How to Find Boarding Schools on Boarding School Review

Updated

Boarding School Review lets you search for boarding schools by location, special programs, and application deadline, then browse matching school profiles. The site's Find Schools tool is the main entry point: you set a location preference (local/day-plus, regional, mid-distance, long-distance, or a specific state or country), optionally narrow by special programs and deadline, and then review the schools that match. It works best when you already have a rough sense of what you want — a region, a program type, or a timeline — and want to see which schools fit.

Start with the Find Schools tool

The homepage presents the search in two parts: a location filter and a set of optional filters. You can use either or both.

Step 1: Set your location

You have two ways to define location, and the site treats them as alternatives ("OR"):

  • Distance from you: Local / Day-Plus (under 50 miles), Regional (50–150 miles), Mid-Distance (150–300 miles), or Long-Distance (300+ miles).
  • A specific place: No preference, a US region (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, South, Southwest, West), International, or an individual state, territory, or country.

The state list covers all 50 US states plus Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. The country list includes Andorra, Canada, Costa Rica, Italy, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Expected result: choosing a distance band or a place narrows the pool to schools in that area. If you pick "No preference," you keep the widest set.

Step 2: Filter by special programs

The "Special programs offered" menu lets you narrow by what a school provides. Options include:

  • Post-graduate year
  • ADD / ADHD
  • Summer program
  • ESL
  • Merit scholarships
  • IB program
  • Learning Differences (LD)

Leave it at "No preference" if none of these matter to you.

Step 3: Filter by application deadline

You can set the deadline filter to "No preference" or "Rolling deadline." Use "Rolling deadline" if you need a school that reviews applications on an ongoing basis rather than against a fixed cut-off.

Step 4: Run the search

Use the Advanced Search link to combine these filters. The result is a set of school profiles you can browse.

What you'll see in the results

Matching schools appear as profiles with photos and descriptions. The homepage's featured schools give a sense of the format — for example, Fork Union Military Academy (Hatcher Hall overlooking Fraley Circle), Milton Hershey School, Tilton School (noting that all students gain creative and cultural arts experience beyond the academic requirement), Eagle Hill School (the Andresen Library Commons in the PJM STEM Center), Saint John's Preparatory School (2,900 acres of woodlands and lakes in Collegeville, MN), Léman Manhattan Preparatory School, St. Thomas More School (a rural eastern Connecticut campus about 2.5 hours from NYC), Buffalo Seminary (an urban school in Buffalo's Elmwood Village), The Global College, and The Hill School (students attend required sit-down family-style meals).

Each profile is the unit you evaluate, so open the ones that match your filters and compare them on the details that matter to you.

Other ways to explore

Beyond the search tool, the site organizes content into sections you can browse directly:

  • School Rankings
  • Boarding School Guide, which covers Why Boarding School, Choosing a School, Admissions, and Financing
  • Recent Articles for admissions tips and financial aid help

If you're early in the process and not ready to filter, the guide sections explain the decisions; if you already know your criteria, the Find Schools tool is faster.

Common snags

  • Distance vs. place: the two location options are alternatives, so decide whether you're searching by how far a school is from you or by a named region/state/country.
  • Too few results: each added filter shrinks the pool. If you get nothing useful, drop the special-program or deadline filter first and keep only location.
  • Deadline filter is limited: the only specific deadline option shown is "Rolling deadline," so don't expect to filter by a particular calendar date.
  • International list is short: the country menu lists a specific set of countries, so a school outside those won't be reachable through that filter.