, it’s the people who don’t have a realistic expectation of what it takes to get into an Ivy who knock so loudly on the door. And let’s face it, even if you are a double legacy kid, there’s no guarantee you are going anywhere.

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I’m GLAD Thacher isn’t higher in the prestige rankings! Thank goodness! It is already harder to gain admittance to Thacher than to most of the higher ranked schools. No need to make it even tougher!

Perhaps more important: Our family values substance over style and our social circle includes people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. We’re glad Thacher kids aren’t as obsessed with clothing labels and other superficial status symbols. If Thacher were higher in the rankings, (and if it didn’t force students to clean up after horses, do their own laundry, work to contribute to the community, and sleep in the wilderness twice a year), it might attract prestige-conscious status-seekers and socially-competitive types whose values would be quite misaligned from ours. It would fundamentally change the character and culture of the school

107

Many thanks to everyone for commenting on my thread. I am fully cognisant of the “benefits” of attending many of the mentioned day schools. In fact, if we lived next to Harvard-Westlake or lived in NYC, then we would consider day schools over BS. Unfortunately, my family doesn’t live anywhere near those schools so mentioning the merits of such day schools is not helpful.

I would be very grateful indeed if the helpful parents/former and current students can just stick to BS.

Yes fit is very very important. I think we have established this on this thread.

However, not every child will be so much stronger in one field over another (eg, so much more into STEM that he or she will chooses one school over another just based on STEM - I mean is one school so much better than another in STEM than another school? As in MIT/Cal Tech being better than say liberal arts school?). Yes I can maybe see that in sports (even then, perhaps most schools are actually all within the same playing range but a student athlete chooses one school over another because of the coach?). Our DC is not a recruited athlete. I can also see the big school (PA PEA) vs small school (Groton) fit argument.

What happens to the fit argument when a child is very flexible and adaptable as many kids are today? Many kids excel in many areas but are not a “genius” in one area (whether it be STEM, sports, whatever). A kid who will excel academically and athletically at L’ville/CRH will excel at PA/PEA (that has been mentioned over and over again on CC). A kid who will struggle academically and socially at PA/PEA will likely struggle at L’ville/CRH/DA/etc.

So if a kid will excel or struggle regardless of which school she chooses and if there is no clear preference (Ie, I must go to this school for STEM, etc) then the merits of the fit argument starts to erode.

So all things being somewhat equal (all BS on our list are on the other side of the coast, my DC excels in many areas but not a try genius in one (not a world class physicist, recruited athlete, not a recorded musician, etc), DC is very flexible and adaptable, hard working but wants fun as well, DC comes from JBS so has excelled in a small environment but can easily outgrow a very small school in 4 years, etc), to me as a parent paying FT, total boarding costs should also be a factor in the equation (did I hear correctly that PA is the cheapest amongst the top 10?).

We are still a few weeks away from M10. So we will keep thinking about the fit (apart from the big school vs tiny school, other “fit” characteristics are harder to gauge at this point at least for us (although at least we definitely don’t want too many day kids or local boarders like Milton for example and hence that school isn’t on our list).

So hard to tell from one or two visits (I guess the vibe is important - is the student body super hard working (PE/PA) or relaxed (SPS?) - but I am afraid even this is generalising - kids at SPS must be very smart and hard working to have been admitted there!)

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There are definitely kids that can thrive in a bunch of different schools. My kid is one of them.

I guess what I am saying is that if on M10 you have choices, throw out everything you know about the schools, including rank, and go to revisit days with a blank slate. If ranking was necessary in deciding where to apply, then any school to which your child got in is good enough. Ranking becomes truly irrelevant. The only thing that matters is fit at that point. You get to free your mind of preconceived notions and focus on more nuanced ways the schools distinguish themselves from one another.

If ranking had to be taken out of the equation, what matters most for your child? That’s what revisit days are for.

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@marvelcomics : @CateCAParent raises entirely correct subtleties that I was quite mistaken to exclude from my original post (#99). I would re-frame that poster’s comments this way:

Many in this (wonderful) internet community often talk about “fit”. I am of the realistic opinion that if you are dealing with highly ambitious parents/kid with the horsepower to match the ambition, it will be impossible to convince them that “best fit” is radically different from the “prestige” rankings I mentioned above assuming they are committed to boarding schools. BUT there is one critical issue I would bring to the attention of such highly ambitious and able kids/parents, before they even consider these 9 schools:

These schools, from their headmasters down to the lowliest student-handbook-brandishing factotum, are in the business of graduating relatively well-rounded kids who stick to the school’s time-tested child rearing/pedagogical plan. Their thinking, at an institutional level, is: why change a formula that works, if we’re already sending ~15% of our class to the 3 or 4 best colleges in America, and that’s good enough to be considered one of the best high schools in the world?

BUT there is a whole class of very special American families that have realized that Harvard has, for a meaty portion of its incoming class at least, given up on the well-rounded kid. Soooo, if you, blessed with a successful career as an algorithmic trader at DE Shaw, want your son to spend vast amounts of time studying for the AMC12/AIME/USAMO so he may attempt to qualify for the IMO team, then chances are that these 9 schools, and their mandate that even every competition math aspirant ought to sweat on a Thirds Soccer team for a couple hours every fall afternoon, are NOT for you (important exceptions exist obviously, and special arrangements are sometimes made, but don’t bank on it in advance). If you and your husband own that super-hot software startup in Silicon Valley, and want your lovely daughter to fly to Davos with you for a week, so she can try to meet and join forces with Greta Thunberg at that panel you and Greta are speaking on, good luck getting your kid’s form dean to sign off on that little ski holiday. If you are a leading lady of the silver screen, and managed to convince your director that your dear son ought to make his speaking-part debut in that special scene he’s perfect for, but just needs two weeks in Vancouver where your producer has gotten insane tax credits, I don’t think young Johnny’s Latin teacher at one of these boarding schools is going to be very understanding. Is Sally an equestrienne Olympic hopeful who must be in Wellington, Florida 18 times per year? Is Bobby spending all his after school time at the neuroscience lab down the street at UCSF preparing a winning MIT Research Science Institute application/Regeneron STS project? Did Eminem mention to young Chrissy at the Four Seasons in Maui last New Year’s that her rhymes are good enough that she may just be the next National Youth Poet Laureate, or at least sign with Warner Music if all else fails? Is the Yankees farm team scout coming by for dinner weirdly often with promises of deals for Billy? Are Timmy and his passion of citizen outreach absolutely adored down at your dear friend the US Senator’s office during the school year?

If any of the above ring true, I don’t think these 9 schools are necessarily “perfect” fits for you, however excellent and prestigious they may be (although even then, exceptions exist). If you do not have access to these types of opportunities, or they are not realistic for some reason, or you do not believe as a parent that such narrow focuses are appropriate for your teenager and you prefer (which many do) the STYLE of education and child rearing, however insulated from the big world out there, these amazing schools offer, then a prestigious boarding school may still be right for you, and Harvard may just work out nevertheless if the stars align. As to WHICH prestigious boarding school: these schools have far more in common with each other than anything else, and in my humble opinion they are fairly interchangable, with certain nuanced differences as mentioned in my prior post.

1 Like
110

@antirazor - curious what your connection to bs is. You seem very passionate and have a very clear point of view.

111

Not sure I agree that they are interchangeable.
Academically? Maybe.
Culturally? Not so sure.

But perhaps I am biased because my kid goes to a school that has always done things differently.

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@marvelcomics : OK, as you are very curious on ways to determine fit besides size and day student population and obvious things like the “special programs” each of these schools has developed as ways to differentiate, I will give you a very relevant differentiator: how easily the school makes it to prepare AP / SAT II tests. For strategic or other reasons, possibly nefarious or possibly not, some of these nine schools are moving away at various speeds from curricula that align with AP / SAT II. In that case, if you have fewer of those tests to offer during a college process because it’s just too difficult to self-study with limited free time far away from home, all other things being equal, you are in a way forcing the admissions office to weigh your grades and the reputation/excellence of your prep school (grades which may or may not be parceled out in an unbiased manner by the boarding school teachers, and a reputation that the college admissions officers may or may not agree with four years hence!) versus the applicant from Palo Alto High or Princeton High or Lexington High and their many, many APs and SAT IIs.

My suggestion: carefully evaluate this issue which is varied at each school right now (we just did our homework this cycle as applicants), figure out your stance on it, and see if that helps you differentiate between the bunch. Who knows, maybe some years hence, these places will become so confident in their “reputation” they will stop encouraging their students to take even the SAT or ACT! Knowing these schools, I wouldn’t be surprised if the political winds blow that way eventually.

Also, another way to differentiate between this very similar bunch of schools: look carefully at the mandates on sports/after school activities, how exceptions are made, if that’s relevant to your kid’s high school plan, and what your stance is on this.

There are many other ways to figure out fit within the group: are single-person rooms important to you, can they be reliably secured? what about co-ed dorms? are there healthy off-campus food options that can be occasionally relied on in case the institutional food proves problematic? is the student body so casually dressed, or so nattily/dandy-ly dressed, as to offend your sensibilities about such matters? who knows, the list of such questions/considerations is endless and very personal, which is why choosing between this particular bunch of schools is so subjective.

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While I think the schools all keep up with educational pedagogy and may share more in common than they differ, I don’t think it is correct to say that they all equally emphasize well-roundedness at the cost of spikiness. Or that they wouldn’t indulge a student specialized opportunities. Or that there isn’t a place at Harvard for some well-rounded kids.

But to the point of “what does prestige get you” vis a vis different bs or day schools, boil it down:

Let’s say the goal of prestige in high school is to get into a prestigious college. Let’s say three average excellent seniors - from Andover, Loomis and Harvard-Westlake apply to Harvard, CalTech and University of Chicago (or any mix of T20 schools). They have comparable scores and accomplishments, none are recruited athletes or legacies. Who gets in? To which schools?

I posit the high school isn’t what makes the difference in admissions. It is whatever makes that kid special.

One step further: for some kids, a particular T20 high school can really enhance their specialness, and another can crush it. You can’t tell that from rank. You gotta know your kid, your kid has to know themselves, and you have to suss out the culture.

When you get to the point of choosing, ask parents and students what is important to them, and try to get behind the curtain. There really are huge differences. Cate is profoundly different than Deerfield and Exeter.

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@antirazor Thank you for teaching me a new word. Suffice it to say that when one looks up “deipnosophist” in the dictionary, my portrait is not featured.

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I think that “fit” is much more clear if your kid is “pointy” in some way. “Pointy” kids won’t find the right fit at just any school.

But if your kid isn’t pointy, your kid might very well do fine at any BS. But there may be BS that your kid will like better than others. Some kids are more immune to stress/pressure from peers (I have one of those) and others are much more susceptible to stress/pressure from peers (I have one of those too).

In addition, there may be things about your kid that you and your kid still don’t know yet and they may not be clear until they face some increased challenges of BS. For example, my spouse and I were just talking today about how spouse didn’t know until college that they anxiety, particularly test anxiety, because in high school (not BS), academics were a breeze. But college academics were not a breeze and thus the anxiety became very evident.

So my advice is think very hard about your kid’s personality. How intense or laid back is your kid? How much is your kid influenced by peers? Does your kid benefit from a lot of structure or is your kid one that relishes independence? Does your child like having a small class (grade) where they know everyone, or is your child excited at the prospect that they’ll never know everyone at the school? What does your child want to be doing in his free time?

Those things might be much more important to finding the right fit.

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Also, I am in the camp of not caring about percentages of day students. There is good and bad, and they cancel each other out - at least for us. With Milton in particular, even though it is 50% day students, the raw number of boarders is higher than Cate’s total student body. So that percentage means nothing to me.

The question is more about how integrated the day students are into the ethos of the school (or vice versa) and whether you resonate with the ethos. Fwiw, that issue about outside tutoring would be huge for me. It speaks to how tight the community is. And how much parents can influence/detract from it.

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@marvelcomics I suggest you start a new thread once you have acceptances in hand March 10th. That’s when the school choices are clear and you can ask specific questions about topics important to your family as you make this important choice. Best of luck to your child. If PEA is one of your acceptances- feel free to PM me.

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I read a post in another thread about how it is easier to get better grades for example at Loomis vs PEA/PA (for those kids who got into PEA/PA) for a number of different reasons. If what kids achieve academically at a BS is more important than the name value, then most kids who got into PEA/PA should go to Loomis (for example) rather than PEA/PA which may be more difficult to get As. With fit being equal, that is what it sounds like.

Getting better grades and looking ahead to college admission are important to us. In a small circle of friends and acquaintances whose kids got into PEA/PA/Groton, we have never seen anyone choose Loomis over PEA/PA/Groton over the fear of their kids not performing due to a stifling “competition”. Most families we know chose the “higher” rank school unless there was a clear personal reason.

I am sure we will find our personal reason before and after M10.

Thanks again everyone for the input.

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Peer pressure needn’t be a bad thing :wink:

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@vegas1 - Yes I will do that and update all the nice people who have contributed to this thread on my DC application result. Fingers crossed on an acceptance (or a few)!!!