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[quote=Anonymous]This is an interesting question!  I'm not sure the answer for DC schools but I can give a little perspective on the Groton aspect (Groton Grad 1989).  I think that schools like Groton,  Exeter  or Andover  (based on what I observed in college),  certainly self select AND actively encourage these traits.

My Groton classmates, for the most part, fell into 1 of 2 groups -- children of huge SES privilege or children of less wealthy parents who invested everything they had in their kids.  The really economically wealthy kids came to Groton with unbelievable social and cultural capital.   I had never seen anything like it -- and I was coming there from Potomac School.  Partly because I'm a minority,  partly the full scholarship, and larger personality, I spent a lot of time observing and analyzing the Groton Social mores.  At Groton, many if not most non-wealthy kids are able to pick up what the wealthy kids arrived with: the cues, social graces, conversational knowledge base etc that convey social and cultural capital.  These soft skills are what differentiated the Groton experience, for me, from what I would have gained at Potomac School at that time.

I really do wonder which of the DC area schools, if any, can provide this type of experience for my own children.  Because while entirely worthwhile and unique,  there's much about boarding school that is socially excruciating.  Based on the recent high school grads I have met locally,  I would agree with the previous posters that any school has graduates with poise and socio-cultural capital similar to the NE boarding schools -- so much of that is derived from parents and privilege.  But at Groton, molding young adults with poise and leadership-readiness is a huge part of the design.[/quote]

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