Are there still boarding schools like this?

I know someone who did in England, where there are plenty.

One of my cousins sent her son to a boarding school like this one in central Virginia, right near James Madison's plantation Montpelier. The school is called Woodberry Forest and it seemed very preppy. Many of the graduates got into top colleges (my relatives wound up at Cornell), but it seemed quite uptight and not very diverse, ethnically or culturally.

I went to his graduation and was astounded by the behavior of the audience. That was the best-behaved, most reserved graduation I've ever attended (and I go to one every year, as I teach public school). Nobody whooped, nobody cheered, no beach balls, no air horns. People barely clapped. And an amusing proportion of the graduates had numbers after their name (Richard Jones IV, John Andrews III).

I don't think there are boarding schools that are this strict anymore, if that's what you meant. This was 1959, when authority was still respected.

I went to one in the 80s, and it was very much like the school in this movie.

How are boarding schools any different than college?

Yes. There are several in the New England area. I know a girl who went all of high school to one. She chose to go, as I believe most children in the US do. It gives them an edge in college I guess. Her PSAT scores got her a nearly full scholarship. Students from the area commute to the school but stay at home. She went from Texas to New England though.

There are quite a few of them in England, mostly in the south to accommodate all the rich folk in London and Cornwall and the Home Counties. The ones for boys are usually called 'public schools'. Eton, Harrow etc.

The slightly less exclusive (but still fee-paying) ones are just called boarding schools or private schools, and tend to be filled with the children of people who made their money through business, rather than being born to land and titles. Often they'll be the children of wealthy parents who live abroad and want their children to receive an English education.

My sister briefly attended boarding school, but our father was in the army, so the army paid for most of it. From what I saw of it and heard from her about it, I would've hated it! Quite a few British Army kids end up in boarding school if their parent/s are still serving when they reach secondary school age, to save them having to change schools and disrupt their education every time their parent/s get posted to a new place.



The mirror... it's broken.
Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

Lonestarr, you don't know what you're talking about. I actually went to the school where this movie was filmed (in Delaware), for five years, age 12 to 17. My first three years, it was boys only; the school became coeducational my junior year. Granted, age 12 may have been a year too young to leave home, but I wouldn't trade my experiences there for anything. My parents sent me because the quality of education was far superior to what was available at the schools in my hometown. I'm in my fifties now and am still friends with many classmates; we're all normal. None of us were traumatized by our boarding school experience, beyond issues that typical teenagers everywhere are traumatized by.

Your insinuation that my parents and those of my close friends were "neglectful" and thought of us as "accessories" is insulting and uncalled for.