Boarding School recommendations?

[Carol_]

Dana Hall, Wellesley MA

 

[bethy]

Another rec for Webb. We know people who were very happy there.

This one looks really nice, thank you!

 

[havaneselover]

Deerfield Academy? I'm familiar with it because it's local, but also met someone who went there when I was at Georgia Tech. There's also Wilbraham & Monson Academy.

I have a friend who went to Deerfield and then to Brown. No way would she have gotten into Brown had she stayed at our local high school (not that the high school didn't offer lots of AP classes, etc, but it was super competitive and she didn't stand out but I guess going to Deerfield gave her an edge).

 

[_19disnA]

Many boarding schools attract very gifted students and it is a highly competitive atmosphere. Well to do families often use those types of schools to help groom their children for many of the well known colleges. Can be very pricey as well for a h.s. so that is something to consider. Also want to make sure your daughter is involved in the process since moving away from home is often a BIG change even for those going off to college. I would be sure to visit any of these you are seriously considering. Some in h.s. may not be ready to live on their own hundreds of miles away from their family.

If she isn't challenged academically at her current school, perhaps getting involved in sports or school ECA's would be a way to use her free time and be more involved.

 

[RUDisney]

My nephew is a day student at Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, PA. That is near Wilkes Barre and Scranton.

He is very smart, but not genius level.

I'm unsure of the boarding students to day students ration.

I had gone to Scranton Prep, as had my siblings and my kids. Having seen the difference between the two schools, I wish I had sent my kids to Sem, althought there is about a $6-8k difference in tuition between the two schools. Scranton Prep challenged my kids, but not in the same way that Sem would have. My nephew is an athlete and between academics and athletics, he is a very happy young man. His sister is a senior at Scranton Prep. He could have chosen either school. He started at Sem in 7th grade and chose to stay there for high school.

 

[White Cat]

My nephew is a day student at Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, PA. That is near Wilkes Barre and Scranton.

He is very smart, but not genius level.

I'm unsure of the boarding students to day students ration.

I had gone to Scranton Prep, as had my siblings and my kids. Having seen the difference between the two schools, I wish I had sent my kids to Sem, althought there is about a $6-8k difference in tuition between the two schools. Scranton Prep challenged my kids, but not in the same way that Sem would have. My nephew is an athlete and between academics and athletics, he is a very happy young man. His sister is a senior at Scranton Prep. He could have chosen either school. He started at Sem in 7th grade and chose to stay there for high school.

Wyoming Seminary has a very good wrestling program.

 

[lisaviolet]

You asked about Canada -

BCS (Bishop's College School) is in an area of Quebec that is very close to the US border (Vermont). The Eastern Townships of Quebec is a breathtaking. area that borders NY/VT/NH/ME.

It is in a town of rolling hills that contains a university, CEGEP and the above mentioned private school. But also borders.a city - Sherbrooke. Montreal is two hours away.

It has a great reputation. Listing it because it would be a different experience.

https://www.bishopscollegeschool.com/
------------------

There is another school literally right at the border - Stanstead College. They highlight their small class size and 8:1 teacher ratio.

https://www.stansteadcollege.com/#scroll-down

 

[HopperFan]

Just a thought -

My DD was very bored with high school, the environment, the other students and more. She was a good but what I would consider average student at the time. In the fall of her sophomore year she begged to let her find a way to escalate the experience. We came up with a plan to graduate a year early, presented to the school who had to take it all the way to the top but she was approved.

She took her normal full day of classes and did a couple online in the evenings (and still participated afterschool with her team). She took two full year classes online during the summer. All of her grades went up and she thrived on the busier schedule and meeting her goals.

We had to do multiple college visits (at 15) so that she would be ready to apply. She applied to about 8 and got in to them all (even the ones who called to ask if we had her birthday wrong) and was offered scholarship money to them all - not that her total transcript was brilliant, but because of her resume of working hard and meeting goals.

She graduated at 16, turned 17 by time she started college and after her heavy load of the last 1.5 years was ready for the college level work. It was a great in between solution. She got to leave a year early - but was challenged for the time she was still in high school because if she messed up any class, her plan was out the window. This also gave her another year at home so that when she did go away she was more than ready to go.

She did great during her 4 years of college, then spent a year at WDW working, then went to graduate school where she was successful. Just a thought that there might be an in between solution for her that would allow her another year at home of maturing, and you save your boarding school funds for college/grad school.

 

[Skywalker]

Another one to check in Canada is Ridley College - located in St. Catharines Ontario (near Niagara Falls, Toronto and Buffalo NY)

Its one of Canada's oldest boarding schools, very challenging academically, and physically (athletics is important too) and students from all over the world.

My brother attended there. He is 55 years old now, and the best friends of his life to this day, are the ones he made there.

 

[Darcy03231]

Some in my area that get very good reviews:

Proctor Academy, Andover, NH
The Tilton School, Tilton, NH
Brewster Academy, Wolfborough, NH
Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter NH

 

[DopeyDame]

The Madeira School in Virginia is awesome for girls. I worked there for a few years and they have a great philosophy and education.

I was just going to mention Madeira. I have a friend whose daughter seems to be thriving there.

 

[DopeyDame]

In regards to the (very thoughtful and reasonable) comments from the teacher - I know a lot of boarding schools have "prep years" - basically a fifth year of high school. So that may be something to consider - either having your daughter start the boarding school as a 10th grader, or planning to do 11th, 12th, and prep.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

Santa Catalina in Monterey California
Stevenson in Pebble Beach California
York School in Monterey California (not sure if they have boarding)

 

[donaldbuzz&minnie]

My kids went through a very competitive, demanding public school system. We have relatives whose kids went to good private schools all the way through and so my comments are based on our experience, not on a lot of specific information about boarding schools. Academically, the public and private schools were essentially equivalent

The private school girls did get into good colleges - one at Yale, one didn't get into an ivy league school, but her college was ranked close enough. My daughter applied to an ivy league school and, like her cousin the same year, got close enough.

I realized, as we went through the process, that in terms of getting into a preferred college, it wasn't necessarily an advantage to have come from a highly rated public school system. A good extracurricular record and a GPA over 4.0 doesn't mean much to a particular college when that's how a huge percentage of the student body is doing.

If getting into a particular college is important to your daughter, I'm sure a good private school with a track record of placing students in that college is worth careful consideration, assuming that your daughter can keep her grades up at the same level as the other kids. But ironically it might also be an advantage to be a real standout from a lesser known public school from a geographically diverse area.

One thing I would give some thought to, before sending her to a boarding school, is that while all of the girls in our family are nice people, the girls who attended private school came from almost universally very wealthy homes, with expectations and attitudes that came from that lifestyle. They had similar friends they had been going to school with since kindergarten. I would want to make sure that I knew what kind of an environment my daughter was entering and how her personality might cope with being thrown in with kids who might, or might not, seem a little different and "clique-y". If she hasn't been to Europe several times, stayed in the very best hotels, worn the most expensive clothes, and taken for granted a million and one perks of money, she might find the pseudo-sophistication of the teens she could encounter a little hard to take.

Anyway, if I had it to do all over again, I would have worried a lot less about getting my daughter into a "good" college. Like you, I would be very concerned if she was bored out of her mind, and I would want to make sure that she was challenged academically and that she would be ready to do college level work when the time came. But there are hundreds of good schools out there, and in the long run your daughter's work ethic and enthusiasm for her studies will be at least as important as the college she attends.

Personally, I would be inclined to investigate the heck out of ways to get her to take college level courses locally during the next 2 years, assuming she has good friends in the high school she currently attends. But that's just one person's opinion. You know your daughter and I don't! Good luck!

 

[VandVsmama]

Cate in CA --> https://www.cate.org/
Thatcher School in Ojai

Be prepared to pay $$$, though, for boarding school. Thatcher, for example, runs $58,000/year.

 

[JLTraveling]

Input from a teacher:

If she's not extremely (and I mean extremely) bright, has grown up in a small town and attended a not very academically challenging public high school for two years, she'll probably struggle at a college prep boarding school. Boarding schools aren't filled with geniuses (there just aren't that many geniuses around), but they do cater to academically competent kids who are from competitive school backgrounds. It doesn't sound like she's been in a competitive college prep school before, and that will put her at a disadvantage, particularly coming into the program as a junior.

Most parents don't pay for college prep boarding school as an intentional prelude to an average public university. These programs are geared towards entrance into top schools. Not necessarily Ivy League, but there are a lot of top schools not in the Ivy League: Duke, Rice, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford, etc.

If the demands of the new school overwhelm her, her critical 11th & 12th grade grades might suffer, & that could make it harder for her to get into her university of choice. Think about the effect this could have on her future before moving her to try to make her more enthused about school. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, just asking you to use caution. Be sure to talk candidly with multiple admissions staff about her academic background and goals, and listen carefully to their opinions of whether or not she would be a good fit.

I have to agree with this. I am extremely bright (at least that's what the IQ tests say), and I transferred from a so-so school to a college prep day school (highly rated, but not up there with the prestigious boarding schools) in 10th grade, and I struggled. A lot. To give some perspective, my junior year, a previous graduate who went on to Harvard came back to visit. She told the 9th grade biology teacher that nothing at Harvard was half as hard as his class! Partly, I wasn't used to the intensity of the workload. And partly, I didn't have the right background. The school was a combined middle school and high school, and everyone else had taken two years of Latin in middle school, had a solid science background, etc. It was pretty humbling to go from being the smartest kid in the room to barely average. I rallied over time, did pretty well my junior year and very well my senior year, but it was tough. So make sure you find the right fit, ideally in a school that offers a lot of support for transfer students.

One thing I would give some thought to, before sending her to a boarding school, is that while all of the girls in our family are nice people, the girls who attended private school came from almost universally very wealthy homes, with expectations and attitudes that came from that lifestyle. They had similar friends they had been going to school with since kindergarten. I would want to make sure that I knew what kind of an environment my daughter was entering and how her personality might cope with being thrown in with kids who might, or might not, seem a little different and "clique-y". If she hasn't been to Europe several times, stayed in the very best hotels, worn the most expensive clothes, and taken for granted a million and one perks of money, she might find the pseudo-sophistication of the teens she could encounter a little hard to take.

Also this. My parents were both professionals, making a good income. But they came from working class backgrounds, so we didn't have the advantages of generational wealth. In the average public school system, my family would have been in the top 10%. At my school, we were poor. One of the annual fundraisers was a silent auction, and people donated things like a week's stay at a castle in Europe. Multiple kids took leaves of absence to go on safari for a month or similar pricey, long vacations. Everyone wore the very best designer clothes and shoes. One girl got a new Porsche for her 16th birthday. She totaled it in less than a week and got a brand new one the next day. After another girl graduated and enrolled at Vassar, her mom was furious that the airlines wouldn't let her prepay for four years of plane tickets for visits home.

It can also lead to some unexpected situations. I finally got somewhat popular my senior year and was invited to an 18th birthday party in a mansion. Little did I know that it was actually more of a business networking event. We were playing the stock market game at school at the time, and I happened to randomly be good at it. Which meant I got to spend the entire evening talking stocks with old men lol. Not that anything exciting was going on in any of the other rooms. The whole purpose was like a coming out party, only instead of debutantes being presented as marriageable, it was high school seniors being presented as the next generation of business leaders.

And my dad said the place was like a faucet you couldn't quite turn off, only he was dripping money instead of water. Every few days there was something else to pay for, whether it was a mandatory field trip or a costume for the school play or the week in Canada with French Club (not mandatory, but every single kid was going so it would have been weird for me to stay home). And it was a bit tough to make friends, because they had all grown up together, attended "feeder schools" since kindergarten, in many cases traveled the world together. I have no idea of your income or family circumstances, but unless you're generationally wealthy, prepare her for the idea of being the "poor kid," and talk through ways to adapt.