Author: Stephanie Barron

When you start looking into boarding school, it’s hard to find an unbiased opinion. The websites show students decked in school colors as they cheer on teams, alums tell stories about the good old days, and pop culture suggests that it’s either like a college you get to leave for sooner or a prison to which your parents willingly send you. ‘ I am a boarding school alumna with extremely mixed feelings about my experience because it didn’t provide some things I expected but did provide others that I couldn’t have found anywhere else. Here’s what I wish I’d known ...

This post is part of our new series, in which students and young adults tell their own stories of discovering, nurturing, and pursuing their passions. My English lesson at my all-girls school in London was the highlight of my day. While everyone else trudged up the five flights of stairs to classroom, Tilly and I strode, our heavily-annotated copies of Shakespeare’s Othello under our arms. While the teacher presented essay plans for us to use on the national exams we would take at the end of the year, Tilly and I would write notes in the margins of each other’s ...