BoardingPOV

It’s easy to say “it’s all done” and move on.  But, as a practical matter, there’s some important loose ends to tie up.
First, we had to e-mail the school – financial aid office – and let them know that we’d accepted their last financial aid offer, and that Michelle was excited to be coming [...]

Once the decision was final that I would be attending boarding school I was finally able to tell all my friends about my decision. Most of my friends had already decided where they were going, as for me it was a harder decision. All of my friends were excited that I was going to my [...]

near tears saying; “how can I possibly let her go?” and her friend quietly saying “She’s a great kid – how can you NOT let her go?”

Michelle: This turned out to be a really hard choice for not only me, but my family as well. I knew what I wanted to do, and that was to go to boarding school. Not just any boarding school, but my top choice. It was everything I had ever wanted.
In the end it came [...]

Boarding schools are expensive – typically in the 40,000-$45,000 range.  After you swallow your gum (ulp!), remember to relax and look at the bigger picture.  Long gone are the days where only the Rockefellers and the Kennedys are going to these schools.  The schools often have large, even huge, endowments  primarily for the purpose of [...]

Mom & Dad: This was Michelle’s second hurdle – at roughly $38 -$45,000 a year, she knew that expense was a consideration.  We’ll talk a little more about the strategies we tried, in a post later this week.
For now, we’ll just say that when we were debating Boarding versus Local school options, there was [...]

Michelle: I honestly didn’t really know much about financial aid, other than the basics. I knew that many schools offered it to students they really wanted at their school, but couldn’t afford it. I knew that my family did need financial aid, just not how much.
I worked as hard as I could to get accepted, [...]

Mom & Dad:
March 10th – Admissions letters, and online notifications posted. Yikes!  First hurdle cleared – she got accepted at the two local school options, and two of the five boarding schools (others were wait-listed).  And, for Michelle, she did get accepted at her first-choice boarding school!  And, she received a nice financial aid [...]

Michelle: After receiving my second SSAT scores I was really satisfied with them. I talked to a few of my friends who were also applying to some of the same schools as me about  their scores and it appeared that their scores were all lower than mine. I was really glad I did well, now [...]