First Steps

What’s on your wish list?

Start by working with your family to determine your ideal educational community. Ask yourself whether the school would be:
  • Small or large?
  • A day school or boarding school?
  • Coeducational or single-sex?
  • Traditional or progressive?
  • A source of special programs (for example, arts, sports, or computers)?
  • A diverse community?
  • Sensitive to your child’s special needs, whether for rigorous intellectual preparation, for programs devoted to average learners, or for a curriculum geared to students with learning differences?
Then check out these sources of school information:
  • Regional guidebooks on the shelves of your local library or bookstore;
  • State or local associations of independent schools;
  • School fairs, usually sponsored in the fall by local groups of day schools or by regional groups of boarding schools; 
  • Teachers who have worked with your child.
Whether your child is moving on from preschool, elementary school, or middle school, teachers are likely to be knowledgeable about where other children tend to go and what kind of school your child might thrive in.