Boarding School Review Blog

This article has been updated to reflect 2026 data and recent developments.

Admissions to boarding school is a process with many components. The process can be confusing to parents dealing with boarding school admissions for the first time. This article serves as a central hub, bringing together key resources and guidance to help you navigate every step.

The Overview

Admissions to boarding schools involves multiple steps, and understanding the full process early will make it far more manageable.

Admissions to Boarding School: A–Z puts all the information you need in one convenient place. Whether you are just beginning or have been through this before, you will find help and advice to guide you. If you cannot find answers to your questions or have specific concerns, contact the admissions offices at schools in which you are interested. Admissions staff are always ready to help.

Admissions 101 offers an overview of the admissions process, as well as the steps needed to find the right school for your child. The secret to success is identifying the school that best fits your needs and requirements.

Our Admissions Checklist will keep you on track as you work through the process. It organizes every step into an easy-to-follow structure.

If you are good at organizing projects, the challenges involved in getting your child into boarding school will not seem especially daunting. Bear in mind that this project typically stretches over 12 to 18 months, though some schools now offer rolling admissions.

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The answer to that question is a firm recommendation: consider all that a military school offers your young person. Yes, these days military schools educate young women and young men. New Mexico Military Institute describes its mission: “To educate, train, and prepare young men and women to be leaders capable of critical thinking and sound analysis, leaders who possess uncompromising character, and leaders able to meet challenging physical demands.”

Discipline

Just about anything in life worth doing well requires lots of discipline. Discipline takes hard work, persistence, stamina, and time. In an era when instant gratification seems endemic, good old-fashioned discipline lays a solid foundation for success in adult life. Group discipline quickly grows into a pattern of self-discipline. After several years of training, your child will know what she must do to accomplish her objectives. Military schools serve up discipline as regularly as they serve breakfast.

Missouri Military Academy sums it up very well:

“Whether learning in the classroom, completing community service, performing on the athletic field, or interacting socially, we always expected our cadets to do the right thing–acting with respect, responsibility, honor, and generosity. A Missouri Military Academy diploma means a student has gone beyond the mastery of the subjects necessary to succeed in college and possesses the self-discipline and values that will help him succeed in all aspects of life.”

This video offers an overview of the Culver Academies.

First of all, let's understand what a therapeutic school is. A therapeutic school is a special school designed to help troubled children, typically teenagers, with various emotional and other problems. The problems have usually gotten to the stage where the parents can no longer manage their child effectively. They've done counseling. They've tried more approaches to discipline than they knew existed. As a result, they start looking for other solutions. Sending their child off to a therapeutic school sounds like it might be the right answer.

Therapeutic schools come in a variety of forms. They can be non-residential and residential. For the purposes of this article, we are going to focus on residential schools. Of course, which kind of therapeutic school that you decide is appropriate for your child depends on a variety of considerations. For a detailed description of the various types of therapeutic schools, see Therapeutic Program Descriptions on the Independent Education Consultants Association's website.

When to consider a therapeutic school

As a rule, parents probably should consider a therapeutic school for a child challenged by emotional, behavioral, substance abuse, or academic issues, or any other challenge that the local public school or private schools cannot handle effectively. In other words, he cannot receive the consistent treatment and individual attention he needs in a local school and the home setting. Whether to send the child away to a school with a highly structured environment where she will receive the treatment she needs

Things That Keep Me Awake At Night

2020 was a most unusual year. The coronavirus pandemic has turned everything upside down and inside out. Nothing is normal. All of this has impacted boarding schools in ways they never expected. While most private school boards of trustees are smart enough to have a resumption of business plans in place and adequate insurance coverage for the school plant and the usual liability issues, very few school trustees ever expected to be dealing with so many challenges converging simultaneously. Against that backdrop, I thought it would be helpful to conduct a fictional interview with a head of school. After all, her concerns are probably yours as well.

Rob: What challenges at school in the fall of the next academic year keep you awake at night?

Head of school: Oh, Rob! Where do I begin? There are so many things demanding my attention. My workday starts at 6 a.m. and ends at 10 p.m. if I'm lucky. And I work every day to keep my head above water.

Rob: What, then, is your most pressing concern?

Head of school: My number one concern is the financial condition of my school. The board and I had not budgeted for dozens of COVID-19-related expenses. Tasks such as wiping down all the frequently touched surfaces like door handles, light switches, stair rails, and so much more are essential while the pandemic is all around us. We had to hire a deep-cleaning service to sanitize