If You Met Someone Who Went To An Old-Money, Exclusive Boarding School, What Would You Ask Them?

[Westcoastwild]

I have family that sent their kids to exclusive Catholic day schools, and they did it for two reasons: 1) the local bishop convinced them that the town's public schools were the playground of The Devil, and b) they were Capital-C Catholic and wanted their kids Catholicized as much as possible.

Yeah, I know parents like that. they're kind of frightening. Collected rosaries. Had several religious garden statues. Thought the passion was an appropriate movie for 5 year olds but Harry Potter was a sure way to cause demonic possession. But can't really blame their intensity on the church, the bishop, or the school. It was just them.

My parents did it because of class size and the literacy program. As in, they were actually teaching literacy and phonics at the private school while the public school had just introduced a new program that involved a lot of free range spelling.

 

[Westcoastwild]

I know a couple that sent their daughters to a Catholic high school. In conversations, they said there was no way they would let them be at a public high school because they didn't like the kind of cliques at school. Their two boys went to the same high school I went to. I didn't necessarily get it, but it was their decision.

I personally don't recall anyone who I would have identified as someone who attended an old-money boarding school. Of course there aren't really many of those around here. I guess there might have been a few when I attended UC Berkeley, but for the most part nobody would really want to admit that. Plenty of fellow students who went to private high schools though.

"Cliques"...well, that's a new way to say it. My parents would just say "bad influences". What they really mean is sex, drugs and alcohol. Must protect our innocent virgins from that. Always cracks me up- my mother was seriously convinced that no one in my class drank or had sex or did drugs because we were good, Catholic kids with proper supervision.

 

[Uncranky Donald]

Every summer as a pre teen/early teenager I would go up to Mass. for sleep away camp. Some of the kids there were boarding school cats from NYC and it was like a whole different universe to me. I would go for 2 weeks, which was a looong time to me and they'd be there for 2 months. There was a very clear difference between the boarding school kids and us public school suburbanites...I became great friends with all of them so this is not a negative read by any means, just a note that there was most definitely a division of worlds, from how they viewed their parents, friends, money, society, sex, everything, it was all very different.

 

[Westcoastwild]

I should have been more clear. I meant to say that contacting alumni offices is Phase 2, right now I'm working on Phase 1, which is talking to people I've managed to contact here on the DIS and another message board. At the time I wrote that post, I'd gotten nothing but disinterested shrugs from the people I was able to contact. But since then a few people have stepped in and are being quite helpful!

Anyway, when I do move on the Phase 2 I'm just going to do a Google Search and contact the first 10 or so that have a dedicated alumni person with a published email address. Repeat until someone is able & willing to help.

OH, and I'm going to contact the Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville and try to sweet-talk their alumni guy, their PR guy, someone/anyone who would be willing to talk to me. I'll give 10 million internets to whomever can tell me why I'm particularly interested in talking to them.

I don't know what "10 million internets" translates to in actual currency, but I do know that the writer of Dead Poets Society was an alumni of Montgomery Bell.

We did a unit on that movie in high school. I don't remember who the teacher was or why we even watched that movie, but I do remember suffering...

 

[bcla]

"Cliques"...well, that's a new way to say it. My parents would just say "bad influences". What they really mean is sex, drugs and alcohol. Must protect our innocent virgins from that. Always cracks me up- my mother was seriously convinced that no one in my class drank or had sex or did drugs because we were good, Catholic kids with proper supervision.

Well, I don't really know about that with this particular school. It was a coed school and in my experience Catholic schools don't exactly stop all the behavior off campus that parents hope they will. Even a couple of prominent "single sex" school are kind of odd because in reality they're coed with combined classroom instruction.

I don't even know if they're necessarily producing model citizens either. There was the infamous case of a group of slums from Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep in San Francisco. One alum got into a scuffle with (I kid you not) a Yale glee club visiting San Francisco. Somehow he was able to summon up a group of his homies who arrived in minutes in a van. The supposed comment he made was "I'm 20 deep. My boys are coming."

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matie...ghtmare-for-visiting-Yale-singers-2624293.php
http://abc7news.com/archive/6632384/

Around the time, the school was doing damage control, trying to assert that they were not really associated with the activities of their recent alums.

 

[rastahomie]

I don't know what "10 million internets" translates to in actual currency, but I do know that the writer of Dead Poets Society was an alumni of Montgomery Bell.

We did a unit on that movie in high school. I don't remember who the teacher was or why we even watched that movie, but I do remember suffering...

Tom Schulman, and you win! 10 million internets is just a metaphorical win, lol.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

I would ask if they thought the school helped them to get a better job than someone who went to a regular public high school. In other words, was it worth the money after all was said an done?

I know someone who has kids in an exclusive private school. I wonder if her kids will get better jobs, get further in life etc. than someone who goes to public school. Otherwise, what was all that money for?

A few responses to this….and I’ll limit my comments to ‘elite’ competitive admission schools. Boarding schools for behavioral adjustment or intensive learning disability support are a different type of place. Anyway:

- I don’t think many parents search for a boarding school in order to inject their child into a different class of society, hoping that attending the school will be the child’s admission ticket to higher lifetime earnings. Maybe the Dead Poet’s Society dad (who was planning his child’s life of Harvard and medical school) was reflective of attitudes in the 50s, but it wasn’t that way in the 80s/90,s and I don’t think it’s that way now. Basically, no matter your social status nobody likes an overt social climber

- I’d say the reasons that people were there were a mix of things.

- I went because my father was forced into early retirement, and for financial reasons we had to leave the high cost NYC suburbs for the lower cost living of small-town Vermont. Boarding school was away of easing the culture shock as I started HS.

- A good number of my friends were ex-pats or from the foreign service. One of my best friend’s father was foreign service, and thought New England boarding school was better than Damascus, Syria.

- A good number was family tradition.

- Then there’s the families that make the choice to have the child attend the place that has incredible resources, resources that few local private schools can match. I can’t prove that boarding schools truly have an edge over local privates, but I can say with certainty that it’s a different experience.​

But you could also ask your same "was it worth the money" question about people who a smaller house in a ‘better’ school district versus a ‘better’ house in a lesser district. We all have our reasons, and we can’t necessarily explain them logically, but probably have a strong feeling emotionally.

 

[amberpi]

I don't know what "10 million internets" translates to in actual currency, but I do know that the writer of Dead Poets Society was an alumni of Montgomery Bell.

We did a unit on that movie in high school. I don't remember who the teacher was or why we even watched that movie, but I do remember suffering...

MBA is a day school though. I have loads of friends who went there, including one of my very closest friends. The day schools and the good public schools in Nashville were always engaged in outside interests together. Nothing that interesting about MBA.

 

[diznygirl]

I had a friend who went to an all girls boarding school for high school. Her family was old money and they belonged to all the clubs. She was a debutante, and it was all about her socializing with the right sort of people. She was her own person, but she wasn't a rebel. Just saw things a little differently and was comfortable with all classes of people. She married someone from one of the clubs - the assistant cook. LOL Her parents were not ready for that. The parents did not get the result they wanted, but she's happy and I don't think she looks back on anything she did as a waste. It was all just part of her experience growing up.

 

[punkin]

I would probably ask why their parents hated them so much that they would foist them off on strangers 10 months out of the year.

 

[wilkeliza]

I know 2 people who went to schools that were day/boarding mixed. Mostly the kids who were in boarding either were the kids of celebrities or form overseas but interestingly a few had parents with in the area but they either had gotten in trouble or their grades were slipping so the school forced them to board or face expulsion. I did meet one whose parents boarded her at a school with in walking distance of her house. I guess they traveled a lot for work so when they weren't home they wanted her to be the schools responsibility. That is the only time I found the whole situation really odd.

 

[Westcoastwild]

MBA is a day school though. I have loads of friends who went there, including one of my very closest friends. The day schools and the good public schools in Nashville were always engaged in outside interests together. Nothing that interesting about MBA.

One might argue that there's nothing all that interesting about boarding schools either, except to the OP? I mean, they're high schools. I enjoy hearing about the different academic programs because I'm a curriculum nerd, but I never really got the Hollywood fascination with high school.

But lit teachers all want to talk about a writer's potential inspirations. And I think the MBA was definitely fodder for Schulman, if only for the all boys academy aspect.

 

[rastahomie]

Just saw things a little differently and was comfortable with all classes of people. She married someone from one of the clubs - the assistant cook. LOL Her parents were not ready for that.

I read somewhere that there's a term for that: NOKD. For those who don't know what it means:

Spoiler

Not Our Kind, Dear

 

[rastahomie]

One might argue that there's nothing all that interesting about boarding schools either, except to the OP? I mean, they're high schools.

I don't understand why so many people are surprised that this interests me. I grew up in a neighborhood that wasn't quite a ghetto (at the time anyway), but was definitely on its way. I went to a public high school where being stabbed wasn't outside the realm of possibility. My peers were sons & daughters of blue-collar people (and the rich kids from The Lake, but they didn't associate with me nor I with them). To me this is as an interesting a topic of conversation as if I were talking to, say, a Mexican immigrant living in L.A. or a retired geospace engineer or something. Different people and different lifestyles that I've never been exposed to, that's all.

 

[amberpi]

But lit teachers all want to talk about a writer's potential inspirations. And I think the MBA was definitely fodder for Schulman, if only for the all boys academy aspect.

I guess it could have been the all boys thing, but its definitely not like Dead Poets. So many of the guys in my neighborhood went there its crazy. We don't live in the "old money" part of town either. It certainly isn't cheap though.

 

[amberpi]

I don't understand why so many people are surprised that this interests me. I grew up in a neighborhood that wasn't quite a ghetto (at the time anyway), but was definitely on its way. I went to a public high school where being stabbed wasn't outside the realm of possibility. My peers were sons & daughters of blue-collar people (and the rich kids from The Lake, but they didn't associate with me nor I with them). To me this is as an interesting a topic of conversation as if I were talking to, say, a Mexican immigrant living in L.A. or a retired geospace engineer or something. Different people and different lifestyles that I've never been exposed to, that's all.

Does being a debutante or being in a country club make you equally as curious? They're all just folks after all

 

[rastahomie]

Does being a debutante or being in a country club make you equally as curious? They're all just folks after all

Yes, as a matter of fact, it does. But I'm not going to write about it. No story there.

 

[Westcoastwild]

Yes, as a matter of fact, it does. But I'm not going to write about it. No story there.

I don't know...I'd probably read a book titled "country club scandals of the 20th century"

Probably more juicy material than high school.

 

[DawnM]

I would probably ask why their parents hated them so much that they would foist them off on strangers 10 months out of the year.

I had a good experience at boarding school. My parents definitely don't hate me.

If you don't understand something, you can ask about it, but assuming hate is just not ok,

 

[AppleDumpling]

I went to public school and know no one who went to boarding school. The biggest question I have is from a parent's perspective. Without judging anyone, I guess it's just a foreign concept to me that parents would send their kids away during the years when the kids are just starting to blossom and mature into the adults they will become.

Childhood is so short. I couldn't imagine sending a child away at age 12 or 13 (or even younger in some cases) and not being involved in their daily life. Not spending time with them, teaching them life skills, guiding them, supporting them in school and outside activities (attending their sports competitions, school concerts, plays, etc.), I would miss that so much. Later, if they choose to go away to college, that is hard enough, but at that point they are adults, ready to benefit from independence and the higher education chosen to best fit their future goals.

I think losing those very important years would affect the relationship between parent and child, as well as among siblings, resulting in a different dynamic where you lose the closeness of a family.