of campuses. The old academies continue to border towns, often with public streets traversing the school grounds. The English style schools from the late 19th century maintain gated campuses, with academic and administrative buildings and student housing grouped around lawns bordered by trees. Schools dating from the modern era are arranged in a variety of patterns, according their individual histories. The athletic facilities and playing fields tend to sit further off, though some schools maintain their athletic fields at the center of their campuses.
The typical distribution of buildings on a boarding school campus means that students get a lot of exercise hiking from one building to another. Even those schools with compact campuses require considerable walking – to classes, to sports events, or to the nearby town. As mentioned previously, cars are forbidden to boarding students at most schools; and day students, who may drive to and from school with parental and school permission, must park their car upon arrival and walk the campus like everyone else. As a result, despite a demanding study schedule, boarding school students get outdoors regularly, in every kind of weather. A school closure due to severe weather is a decided rarity – most schools soldier on through rain, wind, and snow.
HOUSING
Boarding school students are typically housed in dormitories on campus. Each has on-site adult supervision – masters and advisors – plus a system of student assistants to maintain dorm rules and lead group activities. Dorm masters are faculty, usually a master and an assistant master, sometimes multiple assistant masters, who live on site in their own apartments within the dorm. Often the assistant doubles as an academic advisor, or an advisor is attached as a nonresident. In addition, schools often have other nonresident faculty attached to the dorms who serve as supervisors when the resident master is absent. Student assistants, often known as “prefects” or “proctors”, act as semiofficial supervisors, keeping order and offering guidance and advice to younger and new students. Prefects can also serve as informal confidants, as students sometimes feel more comfortable revealing secrets to other students rather than speaking to adult authority figures. Prefects are often given training on how to spot and respond to signs of student depression, emotional crisis, substance abuse, and other issues.
Most dorms are single sex, though some few schools have coed dorms, with girls on some floors and boys on others. Some schools have “vertically integrated” dorms, where students from all grade levels live together. The benefit to this is that the younger students learn from the older ones and the older students learn to mentor the younger ones. Others have dorms by grade level, with younger students grouped together, tenth and eleventh graders together, and seniors in their own residences. The benefits here are that students have different needs and interests at different ages, and the gradual lessening of school restrictions as the students mature is more easily managed when they are grouped by grade. Seniors only housing also can simulate a college experience, with no ‘lights out’ restrictions and other liberties.
A tiny cadre of schools opt for a house system based on the classic British boarding school house systems, such as at Eton and Rugby. The Lawrenceville School established a house system in 1880. Its near neighbor, the Hun School of Princeton (NJ) also has a house system, as does the Chaminade Preparatory School in St. Louis MO, the University School (non boarding) in Ohio and McCracken County High School, a public school in Kentucky. Like residential colleges at some universities (such as at Yale), boarding school houses are a subset of dorms in function, but with more group identity, history, and cohesion. Houses have their own histories, flags, colors, and traditional house rivalries. Dorms and houses both have student governments that help organize social and housekeeping events, decorate the common areas, and promote student spirit. Dorm and house government service is often a stepping stone to school wide student government positions.
Boarding school housing varies widely in size and quality but is often better than at colleges. As a rule the dorms are deliberately spare and basic. There are specific rules regarding lights out, noise levels, and quiet times. Student prefects on each floor maintain order, serve as informal counselors, and conduct room inspections. These inspections vary widely. Some schools require regular and frequent inspections, while at others inspections are an afterthought.
Space and light are always issues; usually there is little of either. The larger, brighter, quieter rooms go to ongoing students who get seniority in room selection. New students tend to be stuck with what’s left over. Once in a while a lucky newbie gets a great room when a longtime returning student suddenly withdraws at the last moment.
Storage space in most dorm rooms is nearly nonexistent, except for under one’s bed. Sunlight is problematic. South facing rooms sometimes get too much, north facing rooms too little. Despite the incredible array of facilities and programs at boarding schools, many, perhaps most, prep dorm rooms have no air conditioning, so dorms at schools in even the most northern of climes tend to be stiflingly hot at the start of fall term and the end of spring term.
Due to safety and sanitation concerns, schools have numerous rules about what can be kept, hung, or used in the dorms. Anything involving heat and fire – toaster ovens, coffee makers, candles, irons, and the like are prohibited. Flammable wall hangings, pets, and firearms all are no-nos. Small appliances such as refrigerators and televisions usually do not make the cut. One device that is often welcome is a vacuum cleaner (and everyone will want to borrow it!).
Boarding school dorms have specific check in/check out times. A Duty Master, usually a faculty member, is present each evening to monitor check in times. Students are expected to check in by a prescribed hour and remain in their dorms until six or seven the next morning. Students seeking to leave their dorms after check in need permission from the Duty Master. Weekend evenings usually have more relaxed rules. Permissions are also required for off campus trips and weekend overnight trips. The upper grades usually have more privileges.
‘THE FOUR As”
Most schools revolve around four basic core concerns – academics, athletics, arts, and activities – the Four A’s. Most of the schools emphasize and promote student participation in all four as aspects of a multidimensional education. This presents students with the challenge of a continual balancing act requiring the student to marshal limited reserves of time and energy to fulfill sometimes conflicting demands.
ACADEMICS
American boarding schools offer a range of academic styles and philosophies. In the main, coursework tends toward small classes, extended class discussion, and extensive individual attention from instructors. The schools cleave to the traditional liberal arts, with courses in literature, history, science, mathematics, and languages. As preparation for college, this tradition has become increasingly pertinent to a student’s education as even elite colleges turn towards pre-professional programs or wide-open requirement-free curricula. In several surveys at elite universities, large majorities of boarding school alums have expressed disappointment with their college education, in comparison with what they received “at school.”
The majority of the schools also feature heightened academic demands – more reading, more homework, and more expectations from essays and projects. Class participation is enhanced, routine reliance on objective testing diminished. In the most demanding of the boarding schools, these standards are extremely rigorous.
Traditionally, many boarding schools brought in new students at the eighth grade level, but now, with the exception of Groton and a few others, most school start at ninth grade. Many schools ease first year students into academics with instruction in time management, essay construction, and study techniques, pass/fail grading in the first term, and scheduled study halls and early lights out in the dorms, all overseen by residential faculty and academic advisors. After the first year, these strictures are gradually loosened as the students mature; less supervision and more work is the standard. Eventually, students near graduation will be given many more freedoms
