Another side to Boarding School
Michelle: When people usually hear about boarding schools, they think they are very hard, and it is true, they are. Although, what most people don’t see is the other side to these marvelous schools! Yes, you do work for a whole lot of time, and yes it is a harder environment, and yes you leave home earlier than you thought you would…but with that people stop looking at these schools. They don’t see the other side to life here, and they miss out on a wild experience.
Here at school there are always things to do…BESIDES homework! On weekends we have shuttles out to dinner, huge stores like walmart or target, to shopping malls in the area, and every once in a while to Boston or New York. Weekends are used to catch up on sleep, hang out with your friends, do something fun, and well…. Do your homework. So… it may not have all the opportunities you might have at home, but it is actually a lot of fun! It’s like shopping with your friends at home except there’s no limit on the amount of friends you can have, in fact why not go in a group with your closest friends!
Also, dances are hosted often, I mean very often, so you can head down with your friends and dance to the loud music! Especially when you get a group of freshman down there I mean we take the dance floor and we own it. It’s a lot of fun! A few times a year we have more formal dances where you dress up. The place is decorated, refreshments and snacks are served, we get an awesome DJ, and some people go with their friends and others with a date. It’s a night to have a lot of fun and is usually very memorable (especially since us girls LOVE taking pictures, sometimes too many.)
During the winter, huge groups of people have snowball fights when it snows and it turns out to be a lot of fun. Once, we got literally more than half the freshman class out on the field for a snowball fight that lasted so long. Once I had retired, I could still see the mob from my window. It was so messy! I had to defrost my feet and change into dry clothes! Also, our dorms decided to have an all girls snowball fight outside because it had snowed so much.
These are the kinds of memories that build at boarding school. On more relaxed weekends I would go out to dinner, watch a movie, and sometimes play sports with some friends. Your friends are almost like your family. You build memories together that are unforgettable and very memorable. Boarding school isn’t just about the work, it’s about the LAUGHS, the MEMORIES, the FUN!
Thanks so much for this! I’m so excited for boarding school this summer but I’m still not sure if I want to go for normal school. I go to a private day school right now and I was wondering why you chose boarding school over day school, like what are the advantages?
Amanda
I went to boarding school over the summer too (last year), and found it to be more challenging than my private day school. Also found that I made some really great friends from students that had come from all over the world – hong kong, mexico, france. It’s also a lot of fun! We had/have lots of social activities. I suppose you can have all of that at a local school too, so the main reason for me was the atmosphere where most everyone is looking for a great education, and so we collaborate, share, push each other and really enjoy our school experience 24 hours a day. I don’t think you can get that easily at a day school, where you have so many out-of-school activities and distractions…
Just my two-cents worth. I think you’ll have a great summer, and I hope you’ll send a nice long summary of your experience, so I can share it with other readers!
Michelle
hey, i’ll be going to boarding school next year and i’m very nervous about the Academics… how did you deal with it?
Mary, this is Michelle’s dad. I asked her if she would be available to answer your question, but alas – she’s knee deep in preparing for finals. I’m sure she’ll apply in a week or so, but for now let me share a conversation we had a couple of days ago:
Michelle was so happy because she finally feels like she is in complete control of her studies. Her first semester was a bit of a struggle – with a couple of “Bs” and one “B-”. Not bad, really, but I think she realized – as you are- that a top-tier boarding school is more challenging than her middle school used to be. But, after the first semester, things started getting better bit by bit – she started signing up for extra help from her teachers, she started working ahead on her assignments, and things just kept getting better as she learned how to learn at her new school.
I guess I’m saying – don’t worry. Recognize that you’ll go through an adjustment period, and plan to develop good study habits – if you don’t already have them. And remember too (I think Michelle is on to something here), she said just the other day “I feel so good that I’m finally getting A’s again, I really understand the material – but, I’m not going to kill myself studying for the exams. I learned last semester that I can study all night and still get a “B”, but now that I’m doing better on the daily work, I feel like a couple of hours of review before an exam is perfect”.
So, she’s learning to love her classes and teachers, but not losing sight of one of the more important aspects of boarding school: learning how to maintain a healthy balance!
Good luck, Mary. Write with your own experiences through the summer and fall, and we’ll be sure to post them so others can see how you are doing too!
Thank you so much! it really helped
I’ll be sure to do that.