Boarding schools offer a challenging educational setting, with dedicated teachers "who see their work as a calling, not a job," says TABS. Small class sizes not only allow more personal attention from teachers, but also lead to greater academic interaction among students. The Southeastern Association says teachers act as "mentors, advisers, coaches and friends" inside and outside the classroom.
Students are highly motivated to learn, according to TABS. It cites a study by the Art & Science Group, which found that 60 percent of students attend boarding schools "because of the promise of better education" and that boarding students spend more than twice as many hours each week on homework as their public-school peers.
Boarding schools give students a taste of freedom and responsibility, but also provide a wide safety net---"calibrated independence," as TABS puts it. While they are encouraged to make their own decisions about both school and social lives without constant adult monitoring, the institution helps to guide those decisions. "By the time graduates arrive at university or their first professional job," TABS says, "they're fully prepared for the challenges and responsibilities of adult life."
David Ayer agrees: "In a residential program, the adolescent's motivation for cleaning her room, running her laundry, or helping with dishes is unclouded by parental expectations and pressure, and the satisfaction inherent in becoming a competent, responsible individual is free to emerge," he writes in "The School Where Children Live," a paper written with his wife, educator Elise Huneke Stone, published in the journal of the North American Montessori Teachers' Association (NAMTA).
Boarding schools prepare their graduates for success both in college and later in life, says TABS: "Statistics reveal that graduates, on average, attend the nation's finest universities and arrive at college better prepared for both the academic rigor and social challenges that universities present." TABS also says studies show that boarding school graduates later "advance rapidly in their professional careers, and are more civically engaged than their peers."