Boarding school reviews evaluate boarding schools based on criteria or judgments made by outsiders and students and sometimes based on data supplied directly by the school. Boarding school reviews vary quite a bit in quality, so read on to find out more.
What Good Is a Boarding School Review?
If boarding schools had their way, you might never read a review: you’d show up on their campus prepared to soak in their ambience and offerings firsthand. Since that can’t always happen, this article helps you understand differences between various types of boarding school reviews and what you can get out of boarding school reviews.
A boarding school review could be written by a student or former student or parent of a student or former student, or it could be prepared by outsiders. Each type has intrinsic values and limitations. Those who actually know the school bring their observations and insights, but also their prejudices and biases, based on their individual personal experience. What reviews by outsiders make up in objectivity, they often lack in concrete knowledge and detail. The ideal review, then, may be one that combines firsthand information and insight with objective information. With these two elements to balance each other out, you may get as thorough and fair an idea of the school as possible without being there yourself for a not insubstantial amount of time.
Bottom line: since education is important, a good match between child and school is critical, and boarding school is expensive, boarding school reviews are worth consulting as part of the decision-making process. Be sure to glance over user comments for clues to situations where the “received wisdom” deviates markedly from the reality, but follow-up on issues raised there, rather than taking them as givens. Comments draws both speakers of truth and people who wrongly perceive themselves as injured parties, looking for payback.
Best Place to Find Boarding School Reviews Worth Reading
The key website for finding boarding school reviews is BoardingSchoolReview.com http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/ Each entry provides contact information, including address, phone number and a map, a link to the school website and a quotation from the school’s publicity information. Student reviews may also be available, and the school’s ranking in various areas are given, for example, “listed among the top 20 boarding schools (out of 287 school) for . . . Most Sports Offered.”
Information about the school after that point is either factual or comparative. The review offers a factual overview of the school as a whole, the student body, the academics and faculty, the finances, the admissions process, the AP courses, the sports, the college matriculation records over a number of years, and school notes, which may include featured facilities and famous alums. The categories listed above down to admissions are listed side by side with the national boarding school average, for comparison. Below all of this is a community map showing other boarding schools in the area with the distance away, useful for planning a trip to multiple schools.
Site tools at the website, such as a compare schools tool and the ability to save schools of interest for future reference, add to the value.
