Boarding School

Why boarding school?

​In a 2011 survey, by The Association of Boarding Schools, found 31% of boarding school students surveyed said the thing they loved most about boarding school was the community atmosphere created within the school dynamic.​

Academics are important, but when students get together after they’ve graduated and moved on to university and then successful careers, it's not the great history class they remember, but their time in the wilderness, the dorm life, or other memorable moments. It's a bond that binds men and , women and girls, of different ages and cultures.

The decision to attend boarding school is the first step in what many consider a big picture decision: by attending boarding school, the advantages that come with it will pay off in the long term. The number of leaders and successful members of society began their journey at a private school: former presidents, actors, athletes, successful business people, and other politicians.​

Another reason to attend boarding school is independence. Independence might be the greatest gift that parents can give to their children. Today, when so many parents are hyper-vigilant and want to be involved in every aspect of their child’s life, boarding school can be the perfect antidote.

‍

General Application Process

Added Value

Give us your school's shortlist, our experts will advise on suitability depending on the student's academic level, future prospects, and personality.

U.S. vs. UK Boarding Schools‍

Curriculums

In the UK, students will likely sit for the A-Levels during the last two years of secondary school. As the A-Levels are an internationally recognized qualification, it is possible for students to apply to universities not just in the UK but all over the world with their A-Level results. Typically speaking, an A-Level student will study three or four subjects that usually serve as prerequisites for entry into the degree they wish to pursue for their undergraduate degree; these subjects tend to be very much related to the degree itself, e.g., chemistry is required for many medicine courses.

The U.S., by contrast, has a slightly different structure – many of the components typically associated with applying to college are, in the most technical sense, optional. Typically speaking, most students will want at least a high school diploma before applying to college; these diplomas are contingent upon meeting all of the academic requirements set by a State’s Department of Education, can be completed within two to four years, and are designed in such a fashion so as to leave room for co-curricular activities that take place after school. However, students are well-advised to supplement their credentials with a number of Advanced Placement (AP) classes and standardized test scores, e.g., ACT/SAT/SAT II to maximize their success rate in relation to applications.

Extra School Curriculums​​

There is less of an emphasis on extracurricular activities when it comes to the UK university application process. However, participation in co-curricular activities, especially activities that go hand-in-hand with the undergraduate degree the applicant wishes to pursue, is very much encouraged. Such participation should be expressly conveyed in one’s personal statement as many universities use this as an operational definition for an applicant’s enthusiasm in pursuing the specified degree. Moreover, given the presence of the tariff point system, the acquisition of certain qualifications in music, dance, sports and the like can really make an application stand out from the rest. If feasible, it is strongly recommended to acquire a number of these qualifications if possible.

A traditional American education will typically feature many opportunities to play on a sports team, to join a club, or to take on a leadership role in engaging the community one way or another. Participating in these activities is strongly encouraged not only because of the skills that students can develop through such activities but because American colleges place great value on these after-school activities; given the large number of students with perfect test scores running about, these extracurricular activities are really about the only feasible way an applicant can differentiate themselves from the rest.​​

University Preparation and Guidance​​

University preparation at boarding schools differ greatly depending on the country. There are some truly internationally-minded schools that will offer “transatlantic” university guidance to students studying in the UK that wish to attend college in the States and vice versa. However, the general rule of thumb is that boarding schools will offer guidance specifically for the country within which the boarding school is situated; this is largely because the requirements, as illustrated above, are very different.

In the U.S., students apply to as many colleges as they like. As U.S. colleges adopt a holistic approach to the application process, an innumerable number of factors are taken into consideration and the outcome can, to the untrained eye, appear rather random. Offers from U.S. colleges are distributed anywhere between January and May and typically come with no conditions attached – once the student has an offer, they are in. By contrast, UK students receive “conditional offers” based on their predicted grades if such grades are available. These offers are contingent upon the applicant’s test scores for the A-Levels (or any other high school equivalent) and the student will only come to know their results towards the end of summer. Once a student has received their results, they must inform the university of their choice for which they have met the conditional offer should they wish to attend the coming fall.

When it comes to visualizing your own academic career, the first key question you need to address is whether you are sure about what it is you wish to do for the foreseeable future. The UK’s education system facilitates specialization at a very early age and this has resulted in the creation of some of the most intensive subject-specific academic programs that the world has ever seen. The U.S. education system, by contrast, encourages students to experience just about everything that they wish to experience so as to give them a better idea of what an academic career in these particular fields entails. Simply put, if you still need a little more time trying to figure things out for yourself, it might not be such a bad idea to go to the States.