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Modern American boarding schools strive to balance their enduring community traditions with a forward thinking stance towards educational innovation and societal change. Academics are supported by co-curricular and experiential learning after class, day and night, in sports and activities, at meals, in the dorms, with frequent extra class contact with teachers who also coach sports and oversee dorm life. Teachers and students also interact at meals and at social events — coffees and teas, school rallies and other events, all additional opportunites for discussion and learning. The Schools are in essence a collegiate environment but with close adult supervison.

Boarding schools are highly social and self contained; students rarely leave the campus community. A widely diverse student body is norm, with students from different ethnic, racial, geographic, income, and national backgrounds. Minority representation is much higher than at private day schools.

Financial aid tends to be much more ample and available than at day schools. As a consequence, these schools enroll large numbers of students from middle and lower income backgrounds. Also, families with incomes too high to qualify for financial aid at day schools often find that they are eligible for aid at boarding schools.

Issues of status and prestige are deliberately controlled. All boarders live in dorm rooms which are typically spare and small. This uniformity and lack of space diminishes status of possessions. Instead, school policies enchance the status of rank (upperclassmen over underclassmen) and success (through positions of leadership in academics, athletics and activies).

Today’s boarding school typically provide advanced systems for student support — counseling, advising, tutoring, medical and psychological care, sports training and therapy with fully equipped facilities and resources in support of these services. Certain school policies enhance student safety. Campuses have 24 hour security.

Drugs and alcohol are banned, and while such bans are not 100% effective, student access to these substances is more restricted than at day and public schools. Boarding students typically do not have cars at school, nor are they allowed to ride in cars without express parental permission. Off campus trips are controlled and require faculty permission.

Challenges remain. Elitism is an ongoing concern. The schools continue to strive for excellence and to prepare young students – now coming from every cultural and societal background – to assume the mantle of leadership in the society of the future. How this equates with the schools’ professed values of democracy, equality, and social justice remains an unresolved question.

Blacks and Hispanics continue to be underrepresented in prep student populations, as are students from lower income families. Many schools have responded with vigorous financial aid support, including some programs offering free tuition to families under certain annual income levels.

The status of LGBT students remains a subject of controversy as school attempts to promote tolerance and support for these students comes into conflict with traditionally minded alumni.

The intense pressures of boarding school life have prompted some schools to step down some of their programming to allow students more free time. Recent sex assault scandals and revelations of others from decades past have resulted in new prevention and reporting policies on many campuses. Boarding students’ success in elite college admissions has fallen significantly compared to rates in decades past, but continue to strongly outperform compared to day schools and public schools.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF BOARDING SCHOOLS

Trustees are the legal owners of the school; organized as a corporate board of directors, trustees are volunteers chosen for their sagacity and business acumen. Trustees tend to be very successful players in the business or professional communities. They are often alumni/ae, sometimes parents, or occasionally outsiders who are major donors. One of the trustees’ most critical functions is to choose the Head of school; a poor choice can affect the school for years after. Their second function is to consider and approve or deny major proposals such as new construction programs as well as tuition raises or reductions. Their third main role is to assist the Head to manage any major crisis that may arise. Trustees typically travel twice a year to the campus for general meetings, take on committee work, and spend many more volunteer hours in other school service. Trustees usually are very slow to interfere with the school’s normal operations, but their gravitas and legal power can be brought to bear in times of challenge or crisis.

Heads of School go by various titles – Principal, Rector, Director, Headmaster, Head Master or simply Head. The Head is the spokesperson of the school and articulates its fundamental principles and a vision for the future. The Head also embodies the school and serves as chief executive of the school’s business organization, which is quite often a multi-million dollar entity. The position also requires a great deal of political and social intelligence. The great school Heads have somehow managed to balance all these demands, but typically Heads tend to be stronger in some areas than in others.

Heads who are weak in finances can steer their ship onto the reefs, while corporate types can fail to sufficiently cater to the various constituencies in the school communities. The impact of a new Head takes a while to take effect and lasts well after departure.

Administrators serve at the pleasure of the Head. Each department – Facilities, Development, Alumni Relations, and so forth – is charged with implementing the policies set by the Head and the Trustee. Sometimes a school’s power structure tips the other way, with a Head articulating policies generated by the departments.

The administrators of most concern to applicants and their parents include the Dean or Director of Admission, who is charged with putting together the incoming class (usually 9th grade, though a few schools begin at 8th grade) as well as adding new members to upper classes to replace those who withdraw or are expelled. The Dean of Admission is the face of the school for applicants, manages a staff of assistant and associate directors, and oversees the very central task of meeting the enrollment needs of the school. Admission is a personnel management field that must balance an array of constituencies and needs, including the school’s need for certain student assets – academics, athletics, arts, and diversity are prominent examples.

Admission departments increasingly use data management and forecast modeling to put together strong classes of incoming students. The arrival of a skilled and gifted Dean of Admission can have an immediate impact on a school community; so too, it must be noted, can the departure of one. The Director of Financial Aid manages decisions about which admitted students will receive financial aid, under what terms and conditions, and in what amounts. As with some colleges, some prep schools are adding a Dean or Director of Enrollment Management. This senior officer manages enrollment after the admission process, including such issues as attrition (why students withdraw from the school) and yield (why students chose one school over others). Information drawn from these inquiries has tremendous promise for schools’ efforts to improve their “customer appeal”. There is however a potential negative consequence for applicants seeking entry in the higher grades, as fewer spaces come available due to fewer students withdrawing. The organization of these officers – who reports to whom - varies from school to school.

Faculty: Boarding school educators are unique in the American teaching community, resembling something like a cross between their private day peers and college professors. They have considerable freedom to shape their own curricula, but often receive research support from the schools for their own academic activities. An additional characteristic of boarding school faculty is that a sizable percentage are alumnae/i of the schools where they teach, adding another layer of commitment and cultural cohesion. As with teachers at private day schools, they are not unionized and usually are not formally tenured. Many agree to a multiyear commitment that includes dorm supervisory service. The partners and/or children of dorm faculty help create a family atmosphere for the students. The masters’ children often grow up to attend the school, provided their academics are sufficient. Many teachers serve their entire working lives at one school; some even bequeath their estates to their schools.

Traditionally, many faculty at boys’ schools were “triple threats”, serving as instructors, athletic coaches and dorm supervisors. At girls’ schools, academic, athletic, and residential staffs have typically been kept separate. At present, the tradition of the “triple threat” boarding school teacher is in decline.

Boarding school alumni have traditionally held positions of importance in the school power structure. Since boarding schools lack access to research and government grants, they are much more dependent on alumni support than are colleges and universities. This gives alumni a continued voice in school decisions. The admission prospects of alumni children, known as “legacies”, are thereby more enhanced than legacies at most colleges. Alumni tend to be very active in volunteer work, serving on fund raising and admissions committees and conducting applicant interviews and other pro bono work for their schools.

Students also have a voice in the school administration, despite their youth and brief tenure on campus. Student government maintains a dialogue with the head of school and the faculty about student concerns and serves as a bridge between adult officialdom and the student body. Student prefects help maintain order in the dorms and serve as peer counselors and observers. The schools, ever mindful that many students come from families with long standing school loyalty and that all students quickly become alumni, have adopted a long term viewpoint about students; that goofy fifteen-year-old may turn into an enthusiastic billionaire donor in the blink of an eye.

Parents once were an afterthought in boarding school culture. Poor transportation reduced parental contact to rare campus visits. Parent-student communication consisted of regular correspondence and the occasional “care package”. Today’s enhanced travel options and high tech communications have changed all of that. Parents are increasingly active in the life of the schools. Through parents’ organizations, many parents help as volunteer admissions interviewers, host regional receptions for families of applicants, assist in fund raising, and speak as school advocates. Long distance parents maintain frequent contact with their students as well as with teachers, dorm supervisors, tutors, and advisors. Streaming video services allow parents to follow sporting events and school assemblies. Local parents serve as surrogate parents for international and long distance domestic students; as volunteer activity hosts, providing snacks and drinks to sports teams; and as weekend or holiday hosts for students too far from home to travel on breaks. Many parents maintain their school ties long after their children have graduated.

THE BOARDING SCHOOL CAMPUS

Boarding school history plays out in the configuration of campuses. The old academies continue to border towns, often with public streets traversing the school grounds. The English style schools from the late 19th century maintain gated campuses, with academic and administrative buildings and student housing grouped around lawns bordered by trees. Schools dating from the modern era are arranged in a variety of patterns, according their individual histories. The athletic facilities and playing fields tend to sit further off, though some schools maintain their athletic fields at the center of their campuses.

The typical distribution of buildings on a boarding school campus means that students get a lot of exercise hiking from one building to another. Even those schools with compact campuses require considerable walking – to classes, to sports events, or to the nearby town. As mentioned previously, cars are forbidden to boarding students at most schools; and day students, who may drive to and from school with parental and school permission, must park their car upon arrival and walk the campus like everyone else. As a result, despite a demanding study schedule, boarding school students get outdoors regularly, in every kind of weather. A school closure due to severe weather is a decided rarity – most schools soldier on through rain, wind, and snow.

HOUSING

Boarding school students are typically housed in dormitories on campus. Each has on-site adult supervision – masters and advisors – plus a system of student assistants to maintain dorm rules and lead group activities. Dorm masters are faculty, usually a master and an assistant master, sometimes multiple assistant masters, who live on site in their own apartments within the dorm. Often the assistant doubles as an academic advisor, or an advisor is attached as a nonresident. In addition, schools often have other nonresident faculty attached to the dorms who serve as supervisors when the resident master is absent. Student assistants, often known as “prefects” or “proctors”, act as semiofficial supervisors, keeping order and offering guidance and advice to younger and new students. Prefects can also serve as informal confidants, as students sometimes feel more comfortable revealing secrets to other students rather than speaking to adult authority figures. Prefects are often given training on how to spot and respond to signs of student depression, emotional crisis, substance abuse, and other issues.

Most dorms are single sex, though some few schools have coed dorms, with girls on some floors and boys on others. Some schools have “vertically integrated” dorms, where students from all grade levels live together. The benefit to this is that the younger students learn from the older ones and the older students learn to mentor the younger ones. Others have dorms by grade level, with younger students grouped together, tenth and eleventh graders together, and seniors in their own residences. The benefits here are that students have different needs and interests at different ages, and the gradual lessening of school restrictions as the students mature is more easily managed when they are grouped by grade. Seniors only housing also can simulate a college experience, with no ‘lights out’ restrictions and other liberties.

A tiny cadre of schools opt for a house system based on the classic British boarding school house systems, such as at Eton and Rugby. The Lawrenceville School established a house system in 1880. Its near neighbor, the Hun School of Princeton (NJ) also has a house system, as does the Chaminade Preparatory School in St. Louis MO, the University School (non boarding) in Ohio and McCracken County High School, a public school in Kentucky. Like residential colleges at some universities (such as at Yale), boarding school houses are a subset of dorms in function, but with more group identity, history, and cohesion. Houses have their own histories, flags, colors, and traditional house rivalries. Dorms and houses both have student governments that help organize social and housekeeping events, decorate the common areas, and promote student spirit. Dorm and house government service is often a stepping stone to school wide student government positions.

Boarding school housing varies widely in size and quality but is often better than at colleges. As a rule the dorms are deliberately spare and basic. There are specific rules regarding lights out, noise levels, and quiet times. Student prefects on each floor maintain order, serve as informal counselors, and conduct room inspections. These inspections vary widely. Some schools require regular and frequent inspections, while at others inspections are an afterthought.

Space and light are always issues; usually there is little of either. The larger, brighter, quieter rooms go to ongoing students who get seniority in room selection. New students tend to be stuck with what’s left over. Once in a while a lucky newbie gets a great room when a longtime returning student suddenly withdraws at the last moment.

Storage space in most dorm rooms is nearly nonexistent, except for under one’s bed. Sunlight is problematic. South facing rooms sometimes get too much, north facing rooms too little. Despite the incredible array of facilities and programs at boarding schools, many, perhaps most, prep dorm rooms have no air conditioning, so dorms at schools in even the most northern of climes tend to be stiflingly hot at the start of fall term and the end of spring term.

Due to safety and sanitation concerns, schools have numerous rules about what can be kept, hung, or used in the dorms. Anything involving heat and fire – toaster ovens, coffee makers, candles, irons, and the like are prohibited. Flammable wall hangings, pets, and firearms all are no-nos. Small appliances such as refrigerators and televisions usually do not make the cut. One device that is often welcome is a vacuum cleaner (and everyone will want to borrow it!).

Boarding school dorms have specific check in/check out times. A Duty Master, usually a faculty member, is present each evening to monitor check in times. Students are expected to check in by a prescribed hour and remain in their dorms until six or seven the next morning. Students seeking to leave their dorms after check in need permission from the Duty Master. Weekend evenings usually have more relaxed rules. Permissions are also required for off campus trips and weekend overnight trips. The upper grades usually have more privileges.

‘THE FOUR As”

Most schools revolve around four basic core concerns – academics, athletics, arts, and activities – the Four A’s. Most of the schools emphasize and promote student participation in all four as aspects of a multidimensional education. This presents students with the challenge of a continual balancing act requiring the student to marshal limited reserves of time and energy to fulfill sometimes conflicting demands.

ACADEMICS

American boarding schools offer a range of academic styles and philosophies. In the main, coursework tends toward small classes, extended class discussion, and extensive individual attention from instructors. The schools cleave to the traditional liberal arts, with courses in literature, history, science, mathematics, and languages. As preparation for college, this tradition has become increasingly pertinent to a student’s education as even elite colleges turn towards pre-professional programs or wide-open requirement-free curricula. In several surveys at elite universities, large majorities of boarding school alums have expressed disappointment with their college education, in comparison with what they received “at school.”

The majority of the schools also feature heightened academic demands – more reading, more homework, and more expectations from essays and projects. Class participation is enhanced, routine reliance on objective testing diminished. In the most demanding of the boarding schools, these standards are extremely rigorous.

Traditionally, many boarding schools brought in new students at the eighth grade level, but now, with the exception of Groton and a few others, most school start at ninth grade. Many schools ease first year students into academics with instruction in time management, essay construction, and study techniques, pass/fail grading in the first term, and scheduled study halls and early lights out in the dorms, all overseen by residential faculty and academic advisors. After the first year, these strictures are gradually loosened as the students mature; less supervision and more work is the standard. Eventually, students near graduation will be given many more freedoms and a heavy work load so that the transition to college is smooth.

Boading schools tend to favor the Harkness or conference method, with students and teacher grouped around a large oval table. Learning is based on discussion and questioning rather than lecture and the absorption of facts. Students are expected to read widely and ahead of the discussions. Testing is infrequent. The writing of papers is central. Some few schools, including most famously Exeter, employ the conference method for every subject, including mathematics and the lab-based sciences. Others pick and choose, limiting the conference method to the humanities and languages.

For new students coming from public schools, boarding school academics can come as a shock. Those coming from private day schools will often feel comfortable with the conference teaching style, but the level of intensity tends to be higher. Those from junior boarding schools usually have a seamless transition as they are already accustomed to these conditions. New students often bloom when presented with the conference method and participate well in class. Where they tend to falter is in note taking and especially in reading. The result is often an abrupt grade drop in the first term, a startling and dismaying circumstance for new students, and one that is often a first in their lives. New students entering after the first year suffer most in this circumstance, as many schools do not give older new students the tutorial and oversight support that the youngest grade receives.

In the past, boarding school grading was rigorous; achieving a B average was often a hard fought campaign. Nowadays, as is the case with their college brethren, these schools sometimes struggle with bouts of grade inflation as average scores trend upward. This is sometimes explained as a reaction to correlative grade inflation at private day and public schools. Purgative remedies at some schools sometimes result in grade deflation, with protests from students and parents.

Overall, straight A averages are a decided rarity at boarding school. Grade point averages (GPAs) are kept for each student at some schools while others dispense with this. Many schools maintain Cum Laude societies, recognizing students whose academics place them in the top 20% of their class.

Most curricula are tightly prescribed; students proceed from one term to the next and one year to the next with many required courses and few options. New students test in various subjects to place them in levels of courses – regular, honors, or advanced. The wide array of electives, often a delight to read through in the school catalogues, is usually reserved for students in their eleventh and twelfth grade years.

In class, new students tend to fall into one of two camps. Some keep quiet, too shy or intimidated to speak. For many, sitting in a classroom configuration making eye contact with the other students is a new and strange experience. Others who may be more familiar with the conference method may feel compelled to show off their intellect by discoursing at length, without regard to the opinions of others. Both extremes need to learn to engage other students, listen to alternative viewpoints, and develop nuanced responses from those interchanges.

Schools have a variety of strategies regarding course selection and loads. Eleventh grade is typically the most challenging year, with added courses and/or more rigor. New students entering a school past the lowest grade need to understand the details of that school’s course structure well ahead of arrival.

Boarding school teachers and students encounter one another in many more circumstances than at non boarding schools. Student/teacher conversations happen in after class discussions, in the library, at meals and, in the common rooms in the dorms. Teachers often invite their students to coffees or teas and see them during sports practice or at other campus events.

The schools also maintain staffs of advisors. Academic advisors usually are faculty members and are often attached to dorms as assistant masters. Many schools employ time management and/or organizational advisors to help new students. A battery of certified psychologists, physicians, nutritionists, physical therapists, and sports trainers are common on boarding campuses. Many schools also allow students to secure outside tutors who are given permission to meet with students on campus. Advanced athletes in some sports specialties may receive permission to train with outside coaches off campus.

Students with ADD/ADHD and learning differences will find a widely varying range of support from school to school. All must comply with the requirements of the Americans with Disbilities Act (ADA), but some go much further, with entire school departments dedicated to such support. Such schools usually charge extra fees for students who wish to use these facilities. Some schools are completely dedicated to students with special needs.

ATHLETICS

Sports play a traditional and central role in boarding school life. Many schools have three sports requirements (fall-winter-spring) for all students. Sports help schools promote student health and fitness, divert adolescent energy away from misbehavior, and teach an array of “character building” values: sportsmanship, cooperation, team dynamics, leadership, determination, and not incidentally, resilience after failure.

The focus on sports comes as a culture shock to many new students, including public and day students whose schools have dropped physical education requirements and particularly those from other countries, where athletics are often not part of a school curriculum and not regarded as a useful student activity at all. Some schools have compromised by offering non sports activities such as yoga, dance, and rock climbing to substitute for competitive sports.

For many student athletes, a boarding school is a huge toy box of fantastic, well funded sports programs that offer an array of helmet sports – football, lacrosse, baseball, hockey – as well as track and field, crew, field hockey, equestrian, wrestling, fencing, golf, skiing and many more programs. With public high school sports increasingly reserved for those with experience and exceptional skill, boarding schools often offer students a chance to try new sports, working their way up from squads of absolute beginners known as “thirds” to junior varsity and varsity levels.

Small schools offer more chances for students to play at the varsity level. Large schools often have a wider range of sports offerings. Schools that do not field teams in a sport usually have a club for that sport or are willing to support one on student request. As larger schools tend to play sports at a higher level than the smaller schools, truly gifted athletes tend to enroll in the larger schools.

Rigorous sports activity promotes school spirit, intense camaraderie among teammates, and the potential for college athletic scholarships. Many advanced high school athletes take postgraduate (PG) years at boarding schools to continue their physical training, improve their skills, add playing time, and gain the attention of college sports scouts. This sometimes presents disappointment for student athletes who after working their way up for years towards a starting position on a team find themselves displaced by an incoming star athlete.

Boarding school sports have downsides. Injury can complicate life on a campus that requires a lot of walking and carrying. Team travel to and from rival schools can take up a lot of time. Students who repeat years, either upon entry to the school or as PGs, sometimes run afoul of college sports eligibility rules. Students in such circumstances need to work closely with school athletic departments to comply with NCAA rules.

Schools sometimes “find” their star athletes on campus. Many a lanky cross country runner (fall sport) has been invited to join a school’s crew squad (spring sport), and stick handling hockey players (winter) end up playing lacrosse in the spring. Truly exceptional prep athletes competing at the Olympic and international circuit level are given leeway by schools to travel to compete or train. Some will take a year’s absence to do this, returning to school afterwards.

ARTS

The arts, especially the performing arts, play a central role in boarding school communities. Theatre, music, and dance provide the campuses with entertainment and cultural enrichment critical to resident student populations who lack easy access to off campus events.

The arts are also central to school mandates for personal expression and exploration and community participation. In a number of schools, performing arts, particularly dance, can serve to satisfy athletic requirements.

Not incidentally, the arts also serve as excellent public relations tools for the schools. School choral groups, dance and theatre presentations, and orchestral and jazz/pop concerts help enliven school admission programs, revisit days, parent weekends, graduation exercises, alumni events, and assorted school celebrations. Student artists serve as goodwill ambassadors when schools invite nearby community residents to student performances and exhibitions.

The schools promote the arts with extraordinary faculty and with facilities of a quality that often surpasses those at colleges or even in some instances those found in the professional arena. Students bringing high levels of arts talent help raise the bar for others looking to explore arts fields. It is no coincidence that many well known artists and performers have prep school backgrounds.

ACTIVITIES

Extracurricular activities – clubs, community service, travel programs, and the like - are a critical aspect of campus culture. Students are expected to participate as a matter of community involvement, but there is also an aspect of self-interest, since a commitment to school publications, leadership, and public service helps students gain the attention of college admissions officers. At American prep schools, activities serve as leadership opportunities for those who serve in student government, as editors of school publications, and as officers of community outreach clubs. Specialty clubs also act as laboratories for students to explore potential career options: debate club, investment club, engineering and science clubs, etc. The range of clubs and opportunities is staggering; many schools offer well over a hundred different clubs.

STUDENT SUPPORT SYSTEMS

American boarding schools typically offer extensive support systems for their students. Advisors are available around the clock. On campus health facilities offer an array of medical services. Many schools provide educational counselors and tutors, time management and organizational specialists, as well as nutritionists, physical therapists and trainers. Psychological and emotional health support, once nonexistent on boarding campuses, is now a central concern. Staff psychologists and counselors are on call for students experiencing depression, anxiety, or other personal issues, and faculty, staff, and student assistants are trained to identify students who may need help. Many schools require assemblies and student workshops to address issues of both misbehavior and wellness.

MISBEHAVIOR

Misbehavior on a boarding school campus, especially anything of a sexual or criminal nature, can be cause for parental concern. With a resident population of teenagers, the potential for trouble is always present. However, there is no data that suggests that boarding schools experience student misbehavior at comparable or higher rates than day or public schools. The close adult supervision tends to work to suppress bad behavior, but incidents do occur. Such events bear close attention if systemic administrative failures have resulted – failure to discover ongoing problems, failure to expose them once discovered, and/or failure to appropriately punish offenders – which speak to a collapse of leadership that will likely be evident in other less critical areas of that school’s life. Rules regarding misbehavior vary widely, but all schools have detailed specific procedures regarding various types of infraction as well as their severity. All is revealed in the school’s student manual. Students may ignore much of their school’s manual without much consequence, but understanding the school’s rules about misbehavior is essential Minor infractions typically involve behavior that does not involve aggression towards others or damage of property. Such offenses are usually punished by detention, loss of privileges and other short term restrictions. Major transgressions, involving threat or harm to others, property damage, or serious ethical lapses may be met with harsher punishments – longterm restriction of privileges, probation, suspension, or dismissal.

Some schools are “one strike”, meaning that the commission of one major offense is cause for expulsion. Others are “two strike” allowing a student to remain at school after a major offense, often with restrictions and on probation. The “two strike” provision does not apply to truly egregious misbehavior.

Cheating— including plagiarism – the claiming of written work by others as one’s own – has become common in all sorts of high schools, as students pull down texts from the Internet. Educators now use plagiarism detection software to identify these abuses, and punishments can be severe, including expulsion. Cheating likewise is often an expellable offense.

Sexual misconduct is one area subject to much scrutiny. Some schools have specific rules of conduct to ensure sexual encounters are clearly consensual. Despite these rules, sexual misconduct does occur, though this is rare, as it is at other types of high schools. To add more uncertainty, sexual misconduct laws vary widely from state to state.

Bullying, harassment, and hazing are also serious offenses. Bullying can occur in person, online, on the phone, and in other ways. Harassment, which can include sexual harassment, and prejudicial behavior because of one’s race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexuality can also occur in many forms and settings. Many schools have diversity officers trained in such issues who can respond to student reports of bias.

Illegal drug use is banned and alcohol use is forbidden to most students on most boarding campuses, though some schools allow alcohol to students who are legal adults under certain restricted circumstances. Schools work out their own policies for substance infractions. Some take a stern line with drugs but tend to treat alcohol much less harshly. Others are equally strict with both. Students caught selling drugs face immediate dismissal, and in the case of a serious criminal action, potential arrest. Some schools maintain sanctuary policies for students who take alcohol or drugs but then recognize their errors, self report their behavior and check into the student health center. Another common policy is nondisciplinary intervention (NDI), whereby a student or faculty member can alert a school official of a student’s alcohol or drug use, or a student can self report. The school then moves to help the offending student without disciplinary action.

Responses to criminal behavior may depend on the gravity of the offense. A petty theft might land a student on probation with warnings, but not expulsion or arrest. Repeated acts of theft that reveal a student unwilling or unable to reform, or a theft of real magnitude that sullies the school’s reputation may result in suspension, dismissal, or arrest.

Schools will go a long way to avoid such extreme measures. Once the school is aware of a problem, administrators will contact the parents to discuss the potential consequences. Such steps usually put a stop to the issue ahead of a major crisis. Detection of student problems is largely dependent on the web of communications systems that schools put into place. This includes faculty, advisors, student proctors, and the general population working together when someone becomes aware of serious malfeasance. Some school communities are decidedly better at this than others.

COLLEGE COUNSELING

As a rule, college advising at boarding schools is much more sophisticated than at public and day schools. Boarding school college counselors (CCs) often have long standing personal relationships with the admissions officers (AOs) of elite colleges. They often invite college AOs to campus, travel to colleges to lobby for their students, and closely advise the students about their applications.

College advising usually begins with general guidance for students in 9th and 10th grade, with admonitions to take rigorous courses in core subjects, participate in extracurricular activities (ECs) and service, and use summer vacations to good purpose. Many schools explicitly avoid college admission activities until the students reach 11th grade to keep their students focused on school, not college.

The college admission push typically kicks off in the middle of 11th grade (with some schools working with students in 10th grade). It often begins with a family weekend during the winter term. Parents and students meet in large groups with CCs, then with individual counselors assigned to small groups of students. These private sessions focus on what the students are seeking in a college (similar to the boarding school search process), and also on the extent of the family’s financial resources.

CCs will use this information together with student test scores and transcripts to propose a slate of prospective colleges. Many schools use software programs such as Naviance to assist in this task. By comparing a student’s test scores and transcripts against those of recent school alumni, the software programs can project likely college matches. Naviance is widely used by a wide range of high schools both public and private, but often to only limited effect if the school’s statistical base is small; a “B” rated public school which has only one grad matriculated to Dartmouth, and that ten years ago, cannot accurately predict the probabilities for a current applicant from that school to that college. whereas a boarding school with multiple recent admittees would have stronger data with which to work.

College admissions officers and boarding school CCs are closely connected, communicate frequently, and often socialize together. Many pros move from one camp to the other somewhat as realtors do, representing the “buyer” (the college), and then shifting over to work for the “seller” (the school). The familiarity between these two camps often means that school CCs frequently learn breaking news that could impact their students: perhaps what positions a college sports team is looking to fill, what the appointment of a new college admissions director may bode for the school’s rising applicants, or upcoming changes in financial aid calculations. CCs can also promote their star students to the colleges ahead to their applications.

The CCs have a vested interest in this process. They want to maximize their school’s “admit efficiency” and therefore promote students who are strong candidates likely to gain admission to a particular college and also likely to accept a place when offered. This increases the college’s admissions efficiency, ups their “yield” (admitting students who go on to enroll), and raises the college’s confidence in that school’s college counselors, thereby improving the chances for future applicants recommended by those CCs. This is why CCs often dissuade less than stellar students from taking “long shot” chances on colleges that will most likely reject them.

CCs also manage students’ application plans against the plans of other classmates. Though the notion that elite colleges take quotas of students from certain schools is decidedly false, large numbers of students applying to the same college increases the likelihood of more rejections, if for no other reason than that colleges prefer diversity of geography and school origin. CCs cannot and do not prevent students from applying to long shot schools, but do help their students understand their likely prospects and promote realistic strategies to achieve them.

Each student is given a list of likely prospective colleges by the CCs. This is partly to help the students understand where they will likely be accepted. It also helps the CCs, as each college relies on the school’s CCs to weed out the unlikely candidates from the applicants most likely to be accepted and to attend that college.

The advantages of boarding school college counseling are many. Fully staffed CC offices provide a depth and frequency of individual counseling that other schools lack. Students are given schedules to maintain – advance study for and scheduling of SAT/ACT exams and SAT subject tests. Parents are kept advised of progress. Many boarding schools host college AOs to interview students on campus. College coaches likewise are invited to observe prep athletes.

However, boarding school students face certain particular challenges in college admissions. Since prep schools by definition consist of students preparing for college, this usually results in many students applying to the same few colleges, usually those ranked in the top 20 or 30, a circumstance not so common in other types of schools, where a minority of students might be college bound (as in most public schools) or focused on local or in state colleges (as in many day schools). This results in much more potential intra-school competition at the boarding schools. Tensions and emotions can rise. Students often respond to this by avoiding discussion of their grades, tests scores, and college plans, thereby helping to maintain a friendly atmosphere before acceptances are mailed and hurt feelings and resentments are generated. Boarding schoolers may also find themselves at a disadvantage geographically. Whereas a student at a boarding school might gain some small advantage being from an underrepresented state, the school itself might be in Connecticut, an overrepresented state. In such cases, students must make sure that their applications emphasize their family’s location, not their school’s.

The schools typically allow 12th grade students to take a small number of “college days” in the fall and winter to visit prospective colleges. Students travelling to far off colleges often schedule college days on a Friday or Monday to combine with the weekend days in order to accommodate long distance travel. “Revisit days” handle similar travel needs after college admission offers have been received in the spring.

MINORITIES

The experience of minorities at boarding schools continues to evolve. In a repudiation of their past history, these schools now are committed to inclusive and diverse student populations and seek to foster tolerance and empathy amongst students from differing backgrounds. Minorities still face challenges navigating issues of race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual identity within boarding communities and also with their surrounding localities, which are often not nearly so progressive in their viewpoints as are the schools themselves.

LGBT students will find a range of situations depending on the school. Many schools have strong support groups and a culture of support; others offer official tolerance but with some hostility within the student population. As these circumstances are fluid and can change quickly, it makes sense to fully investigate schools as they are at the time of application, and not to rely on information that could be several years out of date.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Internationals have a long tradition in American boarding schools. In the past, internationals were a small population, with only a few students from the same country. Now international populations are growing quickly, in enough numbers at some schools that students can speak their native languages for much of each day, speaking English primarily in class. This can be counterproductive for many international families who may be sending their children to American schools to perfect their fluency in English and for cultural immersion. Internationals also find a wide range of support at the schools, with some schools providing “host” families to serve in loco parentis for students from far away. These families maintain contact with the student’s families and keep them up to date with their students’ activities via Skype and social media. Other schools’ cultures do not offer such levels of support for internationals.

WHO GOES TO BOARDING SCHOOLS?

Boarding school students now come from a wide array of classes, races, ethnicities, cultures and lifestyles. Despite this diversity, all students and their families have one or more basic motives for choosing a boarding school education. These include:

LEGACY TRADITION

Students whose parents and forebears attended the same school are known as legacies. Legacy families usually have a firm commitment of support for that school and regularly contribute money and volunteer hours. Because of this tradition, legacy students typically receive preferential treatment in admission, as is customary with most colleges.

In the past, legacy students were the norm at boarding schools. Nowadays, legacies are less prevalent, often a minority population. Legacies often follow in the family footsteps – the same dorms/houses, sports, courses, and even at times teachers. Their lifelong affiliation with the school often gives legacies a relaxed confidence that can have a calming effect on campus, helping to moderate the anxieties of newcomers.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE & POSITIVE LEARNING ENVIORNMENTS

Many students apply to boarding schools seeking superior academic opportunities and programs. Such students often are refugees from schools where academic effort is derided. The intellectually curious generally meet with social approval on boarding campuses. Advanced students are often thrilled to enter a school where the student body values and appreciates learning and hard work.

Many incoming students are gifted intellectually but, discouraged by their past school experience, have mediocre records of achievement. Such students often blossom under the tutelage of boarding school academics, with enchanced individual attention and academic support.

ESCAPING PROBLEMS AT HOME

Some students come from family situations that negatively influence study and academic progress due to parental strife, terminal or debilitating illness or other crises. A boarding school can be a haven in such instances but many a student in such situations has suffered residual after effects; a young person’s transition away from familial adversity can be difficult. Fortunately, contemporary boarding schools have counseling staffs at the ready to assist in such cases.

(Note: this strategy may work if the student’s problems are external; students who carry unresolved emotional or psychological issues often do not find relief at boarding school.)

CHARACTER/SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Families sometimes seek out boarding schools to help their students gain self-reliance, responsibility, and personal identity apart from the family. Students who come from very wealthy or celebrity backgrounds often thrive in the relative social equity of a boarding school campus. Such students may have the freedom to find their own core identity, apart from their family backgrounds.

Boarding schools, with their objective authority and systems of acceptable behavior, can allow rebellious students a neutral environment to sort through their conflicted feelings about their families and channel their emotions in constructive paths. Students from very protective households can find self reliance; those from tightly directed households can find independence; both can find self assurance. Boarding school life fosters emotional intelligence – negotiation, reconciliation, cooperation and resilience. Equally, these schools understand negative education – learning to cope with failure, defeat and disappointment.

FAMILIES IN TRANSIT

Families that move frequently because of corporate reassignment, government postings, or similar circumstances will often send their students to boarding school to give them the comfort and continuity of a home base. Students from such families often become the most connected of all students. Lacking a home circle of friends, their school friendships become particularly important as do their bonds with the schools themselves.

COLLEGE ADMISSION ADVANTAGE

The outstanding college admission record of many boarding schools prompts some families to enroll their students in order to gain an admission advantage. This strategy can have decidedly mixed results. Such a strategy is “other directed”, not focused on the benefits of the boarding education per se, but on a potential outcome of such an education. As will be discussed in detail later in this book, the mere admission of a student to a high performing boarding school does not guarantee college admission success. The focus, some might call it the obsession, on college admission turns the student away from, the opportunity to develop personally, intellectually and socially and towards an outcome that is, at its basis, in the hands of others.

So too, the notion that only certain boarding schools are pathways to elite colleges is a misapprehension of college admission realities. U.S. colleges seek diversity in all its forms. The days when large cohorts of boarding school graduates were assured admission at elite universities have long passed. That said, the superior academic environment at high performing boarding schools serves as an inspiration and a springboard for students to strive and succeed.

PRESTIGE

Concurrent with college admission success, the prestige of elite boarding schools is a draw for certain students and families seeking social cachet. Such a quest is completely misguided; prestige does not derive from one’s school ties. In today’s world, one wonders from where it derives at all. Social benefits derived from a boarding school education include personal connections with classmates and schoolmates one would never have met otherwise and an ability to navigate amongst people from a wide variety of backgrounds who one might otherwise have never encountered. Such aspects may be advantageous but those seeking entrée to the Social Register through their school enrollment are doomed to disappointment.

ATHLETES

Athletes seeking college scholarships often enroll at boarding schools to enhance their visibility to college coaches or to further develop their skills and physical conditioning. A boarding school offers a number of advantages for the dedicated athlete. The campus itself allows for extended training and conditioning opportunities, seven days a week. Teammates and coaches are ever present.

BOARDING SCHOOL CULTURE

Some students opt for the classic boarding school experience for its own sake. Some hope to meet and befriend students from different backgrounds and countries, opportunities that may be missing from their day school and public school experiences. Many international students attend U.S. boarding schools in order to be immersed in American culture, as they study, work, play and reside with American students.

REMEDIAL ACADEMICS

Boarding schools with remedial programs attract students seeking to strengthen areas of academic weaknesses. Most schools maintain staffs of educational specialists and counselors to work with students throughout their boarding years. Because of the residential nature of boarding schools, informal tutoring and learning support from faculty, staff and other students, is readily accessible. Some schools have advanced programs for students with learning differences. Others are completely dedicated to such programs.

RELIGIOUS OR PHILOSOPHICALLY BASED EDUCATION

Boarding schools with specific religious or philosophical foundations provide students with a more complete educational context than may be found at local schools. There are numerous faith based schools operating throughout the United States, some are run by religious institutions; others are affiliated with religious groups. Virtually all are Christian denominations – with Episcopal, and Catholic schools predominant.

Some students seek schools with “progressive” educational philosophies that emphasize highly personalized and experiential learning development and eschew standardized tests and course schedules.

DAY STUDENTS

Oftentimes, a boarding school is the best educational option in its vicinity, prompting local families to send their children as day students. Day students, who live with their families at home, may be a significant factor in a school’s life. Day students add some local connectivity for boarding students, with a potential circle of local friends as well as knowledge of local stores, restaurants, and points of interest.

Day student populations can have a potential negative effect at some schools, as the campus may feel depopulated on weekends when the day students are with their families at home. At other schools, there is so much going on during weekends that day students often choose to stay over in the dorms rather than go home.