An Overview of Paying for Boarding School

Boarding School Financing Options At A Glance

As you begin to think about sending your child to private school, determine how you are going to pay for her education.

• That is probably already at the top of your list of questions.
• As you can see from the table below, most private schools offer a variety of payment options.
• Hopefully, one or more of these options will suit your needs.

Copy and paste this table into your worksheet that you have set up to keep the boarding school search process organized. It will remind you to ask specific questions about financing your child's education.

One Payment

This means that you will write one check for the entire year’s tuition.

• Some schools will give you a cash discount when you pay the entire bill upfront.
• Paying tuition in one payment usually takes care of everything except the sundries.
• Sundries are charged for riding lessons, elective courses, athletic activities, music lessons, and so on.
• Most schools will bill you monthly for those charges.

Two Payments

When you pay using two payments, most schools expect one payment in June or July or at

It may seem odd that with so many quality boarding schools in the USA that any American high school student would look north of the border to enhance their education. What could possibly motivate young Americans to venture to Canada for high school? Well, the many brave souls who have begun this voyage of discovery have quickly realized the merits of such an option. Consider some of these points that our current American families know, and prospective families might want to consider, about a Canadian boarding education:

You are not alone. There are many Americans in Canadian boarding schools (for instance, nearly 10% of the entire boarding population at my school, Brentwood College School, are from the USA!).

Rolling Admissions

For the most part, there are no specific application deadlines in Canada. You can pretty much visit any school at any time of the year and, if you are a good candidate and there are still spaces available, you could be offered a place without waiting until March or April. Most schools will even allow you to wait until you find out if you are accepted to some American schools in the spring to make a decision. It does take the pressure off families that simply want to know if they are accepted.

This video gives us an overview of Bishops College School in Lennoxville, Quebec.

No SAT?

Americans may also be interested in knowing

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, and their own intuition. But this is easier said than done; if you visit enough schools (which you should), they all can begin to appear quite similar. So it can be a daunting task to determine which school is ‘right’ for your family.

If you read the mission statements, vision statements, school philosophies, tag lines, and Head’s Messages of all the boarding schools on their websites, they all pretty much say the same thing. They offer a well-rounded education, character development, top-level academics, small classroom sizes, modern facilities, great mentoring, and a safe learning environment.

So what makes them different from one another?

This is where doing your homework is important. Each boarding school tends to have at least one differentiator, something that makes them stand out from the crowd. For

How Do Girls Benefit From Single-Sex Education?

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