Choosing an independent school – respect deadlines but don’t feel you need to jump the gun

While searching for a boarding or day school, many parents and students get anxious and cloud their judgement by perceiving pressure or a need to conclude a process as quickly as possible (maybe just to be done with the stress of the search). My advice would be to remember that ultimately, the choice rests with a family over which school to attend.Ideally, a family should try to manage their various admission processes to coincide with one another. If say you have decided to apply to three schools, try to end up sitting with all three of your decisions at the same time so that you can make a decision without the pressure of conflicting response times.Toronto Day Schools/USA Common Offer DatesToronto day schools and many US boarding schools coordinate their offer dates to coincide with one another to help them manage their admission process. It also helps families to end…

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Canadian Boarding School is worth the extra travel time

I get it. Canada is a long way from some parts of the world. This latest recruitment trip I have been on 13 flights spending over sixty-one hours in the air and covering over 25,000 miles visiting countries we have students from or would like to. I really get it. People often ask how I can travel so much and over such great distances? The answer is that the reward is always worth the effort. This holds true for families considering boarding school. Canada is worth the effort. For a prospective student, studying in Canada is rarely an extra flight compared to what they would have to take to get to a boarding school in the US, UK or Switzerland. Once on the flight it might be two or three movies more, or if they are anything like my kids, they might sleep the whole way. But once they arrive,…

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Boarding school is a privilege, not just for the privileged.

By definition, I suppose I grew up privileged. Sitting in Manila, a little closer than most to the recent devastation of Typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda as it is called here, I cannot help but reflect on the many blessings I have enjoyed in my lifetime. Manila was spared so today it is mostly life as usual, not so obviously for the hundreds of thousands left homeless and the thousands dead to the Southeast here in the Philippines. As we see the photos and read the newspaper accounts it is heartbreaking. We are very fortunate living in Canada. Next to my family, one of the blessings I am counting was the opportunity to attend a boarding school from Grade 9 to 13 (yes, prior to 2001 Ontario had a 13 year system instead of 12). I had attended camp every summer from the time I was eight so I jumped at…

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