re: Boarding Schools for Boys Under 16

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Overall how was the experience?

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I went for 4 years of high school. The first year was rough. Coming from East Texas I was not ready for how different the culture is in New England and was fairly homesick for a good while. Once I made friends and got used to how much more abrasive people from the NE are it got easier.

As an overall experience though I ended up loving it. It was a good thing to go somewhere w/people who were so different from where I was growing up. While most of the kids were from CT, NY, and MA there were also quite a few from many other countries. We had a decent amount of kids from South Korea, Germany, France, Japan, China, England, Canada, and Mexico. I really doubt I'd know people from so many different places had I stayed back in East Texas.

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Also, how do you get to engage with the opposite sex at those schools/that setup?

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It was a lot of sneaking around. We had a fully co-ed campus. My first 3 years the set up was 4 dorms that were only boys and 3 that were only girls. My senior year the girls got to take over the bottom floor of the dorm I was in. Unsurprisingly, it was much easier to do your sneaking around that last year.

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Sounds miserable

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The only thing that was truly miserable was getting work hours for punishment. At that time it was a one strike and you're out if you were caught w/booze or drugs. Any tobacco product was an automatic 20 work hours. Being a little shite to your teachers could lead to a disciplinary hearing which would usually equal at least 5 hours. You were required to have a campus job each semester (trimester system) such as doing dishes in the kitchen, tidying up classrooms, raking leaves etc. It was Episcopalian w/chapel required 3 times a week. If you skipped your job, church, or class you'd get demerits. 5 demerits was "breakfast club" which meant you had get your arse to the dining hall by 7 am to be ready to do morning dishes. I forget the exact numbers but after that it was something like 8 that would start to get you work hours.

Work hours could be anything. It mostly depended on who the teacher in charge of hours was that day. Sometimes you'd get off easy and just have to pick up any trash around the dorms or sweep a classroom floor and others you get put on the hard labor detail chopping wood and shoveling snow. I had to chop a lot of fricking wood.

I went to Fork Union in Va. Kids from 6th up to PG. I highly recommend it for good young men who need a little more structure.