<p>My D is graduating from Andover this year. It was a wonderful experience…she will be very well prepared for any college she goes to because it was very challenging. She became friends and got to work with students from all over the country and the world. Too many parents assume that it is a ticket to the Ivies and it is not…that is a very bad reason to send a child to Andover. She will hear from 8 colleges this week, none of which are Ivies but very competitive schools. I feel good knowing she will be well prepared. She was in classes with 9-13 students all 4 years and built wonderful relationships with teachers. Good luck with your decision:)</p>
<p>@Anjintrader</p>
<p>Excuse my feeble attempt at levity. I’ll leave it to more worthy and capable minds :-)</p>
<p>Frankly,</p>
<p>I saw the levity in IntlDadof2’s post right away. He even preambled with the fact that he was being facetious. And what he said was certainly no more controversial than my comment on the same issue.</p>
<p>I think we all need to lighten up a bit. BS stress can make us all a bit on edge.</p>
<p>Let’s save the smack downs for the parents who insult the kids and their choices.</p>
<p>And Exie, not for nothing, but ask yourself why the father of a kid who was rejected from Andover, and who has two kids who have not even started in ANY boarding school, would be hanging around a thread whose subject is whether they would send their kids to Andover AGAIN? Your posts are usually well-reasoned. What is your reasoning for that?</p>
<p>Does this poster really have anything constructive to add to the discussion? Of course not. And does he ask a valid question or try to gather information? No he doesn’t, and his “addition” is just a cheap shot. And your comments, while perhaps in a similar vein, and while completely unsolicited, nevertheless come from actual experience working with different institutions and having had personal dealings with BS.</p>
<p>Anjintrader, I’ve found Intldadof2’s posts to be informative, and polite.</p>
<p>I cannot say the same of yours. It’s possible not to like Andover, you know. Really.</p>
<p>As an Andover parent, I respectfully ask Anjintrader to go easy. These are just people posting random comments, not to be taken too seriously.</p>
<p>I am the parent of a graduating senior of Deerfield. My daughter declined the offer from Exeter for her first choice DA.</p>
<p>Would she go to bs again–yep! She has loved her experience.</p>
<p>As we wait for the Ivy letters, she has been accepted at wonderful schools that will be a “great” fit for her. Even though many students from her school get offers from the ivys, many more choose the LACs.</p>
<p>Let the student go to high school for high schools sake. Ivy admittance was not a concern when we looked at bs.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents</p>
<p>My son was accepted in the Andover class of 2017. We are not a boarding school family but Andover handled the process with genuine interest in my son and he knew it. I believe that if a school like Andover detects that a prospects interest is simply a means to an end, that works against you. The opportunity to attend Andover is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It should be appreciated for what it is- an incredibly well rounded academic program that develops a young adult’s mind , body and spirit. A key tenet that is evident throughout the school is NON SIBI- Not for Self. We live in a world that is consumed with self interest. Andover is a school that makes character development as important as academic achievement- that is the great gift of Andover! I do not care if my son attends an Ivy League school, he will be prepared for success wherever he ends up.</p>
<p>Congratulations and welcome to PA!</p>
<p>@dc parent</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son (and to your family) on his acceptance to PA! At the urging of a close friend who happened to be a PA alum, we toured and interviewed with Andover a few months ago. It was a fabulous weekend and we really felt like we got a great feel for the school and its culture. </p>
<p>Although our son was accepted to another one of his choices for school next year, our family felt that very same sense of purpose that you mention, when we visited Andover. In the end however, regardless of how much we liked it, we knew it probably wasn’t the right fit, mostly because a smaller school was better suited for our son. We all felt that. </p>
<p>So, in the end, it worked out the way it was supposed to for us, just as it did for your son, at Andover. And the wonderful, giving people we met there over that weekend (students, faculty, admin and even other parents) let us know, in no uncertain terms, that PA truly is a very special place. So much so, that Andover will always hold a special place in our hearts, for that reason. </p>
<p>Best of luck to your son. I’m sure you’ll love being an Andover parent!</p>
<p>JMILton FYI Due to the rigorous nature of the academics at ANDOVER, they do not rank students nor do they have cumulative GPA. People enter the school at different grades and different maturity levels. If it is all about class rank and GPA I know many people who leave private school for public for that specific reason. Obviously, Prep school is not the place for people fixated on rank and GPA.</p>
<p>No doubt the Exeter experience is great for High School, but we are missing another point… after great BS experience at Exeter, the kids will fell out of water at State universities and 2nd tier schools. They would like to continue the same Exeter kind of experience in colleges and feel great disappointment with the college choices they receive.</p>
<p>If they apply from Public school the students doesn’t have to compete with students with low grades but with legacy background and/or from high public profile family.</p>
<p>Certainly seems like a great place! And with the supposedly rigorous classes, I would think the prep school students would be much better prepared for college than the typical public school student. and the matriculation lists are very impressive!</p>
<p>Hi ProsParent,</p>
<p>Hopefully, your son had many choices and you and he have now made an informed decision which is best for your family. Though your question seemed to center on college placement, I will try answering from a different perspective. We have a child at Andover and are just completing our first year of boarding school experience. The academics are amazing, the kids uniformly quite smart, and exceedingly driven. Though, the last two items have a flip side to the coin as it’s hard to stand out, and for kids who are accustomed to standing out, there’s a big adjustment and a great deal of self-imposed pressure. No doubt that pressure increases dramatically in the Upper year, but it’s there the whole time.</p>
<p>The school has a multi-tier support system with resident Proctors, House counselors, Academic Advisors, amnesty policies etc. Nevertheless, I suspect that each year with 250+ students/class, the pressure gets the best of some kids. I am sure it’s a small minority whose experience brings them near a breaking point, but it’s a concern to the whole community.</p>
<p>Thankfully, we have not been directly affected by this, however, we directly know of three students who experienced ‘difficult’ times which required intervention. So, the direct question of ‘would you send your kid to Andover again’, my answer is I am not quite sure. Though great new friends have been made, and the courses and athletics are wonderful, I am not sure that it’s been an ‘enjoyable’ life experience. I really think that parents/prospective students should really spend some self-assessment time to confirm that this ‘alpha’ environment is really right for them.</p>
<p>As a parent who is considering a wide array of boarding schools may make the most sense for my son, I would really like to hear from parents who have had multiple children at boarding school and whether there was a marked difference between places like Andover, Exeter, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Lawrenceville and Choate. These are some of the places we are currently considering and based on a lot of the comments here it seems that Andover and Exeter in particular seem to be pressure cooker environments.</p>
<p>Do parents who have had a chance to experience more than one environment have thoughts on any of the BS listed above?</p>
<p>As a parent of a current Exeter lower, I have to share my Ds enthusiasm for Exeter. One person’s “pressure cooker” is another person’s “comfort zone”. She LOVES the challenges at Exeter, and the other kids. She would choose to go again without hesitation, and we would agree.</p>
<p>That said, she has also reached her limits at times, and has had to make decisions about priorities and experienced some frustration, including exhaustion. The wish to take on yet a more difficult class, make a team, and add another club, etc. is a self-imposed pressure in an environment with so many promising possibilities.</p>
<p>CanadaDad: All of the schools you’ve listed are traditional East Coast boarding schools that have, in the end, far more similarities than differences in terms of academic rigor, athletics structured into the day, etc. We might argue over which school offers better support, is more “nurturing” or “kind,” has prettier dorms, has a better arts program or crew team, but at the end of the day, they all are more alike than they are different. Check out the hidden gems thread for some excellent schools with much more varied environments (Thatcher comes immediately to mind, but there are certainly others.)</p>
<p>@classicalmama - I gathered that they are all quite similar and son’s current school is quite rigorous from an academics and athletics point of view.</p>
<p>I guess what I was hoping to find out about is strictness with rules, sink or swim mentality when it comes to academics vs. amount of academic support, competitiveness among students vs. everyone knows they are great and is willing to help each other become better.</p>
<p>The reason I asked to hear from parents who had multiple kids at BS is that they would have a better way to compare. I feel like most parents who sent their kids to BS will have a generally positive feeling about it and only those who have had multiple experiences will truly be able to provide detailed comparisons.</p>
<p>Hi Everybody. As the OP of the thread I feel like I should give an update on my son’s situation. Although I phrased the topic in terms of college placement, the idea was really to focus the discussion on the downside of the most selective/competitive schools, including stress handling/confidence shaking/lost opportunities upon graduation etc. The positive side of going to these schools has been repeated so much that I feel like the picture was skewed to the rosy side. But if one digs a little deeper on CC, over time, I realized that we do have the pros and cons discussed extensively and they do tend to be recurring themes. In our case, we live near a GLADCHEMMS school outside of New England and for many reasons going to the local BS as a day student was always the 1st choice of our son. But somehow after exploring he thinks he’ll get a more fulfilling experience at PA and PEA. The decision is ultimately his, but as a parent it was important for me to point out the downside to him clearly. He was undeterred and applied. Got accepted by one and waitlisted by the other. We thought long and hard as a family. In the end, with disapointment, he chose the local BS because of his EC. He is devoted to an EC and is highly accomplished. Being a boarder at a far away location means big compromise for his EC. It came down to a small difference in education which he can overcome with effort vs. a difference in his EC that he will not be able to overcome. He is at peace finally and I am very happy as I always thought the local BS was ultimately the right choice.</p>
<p>I think it is a good decision. There was a study that found day students at BS outperform the boarders, due to less distractions at home and additional opportunities to pursue ECs. For college admissions, it’s also better to be at the top of a slightly lesser school than in the middle to bottom of a rigorous BS.</p>