Great definition. 
Girl here. Magnet boarding school, 11th and 12th grade. I LOVED it. The classes were way more exciting than I could take at home, and many of the other students were nerds like me, which was fabulous. It seriously ranks as one of the best decisions my parents ever made, to send me there.
I was homesick for the first couple of months; they mandated everyone going home every couple of months for just that reason, and my parents also came to visit about once a month or so (they didn’t live that far away). After that I didn’t miss them at all. I rather feel like my time at this school was irreplaceable – there’s no way my family could have replicated that. Whereas the time with my family was rather more pedestrian (the conversations I had with my school friends over breakfast were way more interesting than the conversations I had with my family over breakfast), we had fifteen years worth to draw from, and I talked to them often enough that I didn’t feel like I was isolated from them.
…Same here. I think it was hard for my parents to let me go two years earlier than they ordinarily would. I know it was hard for my little sister.
In regard to missing stuff: My brother discovered his academic interest while I was there. (eventually dropped out of college) My family dog would go in my room, wondering,“Where’s etv78?” BTW, I went homje every weekend, and the school was 30 minutes from my home.
I went to a co-ed Quaker boarding school in 1972-74, my 11th & 12th grades. I would not/could not have graduated high school without it. I graduated salutatorian of my class of 13 students with a solid C average. My mother made financial sacrifices to send me there and it was totally worth it to both of us. I did not miss a single thing about my home life. I was happy to be away from home and my home state, which I hated and have spent very little time in since.
The school made sure everyone was assigned chores to do and we had scheduled study times and since the school was in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee, there wasn’t much else to do. However, while there I managed to have sex and do drugs and get drunk and still graduated second in my class. And I was a cheerleader there, something that would have never happened in my hometown school. I have no idea what happened to many of my classmates. I imagine most are dead or in jail (we were not there because we were excellent students), but I became a lawyer. Take that for whatever it’s worth.
I highly recommend it. Sometimes it’s good thing to get out of Dodge.
ETA: I am female.
2000-2001, I attended a boarding school for my Freshmen year of high school and two months into Sophomore year before I transferred to a public school. I was 14-15. The school was in the Midwest and was less than an hour from my home, so I don’t think it was as drastic of a change for me since I got to go home some weekends and/or see my parents at least once a month. It was an overall good experience, and having the distance/my own space improved my relationship with my mother (whom I did not get along with much as a teenager).
There were definitely downsides to the experience. At one point my room was searched without my knowledge or consent, and it made me very distrusting and uncomfortable. The education level seemed about the same as the public school I later transferred to, but I do feel that we got more 1 on 1 time and encouragement at the boarding school. We also had a stronger sense of community at the boarding school. I think that’s just a matter of attending a school with 300 students vs. 2000+, though.
England in the 90s. I was between 11 and 13. It was pretty good, gave me a great head start learning English. The exact sciences lagged behind the programs back home so I had to spend the summer catching up after I left, but otherwise a positive experience.
Not me but my children – Eldest daughter 2007-2010, twins currently enrolled.
Daughter (and we) liked it enough that the twins were looking forward to the day they’d be old enough to go there too 
This is in Israel – we live in Tel Aviv and the school is in Jerusalem (which is 40 miles away) so the kids are home every other week, and we almost always visit on off-weeks. On some (rare) occasions one of them would/will pop over for an evening of home-spoiling 
It’s really just a hop, skip and jump away!
This is a school whose raison d’etre is academic excellence, so… yeah, excellent school. It also means that the other kids there are a cut above both intellectually and in terms of their behavior.
Valley Forge Military Academy
7th and 8th grade, mid 90’s. Back when it was all male, now it’s co-ed. I don’t know how it might be now. Probably different, and a lot more lewd conduct.
I was actually on tv…back when Nickelodeon had a show called “Nick News”. They did a segment on military schools across the country. Me and my roommate were chosen to represent the school.
Wish I would have stayed for the whole run and graduated, but my parents disagreed on the pros and cons. It was a good experience, and helped shape who I am today.
Looking back, the pros outweighed the cons for me, but my dad didn’t see it that way.
I can’t say I would recommend it for anyone now though, since it is no longer the same school I went to and I don’t know what I’d be recommending. These things evolve over the years whether they go co-ed or not. Even the second year I went was different than the first in the way they treated new recruits…much softer.
I went to boarding school for the first two years of high school, upstate NY in the late 70’s. My folks sent me, mostly out of desperation, as they were trying to split up (after 25 years and 6 kids) and I was being a disinterested and unmotivated student and apprentice degenerate in my local public high school. It was the only school that accepted me, and not renowned for academic rigors, AP or other college-preparatory standards. It was more of an “arts” school, which was appealing to my folks (both artists).
I am pretty sure my parents had no idea what the place was like when they signed. What a lot of blatant dope-dealing, sexing, shoplifting and other teen thrills went on! I think my poor folks though I’d get whipped into shape - nope, just expelled. The student body totaled about 90 kids, some of whom were celebrity offspring or otherwise kind of “connected” but somewhat academically underperforming. Dorms held about 15 people and the teacher/student ratio was about 1:8. We had classes from 8-12 with an hour for lunch, then 1-2 with sports or arts thereafter. Wednesday afternoons, everyone had work jobs which might be stacking wood for fireplaces, cleaning classrooms or doing outdoor work. We all had daily jobs too, which you signed up for; working in the kitchen or offices, sweeping up, or a stoner favorite - picking up the milk and cookies from the cafeteria for check-in each evening. That sounds kind of lame, but we were, in fact, high most of the time, and those cookies were a godsend at 10:00 pm.
I think the best way I could sum it up is that I had a good time having a bad time. Somehow I (and my parents) managed to survive those years relatively unscathed. Lots of good stories. Hey dad, remember when I got aressted for shoplifting cigs in town with the beauty who went on to become a Penthouse pet?! Ha! Ha! Yeah, good times!
My dad recently gave me this huge folder of mortifying documents from various disciplinary and academic committees at the school, most of whom pretty much dismissed me as a waste of time. A few were so kind and supportive it still chokes me up…I knew there were some faculty members who really did care and tried to help, but there was so much turmoil at the time that I was bound to be unsuccessful at school.
Despite all that, I do have a very good job today (university support staff), self sufficient and well adjusted. Great relationships with my folks, too. I am quite certain that things would have been much worse, had they left me to my own devices in town. “Glory Days”, my ass.