Choosing a School

As your child enters middle school, you will probably begin to think more seriously about her high school and college plans. With that in mind, let's look at some of the challenges parents face. The whole subject is daunting, confusing, and even intimidating. However, if you approach the project just like you do any other major project/decision, you will be able to stay out front. Playing catch-up is never fun, so let's start planning early to understand what is involved.

Getting your child to buy into the idea

The first challenge is a basic one: you must get your child to buy into the idea of going away to school. Yes, you are her parent, and you can decide yourself. Unfortunately, this decision will do more harm than good unilaterally. The trick is to get her to think that going away to school is her idea.

How do you accomplish that? By starting early. Begin shaping her decision at least 3 to 4 years beforehand. If a family member currently attends boarding school, schedule a visit to see that relative while he is in school. The more comfortable your child feels with the idea of going off to boarding school, the happier she will be.

As she progresses through grades 7 and 8, she begins to discuss the academic game plan for high school and beyond. Sometimes, special considerations will make your decision process more manageable. For example, if your child displays a natural talent for a sport

Finding an affordable boarding school may sound too good to be true. Yet it really is possible. I found twelve boarding schools when I searched Boarding School Review using the simple search string "least expensive schools." Our powerful search engine sorted the boarding schools listed on our site by tuition. I then filtered out three schools: two were located in Canada, and the other was a summer boarding school.

Today, tuition and fees have changed since this article was first published, so families should always verify current costs directly with each school before applying. However, the principle remains the same. There are boarding schools that provide an excellent education at a significantly lower cost than many families expect. If you are beginning your search, Choosing a School: DO's and DON'TS offers practical advice on evaluating schools beyond tuition alone.

Then, a dozen boarding schools charge approximately $20,000 per year or less for tuition, room, and board. I discovered that one school on the list offered 30 Advanced Placement courses, and another offered the prestigious International Baccalaureate program. While tuition figures and academic offerings should always be confirmed with each school, these examples demonstrate that affordability does not necessarily mean sacrificing academic quality. Explore these schools and determine whether perhaps one or more suits your requirements.

When comparing affordable boarding schools, it is also worth looking beyond the published tuition. Financial aid, scholarships, payment plans, travel costs, and additional fees can all influence the total cost of attendance.

Recently I landed in Jakarta on a recruiting trip. Immediately upon exiting the terminal, as happens in many countries, a small crowd of entrepreneurial "taxi drivers" surrounded me, all trying to grab my suitcase and waving their "Official Airport Taxi ID" badges in my face. Had I not been a seasoned traveler, it would have been very difficult for me to determine which of them, if any, to believe. They all looked authentic and sounded sincere.

Like inexperienced travelers, most prospective families know very little about boarding schools when they first start looking. They need support in determining which school is right for them. They must rely on word of mouth, the research they can do themselves, online reviews, school profiles, and their own intuition. But this is easier said than done. If you visit enough schools, which you should, they can begin to appear quite similar. Determining which school is truly the right fit for your family can feel overwhelming.

The good news is that families today have more information available than ever before. School websites, virtual events, student testimonials, strategic plans, social media channels, and resources such as Boarding School Review allow families to research schools in greater depth before ever stepping onto a campus. Yet even with all of this information, finding meaningful differences between schools remains one of the biggest challenges in the admissions process.

Why So Many Boarding Schools Sound Similar

If you read the mission statements, vision statements, school philosophies, taglines, and

As I read research and data in preparation for writing this article, I was struck by how much real progress has been made in girls' education versus boys' education over the last decade. I hope that you will read the resources listed at the end. They are just the tip of the iceberg, but they will get you started on your exploration and evaluation of girls' schools. Since the subject of single-sex education seems to be gaining traction in the public school arena, I suspect that we shall continue to see some serious academic papers being written on the subject in the coming years.

Personally, having raised two daughters, I can speak with some experience on the subject of single-sex education. Both girls went to coeducational boarding schools. However, the benefit of hindsight tells me that going to an all-girls school would have been a better solution for both of them. Here then, are the reasons why I am such a massive fan of girls' schools.

This short clip offers a glimpse inside an AP Biology class.

Girls' schools provide relevant 21st-century role models.

It is a fact that there are more visible, relevant role models for girls these days. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, and Harvard President Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, to name just three highly successful prominent executives, provide our daughters with the best role models. That's important. You can

This article has been updated to reflect 2026 data and recent developments.

Deciding whether to send your child to boarding school instead of day school is a decision most of us parents make early on in the private school search process. Here is our story. I taught in day schools and was a deputy director of one of them. Nancy and I choose to send both daughters to boarding schools for the reasons I discuss below. I hope that our experience will help to inform you as you make this critical decision about which kind of private school will be best for your child. In 2026, families making this decision have more information available than ever before, including school profiles, virtual events, student testimonials, and resources for choosing a boarding school.

At the time, we were considering sending our children to private schools, and we were fortunate to live in an area with good schools. My late wife, Nancy, indeed graduated from the local high school. In fact, she was chair of the local school board when we decided to explore other options for our daughters' schooling. So it wasn't the schools per se that were the issue. Four factors shaped our decision.

1. The high school curriculum was solid. The teachers were experienced and competent. The school was small as high schools go, with a student population of 400 students in grades 7 through 12. There were football and basketball teams, a highly acclaimed marching band,