5 Reasons Why You Should Go To Boarding School

1. Your teachers will always be around, and you’ll like it that way. You will not only see your teachers in class, but they will also be your coaches and houseparents. They will get to know you really well, and you’ll get to know them, too, as they will all (or almost all) be living on campus. At boarding school, it’s perfectly natural, and expected, to head to a teacher’s house at night or on a weekend to work on an essay, or ask your teacher on a bus ride home from a lacrosse game for help with a math lesson from class. Not only that, but you’ll also get to know your teachers’ families; many boarding school families are known to invite students over for BBQs and movie nights.

2. “It’s a perpetual sleepover.” You get to live with all of your friends, who quickly become family. You get to study together, share each other’s closets, and you always have a friend around to toss a football. And, at Portsmouth Abbey, you even compete together in something called the Raven Cup, an annual dorm competition, which always creates a lot of dorm pride!

3. It’s FUN! Every weekend there are tons of fun activities to take part in, from dances, to concerts, to trips to the mall and movies — you’ll never be without something fun to do with your friends on the weekend! Every school’s weekend activities are a little different. Some favorite weekend activities for Portsmouth Abbey students include Broomball, the Christmas Semi-Formal, and the Gingerbread House contest. In addition, there are dozens of clubs you can join. And, if you don’t see a club you are interested in, you can start one!

4. You’ll get to see the world, and change it. Boarding schools offer many opportunities to apply all that you’ve learned in the classroom to the outside world. You’ll have the chance to visit places like Rome with your Humanities class, Spain with your Spanish class, or take part in service projects like Habitat for Humanity or the Appalachia Service Project. Some schools even offer fellowships for students to further pursue studies they are interested in during the summer. Abbey students’ Haney fellowship projects have included building a wind turbine in a South African village and working at a clinic in Nepal.

5. You’ll be a lifetime member of the club. Boarding schools traditionally have very strong alumni bases. Your ties to your boarding school won’t sever once you head off to college. You’ll graduate with a lot of school pride, and particularly bound to your classmates, as you’ll have lived with them for four years. As an alumnus of your school, you’ll be invited to alumni events, have access to networking with fellow alumni, and be able to return to campus every five years for your Reunion. Your connection to your school will never end!

What are your top reasons to go to boarding school?