PJF,
Thank you for the objective post about your personal experience at Andover. The way you describe yourself as a teenager reminds me of my son.
Like CFK, my son also attends a day/boarding school. He is still considered a geek, but it is not a hostile environment. Unfortunately, due to the commute, he can’t participate in extracurriculars to the extent that he would like. He particularly enjoys working with the older geeky kids in his math and physics courses although the best aspect of the school in his opinion, are his teachers and mentors. They are all so well qualified in their particular subjects and they treat him more as a professional underling than an annoyance or at best, a tolerated student. Ds’s conversations with his teachers are never confined to the parameters of the weekly lesson objectives. A few have commented to me that they enjoy his depth and the intellectual challenge he often poses. I do not think he would ever want to go back to a regular school.

BTW, he did have some teachers and an administrator who appreciated his interest in learning at his previous (high achieving) regular school, but the structure is so very different.

Delbows - do you mind sharing which school it is?

PJF - very thruthful, personal view. Thank you for your honesty.
Do you mind if I ask why you stayed at Andover, since it looks like you did not fit in/did not enjoy it to the fullest?
Do you think spending two years at Andover has shaped you in a way that your local HS would not be able to?

DS has asked that, if admitted, he will have to stay even if he dislikes it. My response was that he will have to make it through Christmas and after that it is going to be his call. It is going to be his call to begin with when he visits, but one needs a little more than a week to know what it is really all about...

I won’t mention it here, but if you would like to PM me, I’ll give you his info to look up on his DYS page where he does mention it by name. At least that is a slightly smaller audience in which to post something so personally identifying.

I was at Andover because I was from a family of expats, and there was not an international high school in the country we were living in. I'd done one year of correspondence school, but wasn't really happy with that. So boarding school was what we tried next, and there wasn't really an alternative to fall back on. I don't ever remember wishing I could drop out--I wasn't actively unhappy while there, just not happy. The upside, of course, is that it was more academically challenging than any thing my parents or I could think of. Not academically nurturing like what delbows describes (no one-on-one faculty contact), but it gave me headroom that I wouldn't have had elsewhere.

Wow- talk about a timely post. I also have a son considering some of the same schools. He likes Andover, Exeter and Choate the most. He is in 8th grade and also being invited to apply for scholarships. We just went to a presentation by the top 10 boarding schools last Wed. Exeter recruits pretty heavily at his school and his highly gifted coordinators son is a student there currently, I am not sure if I am on board yet. He is very mature and academically advanced- but I think I will miss him too much

http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/articles/22
This is a great resource for information about boarding schools.

Wow, djf. I went to Exeter years before you went to Andover and kids were kicked out every week for the type of stuff you mention in your post.

For dys parents, I'd suggest asking your family consultant for names of other dys currently at these schools so that you can get a more recent opinion of what the schools are like for their kids. For families not in DYS, I'd suggest asking the schools for names of local parents you could talk to and the kids can speak to each other, too.

If you're interested in Canadian boarding schools, I'd recommend Columbia. Two of my friends sent their kids there and they're impressed with the food and residence.

When we were looking into boarding schools, there were several that caught my interest or one of the DS's interest, in addition to the "big names" (Exeter, Andover, Choate):

St Andrews Sewanee School (TN)
Episcopal High School (VA)
Portsmouth Abbey School (Rhode Island)
Middlesex (Concord, MA)
St Paul's (Concord, NH)

St Andrews were the nicest.

For DS11, I've actually thought about getting a place in Reno so he could attend Davidson Academy. Cost for place and frequent airfares home are probably still less than boarding school costs (many at $45K).

Other ideas included day school at great private academies in cities where relatives live and could "host" (temp guardian). We'll have to go through the whole process of selecting a school again next year when DS 11 is an 8th grader.