Any info or experience with Northwood School?

snoloco wrote

My guess is that many of the families who send their kids to boarding school are so rich that they just don't give a damn about the money.  50 grand is chump change to some.

Says the kids whose parents are essentially sending him to boarding school for his senior year of HS!

Yes, I'm sure you got a decent financial package, as do many prep school kids, and college kids, but still.....your senior year of HS is going to cost your parents more than public school.

How much that is, how much that means to a family, will vary and is relative.  What doesn't change, and where I think your viewpoint is a bit naive, is that every family, rich or otherwise, takes the decision to make that investment in their child's future seriously.  There's no such thing as chump change to anyone....unless maybe your a Trump, in which case it's Trump change, but I digress....

That 'investment in your child's future' is a huge decision, and a big gamble.  Will investing in Burke or Northwoods lead to great opportunities or a full ride somewhere come college time?  Will investing in the Clarkson School for a senior year do the same?  Who knows.  You do your homework, and if the investment seems worthwhile you pull the trigger.  But it's never taken lightly, by anyone.  Heck, the rich are probably more anal about their investments than others.

We were in that boat, spending more than we'd like, or wanted to at least, to send our daughter to Emerson in the fall, but all things considered (the school for the field she wants to study, the program, west coast and abroad opportunity, internships, etc., etc.) the extra money it's costing (over a State School like Geneseo or the larger scholarship dollars at other private schools) is a good investment, in paper at least....we'll see how it plays out.  However, despite what you think, it's never an easy decision.

Believe it or not, I'm actually saving money by going a year early.  Normally high school and college combined takes 8 years.  I'm doing it in 7 years.  Tuition increases every year, and I'll be graduating college a year earlier than I would've otherwise.

snoloco wrote

Believe it or not, I'm actually saving money by going a year early.  Normally high school and college combined takes 8 years.  I'm doing it in 7 years.  Tuition increases every year, and I'll be graduating college a year earlier than I would've otherwise.

Yeah, my point exactly.  There's more than meets the eye with any of these situations/decisions.....yet you have naive kids and other people out there judging people for dumping their chump change on expensive boarding schools and such!  You, more than anyone should appreciate everything involved, because you wouldn't want some kid reading about your situation and saying your parents are rich and you are spoiled because your parents are dropping "$53,000" on your senior year of HS!!  

All I was saying in my original post was that 50 grand isn't a crazy number to some, and that crowd most definitely makes a good percentage of the student population at expensive boarding schools.  

snoloco wrote

Believe it or not, I'm actually saving money by going a year early.  Normally high school and college combined takes 8 years.  I'm doing it in 7 years.  Tuition increases every year, and I'll be graduating college a year earlier than I would've otherwise.

Who's paying for your college??? Who's saving the money??

I agree with RJ1972, academies tend to give financial aid based on performance/top skiers and prep schools tend to be very generous with financial aid based on their endowment. The student still has to be a good fit for the prep school in order to receive their generosity - good grades, good essays/recommendations, decent athlete, goal oriented, and passionate about attending the school.

I think many would be surprised at how many kids are receiving (a large sum) of aid in prep schools.  Now the downside no matter where your kid attends is the cost of ski camps, which are not required but your kid will feel like they are missing out on training and fun, this will be my biggest struggle financially.  

After applying to many schools this winter I found that KMS was more willing to work with parents on cost.  It also helps that VT has choice schools – that gives 15k towards tuition if you move to a choice town, this works best if you’re a day student, but your child can attend a school in NY or NH and still get the choice school funds as long as you reside in the VT town.  Many reasons to love VT.

In response to Burke, that experience was over a decade ago, I’m sure things have changed, after all it is one of the best academies in the country especially if you’re talented there is no arguing that.

I am still thinking hard about Northwood School, it has excellent education, NYSEF/Whiteface race program, great scholorship opportunites, and now it has the same traning schedule as a regular ski academy.  Ugh hard choices so many seem like a good fit.

There is a really hot teacher there I see around town a lot to.  A couple actually, one has the best cans in town.

CONTENTS DELETED

Hi there.  My name is JP and I'm the program director and head coach of skiing at Northwood.
I really appreciate the positive comments that I see on here. We've been working really hard since I got here not quite two years ago yet (OCT-2014). A lot of change and rededication to excellence in athletics under the new headmaster's leadership. It's been amazing so far.

We've taken the skiing to a whole new level in just two seasons.  I am rather proud that nowadays Northwood/NYSEF ski racing programs are on par with pure-play ski academies in terms of days on snow and quality of prep camps.The only area that I see is dragging behind my own alma mater (GMVS), Burke, etc is in numbers.  As in, we have between 25-30 ski racers and not 80-100.  Personally, I never really liked the  crowd aspect both as an athlete and a coach. I love our small focused groups at Northwood.  Between the coaching staff at Northwood and our partner organization NYSEF we cover all the bases at U14, U16, U19 levels. Last season, we had the two of the fastest U16 kids kn the country in Sarah Bennett (U16 Eastern Champs gold - SL) and Matt Côté (U16 Eastern Champ - GS). And that was with ONE prep camp in NOV.  Suffice it to say that our training venue (Whiteface) and the conditions that the mountain ops provides for our training is amazing. I mean, it's Whiteface ... 3rd or 4th largest skiable vertical drop in the COUNTRY!

My breakfast is ready and I'm getting yelled at for being on here. Anyone, please contact me directly and I'll be happy to chat with any of you about ski-racing, school, student life, athletics, college and anything else you feel like asking.

JP D.
+1(518)897-8978
jp@northwoodschool.com

Welcome daenio.

(Your full posting privileges are enabled.)

That's the dream right there...

Welcome to the forum JP

Let's play some golf soon

Hi JP, thanks for the info.

raisingarizona wrote

That's the dream right there...

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6M4_Ommfvv0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sadly I never had a hot teacher --- they were all old as dirt and far from hot! The ones nowadays tho, WOW!

Here's a Northwood's kid out at Mt Hood this summer

Hello all,
As far as academics go, I believe Northwood is the best. Schools like Burke only send kids to IVY league colleges if you are already talented before enrolling. Burke in my opinion is just a better market if you are concerned more about sports, rather than academics.
PS. I heard Northwood sent a kid to Harvard last year.

Babs

Thanks for sharing. Parents need to understand that their kids are not going to the ski team and need to have a well rounded foundation for their life. I know a bunch of Burke/GMVS kids who wash out and end up pumping gas. Plus the Northwood Husky is pretty cool

hunthollowmtn1 wrote

I know a bunch of Burke/GMVS kids who wash out and end up pumping gas.

Sounds like a great idea to spend 200k or more on a boarding school education to end up in a line of work that could be done with a GED.

Hi guys,

I went to GMVS for two years as an athlete and then worked there later on for six seasons.  While I'm now head of the ski program at Northwood School, I would like to point out that places like GMVS, BMA, etc do a very fine job with regards to academics.  I mean, I grew up speaking French and managed to go on to Dartmouth from there so they didn't screw me up too much!

Of course, their relatively small size means less diversity and probably less options/variety in academic offerings than a school like Northwood founded in 1905 but by virtue of their reputation as more 'pure-play' ski-racing places they do attract an inordinate amount of talented and motivated skiers.  In the end, the kids get good SAT's and many go on to great colleges/universities.  And, yes, last year, we graduated a ski-racer who is now at Harvard.  Northwood worked well for him.  His little brother, also a ski-racer and genius in our robotics class will probably go to MIT.  I think it's one of the things we do well at Northwood; motivated kids who love ski-racing (or hockey, of course!) but might never ski under 50.00 points have many other niches to explore here and excel in.  That helps with college placement for sure.  The bonus is that they leave here still in love with ski racing because they didn't "fail" at it based on a "making the U.S. ski team" criteria.

Although we make sure we do everything to train our kids and put them on a collision course with opportunity to get them to the highest level possible, like most of you, we understand that making the national team or skiing NCAA D1 is something very few will achieve so, in my opinion, the point, the main reason to stick with this crazy sport really has to be something like this:  Work hard, pay attention to details, follow-through, learn to deal with adversity, and own your success.  Ski-racing tends to drive this home better than any teacher, over-protective parent, or coach!

campgottagopee wrote

Sadly I never had a hot teacher --- they were all old as dirt and far from hot! The ones nowadays tho, WOW!

I can't feel bad for you.  I never even had one of the old ones.

MM