Top Tier Boarding school vs. TJ
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Anonymous
+1. If you think a teenager can substitute strangers for parents, they cannot. It is often an option when a parent cannot cope. I went to BS and few kids were well adjusted. If you havent googled 'Boardin school' and the word, drugs, scandal, sex, alcohol, you are missing out. I dont have time here to detail every shortcoming, but it is a compromise. So what would you get in return? [CAUTION: HARSH REALITY APPROACHING] You get the opportunity to work hard, at a public university level to drown out things missing. Yes, you could also find a day school that would treat your child slavishly too (SFS). But why? Is it not enough to do it in college? TJ is the better choice for another reason. Many boarding schools have not caught up with math and science. (I remember skipping levels on BS math). They are still focused on arts, drama, lit, etc, but have never heard of some of the math and science competitions. It's a holdover from when they were finishing schools for kids who had a silver spoon. Well, if there's no silver spoon in your family, you better opt for TJ. Lastly, the kids coming from many top schools are winners not because the schools achieved that. They're winners because the school succeeded in culling out any child who could not be trusted to be essentially self- taught but unbalanced (Not unstable, but unbalanced). Same is true of top day schools. So the benefit of a BS education is to trade your teen years for your college years. But life is not all about scholastic or material success. The book "Modern Madness: The Emotional Fallout of Success" was based right on Washington DC lawyers. It seems the more successful DCers become, the more their personal lives fall apart. HELLO! ANYBODY LISTENING? This, opt for whatever is the most emotionally healthy choice for your family. Good luck. |
Anonymous
Great post, thank you very much! |
Anonymous
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if you send your kid to a BS you are pretty clearly saying to them "raising you is not as important to me as you having the kind of career and network *i* think is important.
if that's what your family values--as opposed to actual family values--then own it. |
Anonymous
...where they're the top of their class. HUGE gap between the top 5% at a state school and the bottom 75%. |
Anonymous
...but you never left the Virginia/DC area, right? |
Anonymous
Putting your high school on LinkedIn is TOTALLY a thing now. Especially since LinkedIn has been around for 10 years, so kids who create their page while in college put it and never take it off. In my opinion it acts as a signal that you're "clubbable" or a "fit" - which is huge is finance/consulting. Some finance/consulting jobs do want to know your SAT scores - I'm not kidding. For the right job, having that Andover or Exeter credential will be seen as a plus. To HR/boss in flyover country, no, probably not going to matter. |
Anonymous
| TJ is a special format of hell for the bottom half of the class |
Anonymous
Nailed it. Impossible to explain to outsiders because folks don't know what they don't know. On a smaller level it's the great public vs great private debate. Parents who've never experienced a great private will talk until they're blue in the face about what a waste of money it is. How many folks understand boarding schools? It's sub 1% of the population, even around privileged D.C. Things outside of your scope are outside of your scope. I'm originally from Michigan - we had a magnet called International Academy which is #9 US News (TJHS is #5 US News). There's no prestige - it was a place for grubby swots who generally went to good colleges and became engineers and MDs. The elite all sent their kids to local day schools like Cranbrook or Detroit Country Day. |
Anonymous
Explain please. Not enough info. |
Anonymous
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Nailed it. Impossible to explain to outsiders because folks don't know what they don't know. On a smaller level it's the great public vs great private debate. Parents who've never experienced a great private will talk until they're blue in the face about what a waste of money it is. How many folks understand boarding schools? It's sub 1% of the population, even around privileged D.C. Things outside of your scope are outside of your scope. I'm originally from Michigan - we had a magnet called International Academy which is #9 US News (TJHS is #5 US News). There's no prestige - it was a place for grubby swots who generally went to good colleges and became engineers and MDs. The elite all sent their kids to local day schools like Cranbrook or Detroit Country Day. I disagree. Didn't "mail it". We've heard from successful adults who have said their BS experience had good and bad. And we heard from public school folks who rocked. So the generalization doesn't hold across the board. If the top schools you are speaking, Exeter alums withdrew funding because of repeated mishandling of sexual abuse/sexual harassment cases (plural). Groton has a cocaine ring run by the students in cahoots with a prof. St Paul just had a student rape another student. And so forth and so on, and so forth and so on. Yes, one can feel they are in like company with people who have had the same experience, but to suggest that no one but the last two posters know and everyone else is clueless shows what insularity and cluelessness you last 2 posters harbor. All prep schools have their benefits, as do magnet schools, as do religious schools. But one is not better, and studies have shown that the value of the connections doesn't last more that 3 to 4 years. At that point, it is put up or shut up based on one's own performance. You no doubt for a good education. No doubt. As did many people on this thread. But the fact that one has not heard of a school is no indication of whether they got a good education. Am I supposed to think the only ones with good educations came from schools of which I have heard? Ridiculous. |
Anonymous
It's a lot of work but colleges only admit a certain number of students per school, no matter how good the school, so if you end up in the bottom half of TJ you are worse off than shining at your average high school or going to a private where not everyone is a stem superstar. |
Anonymous
You're not thinking picture. A TJ kid in the middle of his h.s. class will easily be in the top 10% of his class at V-Tech. |
Anonymous
Interesting point. |
Anonymous
I call it bull sh*t. 
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Anonymous
That's a truly stupid statement. I am guessing you didn't go to college or (at least) you didn't go to college in the US. Any advantage a TJ kid has is "gone" by the end of first semester. If you don't work, you can't keep up in college. It doesn't matter which HS you attended. |