We are looking at Salisbury for my son for 9th grade but concerned that it has a heavy sports culture. Do kids who are not into sports find a fit at the school?.
@bettyc
I would NOT recommend salsibury for someone who isn’t into sports. I’d say look at other boarding schools. If you want a kind of liberal arts kinda boarding school with supper small class sizes and not a big sports culture, Cate School would be a good fit.
Salisbury is an amazing school!! My son had 4 great years there and was not a star athlete. The leadership is outstanding, and they focus on the strengths of all boys. My son actually enjoyed being in an environment with top athletics. He was proud to say he went to Salisbury and loved attending sporting events. The brotherhood is strong, and the sense of community is wonderful. I can’t say enough how much we love Salisbury School. They understand how to teach boys and do a fantastic job at it while developing core values and teaching boys to become gentlemen. Yes, they have wonderful athletic programs, but Salisbury School is SO much more than just athletics! There are many extracurricular choices at Salisbury and only a few play on the top teams. There will be plenty of boys like your son. He will find the community very welcoming and inclusive.
Cate is actually highly competitive in sports (their football team is currently undefeated and ranked #1 in the California small school division. Girls’ Volleyball won the SoCal Regional Championship last year. Soccer is a breeding ground for Division 1 recruits, with recent graduates being the Gatorade National Boy’s Soccer Player of the Year (Ema Boateng) and ACC Defensive Player of the Year (Joshua Yaro).) The sports culture is not what it may be at Salisbury, but it’s definitely not a safe haven from sports as freshmen/sophomores are required to participate…and just the fact that Cate is very good them.
I wouldn’t worry about the sports culture at any school. Kids need fresh air and exercise. Kids always benefit greatly from stepping outside their comfort zone. Teams provide a social component as well - which is great for any student at any level. We’ve had a few kids ( in our large extended family ) who went to BS hating/ dreading required sports and they all graduated with a sport they either took to college or do leisurely ( rowing, squash, tennis and running ) now as adults.
I can’t find the thread but I had a niece who couldn’t play sports to save her life. She hated sports but during the first few months away from home she made lifelong friends who were likeminded and miserable … which actually eased her transition to BS tremendously. I remember trying to teach her field hockey in my backyard before she started school and she was near tears. She found Crew at BS… first as the team manager and then as a Coxswain. She’ll probably go down as one of the best college coxswains of all time. I can’t watch her race without crying.
That said- I second everything Chelsea1 said. 
I agree with what the other posters have said about there being benefits to sports even for non-athletic kids. But I don’t think that necessarily answers the original question. I think pretty much all boarding schools have sports requirements of some kind or other (though they certainly differ in what counts to meet the requirements). But whether a school’s culture is dominated (or heavily influenced) by sports is a different question. To me, the key question is whether athletic achievements are valued by the school community (and particularly by the student body) more than non-athletic achievements. In other words, are the “popular” kids all star athletes? Is it considered as “cool” to have the lead in the play as it is to be the quarterback of the football team? I think all schools would tell you that they celebrate all different kinds of achievements, but I suspect that’s more true at some schools than at others. And it’s not to say that a non-sporty kid can’t find his own group at a school with a relatively sports-dominated culture, of course he can. But when we were looking at schools for our non-sporty daughter, she felt pretty strongly that she didn’t want to go to a school where there was already that thumb on the scale against her (in terms of being able to integrate with her whole grade and have friends with really diverse interests). Now that she’s at boarding school, she’s finding herself really enjoying the team sport she chose to take up, but she’s still happy that she’s somewhere that you don’t have to be a star athlete to be a leader on campus.
I agree @soxmom, and I also think that this is even more true for boys. Boys bond over shared experiences, which quite often means sports. I think that the question of boys’ sports “culture” at a boarding school is a good one to ask of current students.