But even I have to admit that boarding school isn't without its flaws. Recently, Curtis Sittenfeld ('92 graduate of Groton School, part-time teacher at St. Albans School and author of Prep, the much-hyped exposé on boarding school life), decided to highlight that fact in an op-ed column for The New York Times. That she is a writer with an agenda is not hard to discern. The cover of Prep sports a pink-and-green grosgrain ribbon belt with one end dangling tantalizingly from the buckle, inviting readers to enter the hallowed halls of boarding school and, under Sittenfeld's guidance, discover the dirty side to life behind the red bricks and white columns. In her article, she declares vehemently that she would "never send her child away to boarding school." She writes, "Among the advantages of boarding school are opportunities for independence, academic stimulation, small classes, peer companionship and campus beauty. […] Every single one of these opportunities are available at dozens of liberal arts colleges, so why not wait a few years until the student will better appreciate such gifts and save $140,000? Besides, then there is no risk of college feeling anticlimactic, as it can for the boarding school graduates."
Admittedly, I tend to take attacks on boarding schools a little personally-but that is honestly one of the worst arguments against boarding schools I have ever heard. By comparing the liberal arts college experience to that of boarding school, Sittenfeld argues that boarding schools are essentially a waste of $140,000. However, the lessons one learns in high school-academic or otherwise-are different from those learned in college (why else are our parents forking out more than $40,000 a year for us to attend Amherst?) Even if the lessons are similar, how does the fact that I can get comparable opportunities out of Amherst devalue the opportunities available at Choate? As far as I'm concerned, eight years of "academic stimulation, small classes, [and] peer companionship" are better than four. As for the argument that boarding schools will make college feel "anticlimactic," should parents consciously deny the best possible high school opportunities for their kids, just so that they will appreciate college more? Of all the theories on child rearing that I've heard, this one definitely falls into the realm of the bizarre.
Sittenfeld goes on to write in her article that boarding school makes parents less involved in their kids' lives, and that by virtue of being in school literally all the time, the environment can become unbearably intense. First of all, considering the current middle-class trend towards super-overinvolved parenting, I'm not sure that achieving some sort of physical distance from one's parents is necessarily a bad thing. And yes, boarding school life gets a little crazy at times, and sometimes one loses perspective on how the outside world really works, but if I hadn't been in that kind of environment, living, studying and maturing with people who were going through the exact same thing, I wouldn't have forged the kind of everlasting friendships I found at Choate.
It's not true, as Sittenfeld argues, that everything one gains from a boarding school experience can be gained from college. College doesn't have curfews, or lights out, or require you to sign in and out of dorms. College doesn't have study hours, or give you detention if you don't show up to class. I don't know how to quantify the way that these things, irritating as they were, made boarding school special, but they did. And while TYPO offers a chance for Amherst kids to get to know their professors personally, I have yet to step inside a professor's home and just hang out, watch TV and cook dinner the way I did with my teachers at Choate.
Not everything that Sittenfeld says in her article is invalid; she does bring up several good points. For instance, boarding schools can only offer their largesse to an extremely select few, and by doing so they are contributing to a widening educational gap. I will even concede that the products of boarding school have a strange and unshakable faith in the fact that every benefit they receive is somehow their due. A teacher at Choate half-jokingly termed it the "narcissistic entitlement complex." And, I suppose, it is easy to make fun of boarding schools.
As Sittenfeld writes, the "lavishly maintained campuses" and "gleaming multimillion dollar gymnasiums" and the partiality to calling 12th-graders "sixth-formers" instead of just plain seniors, give boarding schools an air of the faintly ridiculous. (Choate refused to throw anything as plebeian as a school dance or senior prom-we had the Holiday Ball and the Last Hurrah.) Add that to all the social ills that boarding schools can stand for-the arrogance of the rich, the glaring class divides in a supposedly democratic society-and boarding school becomes a very squeamish subject.
I do find it a little galling, though, that someone in Sittenfeld's position-graduate of Groton, teaching at a prep school like St. Albans, obviously intending to send her future children to fancy liberal arts colleges like Amherst-would, safely ensconced in her bubble of moral superiority, criticize these "terrariums of privilege." Boarding schools are not all perfect-nor are they even close to it.
But Choate changed my life, and I would say, changed it for the better. Boarding schools aren't just one four-year-long party for people who are possessed of both youth and money. Like at Amherst College, most boarding school kids are intelligent, talented and articulate, and they make great use of the incredible caliber of resources that boarding school makes available. I may have developed a misguided belief that pink and green is an attractive color combination and the irritating habit of wearing flip flops in the winter, but I've also gained from being in an environment where being smart and where caring about your work are admired. Three cheers for ribbon belts.
Ho can be reached at jho08@amherst.edu