Choosing a boarding school is difficult, especially when your family is thousands of miles away and perhaps only has one visit/interview to base decisions on. After sending two kids through a boarding school (one loved it, the other hand issues with it) I’ve reflected on some pointed questions I could have asked that would have helped cut through the admissions-office bullcrap and learn better about how a school actually is.
What’s on the summer reading list this summer? What was it for the last two years? Schools often use summer reading to set the academic tone or to focus on a topic they want to emphasize. At my kid’s school, we expected classical literature. Instead got [edit…something else]. And yes, these selections did indicate a lot about what the school focused on. (To be clear, I don’t want to start an argument about the merits of these topics – rather I want to make clear an easy way to learn about the school.)
If the school emphases DEI issue, ask difficult questions to the DEI office, regardless of what race(s) your family includes.
• For example, ask what the school is doing to combat anti-Asian bias in college admissions.
• If it’s important to you, ask the number of DOMESTIC students who are black, white, etc. Schools use international and multiracial students to goose-up their numbers of students ‘of color’ and to present a false image of the student body.
• Ask specifically what the DEI office does to support students. Beware schools that offer “safe spaces” or meetings just for one race. Our multiracial family would see only problems with this; we have no interest in institutions that want to recreate segregation couched in “woke” language.
Ask for financial aid. Some schools are very generous – they’ll give awards to families with $200,000+ incomes and multi-million dollars in assets. But only if you ask. Beware that many schools have learned the game from college admissions of setting a sky-high annual tuition, then offering discounts from that. On the other hand, some boarding schools keep their published tuition low. These institutions are operating in a more honest way, in my opinion.
If your child has skills in a particular subject, activity, or sport, ask to speak to a faculty member from that department. Only one school offered us this option, I wished I had asked all of them. Faculty tend to be less scripted and more frank than admissions staff; many enjoy talking with prospective students.
Ask to see the student handbook and read it. Don’t be impressed by elaborate dormitories. Instead ask about policy regarding parietals, visitors, and how many students actually are on campus on weekends.
Ask about policy regarding who actually gets to use any special facilities you see. Get the response by email preferably. That Steinway concert grand on stage – can musically inclined students play it, or take lessons on it? What do the normal practice rooms have? That elaborate fitness center – can anyone go there, or is it only for jocks?
I could go on. The point is, ask pointed, unique questions that take admissions personnel “off the script” and help to show you what a school is actually like.
It’s not really in any school’s interest to hide, or obfuscate what it’s really like as all that would accomplish is having a lot of families feel duped, and extremely unhappy. That’s not what schools want. They want kids and families who want to be there, for whom the school is a good fit. They can fill their incoming class many times over, so most schools do not need to resort to deception to get bodies in seats.
There is some truth to the facilities question- we asked about some athletic facilities last year and were surprised to hear that most reasonable hours were limited to use by Varsity athletes only. Not a huge issue but worth knowing.
Perhaps so, but it would be naive to think that they don’t. Boarding schools want you at their school - particularly if your kids have good grades and are gaining admission to multiple schools. And the issues we encountered were not outright deception. More like a failure to present the full picture and an interest in covering up some of the less appealing aspects of the school.
I know this board is pro-boarding school, as are we as a family. But no school is perfect. I just want to share some questions we could have asked that would have helped us learn a bit more about the school.
Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia is one school we looked at with tuition substantially below that of other schools. We ultimately did not apply there, so I can’t speak about it, though I’ve heard good things from others.
I don’t think that schools are being dishonest when they set their tuition prices. Tuition is set by operating costs, which are dependent upon cost of living in the location, as well as the type of facilities they have on campus. Most of the schools mentioned on CC have state of the art facilities, and those come with high price tags to maintain properly.
The other major factor in tuition prices is supply and demand. I can think of several schools whose tuition is significantly lower than the typical Northeastern schools who are mentioned here on a daily basis. Valley Forge Military Academy, Church Farm, Phelps, West Nottingham, Christ Church School, to name a few, have lower tuition than the average NE boarding school. These schools may have qualities that do not appeal to as many people, such as being military based, or single sex, or almost fully international, or very low (below 30%) boarding population, or dilapidated facilities, or a combination of above factors. Perceived quality of academics and boarding experiences may be lower than the well known schools. Lower demand makes for lower prices.
My SIL lives in the Deep South and looked into several BS in southern states a couple years ago. Most were tiny schools, had small boarding populations, and significantly lower tuitions based on location and the schools’ needs to attract students.
The only thing I feel like schools hide is the actual workload and stress. And actually I don’t think AOs are hiding it I think they don’t actually know how insane the workload has become at some schools. The whole “if you’re organized and focused” you can get everything done and manage is a little iffy for me. Any small deviation upends the whole thing. So your varsity team makes playoffs, you are serious about an out of school activity, you get sick, etc. those all end up in a crushing amount of work.
Not had any of the other things mentioned happen to my kids and they seem odd to me.
And yet. Tuition costs have consistently risen well above the rate of inflation at most schools. “Dishonesty” is not the right term - it’s more like a game. And parents who don’t understand the game or don’t play it lose out. Typically these are the middle class parents.
Schools will say that tuition covers only a part of the expenses - they’ll have little graphs that show one fourth is covered by endowment, which they’ll ask you to contribute to each year.
But they won’t tell you about how bloated their admin staff has become over the decades. Nor does having amazing, state-of-the-art facilities have any relation to how good a time your child will have there, or how much learning will take place.
So yes, a lower tuition can be a good proxy for “honesty” in the sense of how the school is managed. Such as school probably won’t try to lure wealthy parents with tuition discounts. Such a school probably knows what is important and what is superfluous, and focuses on the former.
Before I had an insider’s look at a boarding school, I would have agreed with you about administrations becoming “bloated”. But, looking behind the cutain, there are so many things that have changed, and that now require support staff!
20 years ago, there weren’t IT departments. Now, there are, and they are busy! There wasn’t the need for communications to the degree there is now – there was no social media, no need for videographers. Games were not livestreamed. There was no human resources department, and no avenue, eg, to document sexual harassment-- which has come back to haunt the schools!
There were no administrators focused on the experience of international kids, or poor kids, with the resulting difficulties those kids had to struggle through.
As some schools introduced new and exciting programs – eg buying a farm and producing food for the school – people had to be hired to run those programs.
Ask directors of signature programs how selective they are. I was surprised when the director of the robotics program told my son varsity players are not welcome to his program as the program requires time commitment outside of class hours. His statement was contradictory to what admission offices “sell” to families of admitted students - a multi talented well-rounded student. Directors of advanced science program were outright clear the program is very selective and the program is not for someone to see their fit to scientific exploration. It sounded as if the program is for someone who is pursuing PHD. I found their stance very intimidating and contradictory to things the admission officers tell prospective students. We found these facts after the school started.
@cinnamon1212 is spot on. Add learning resources, mental health support, etc.
It used to be that teachers handled CC work - that has become its own beast.
Families expect all of these services to be in place. They aren’t add-ons but table stakes. Yet given the size of these schools, they can represent significant cost/student.