Your Yearly Elite Boarding School Inanity

This and this.

Both of these lists were clearly compiled by people who had no knowledge of boarding schools.

If you have an endowment of $40,000 per student, you don't belong on any list with Groton or any of the Big-6.  Make the fucking list top 40 or top 30 if you have to scrape that far down into the bottom of the barrel. 

Hockaday is not a boarding school, nor is Milton, nor St. Alban's, nor Indian Springs.  If you have a 50/50 or worse boarding percentage, you're a day school.  These schools don't belong on the list, and neither do the other glorified day schools on the lists with a minority boarding percentage.  Fucking stupid.

Any list that has Emma Willard or Westover above Miss Porter's is fucking ridiculous.  Emma and Westover are good schools, but Miss Porter's is the best and most prestigious all-girls school out there by far.  And probably will be as long as there are still all-girls schools.

Any list with Andover or Exeter on the top is fucking useless.  Andover and Exeter are the only boarding schools any civilians can name.  The best school is probably St. Paul's, or maybe Groton if you want a very small school--unless you're a swimmer.  Then it's probably Hotchkiss, unless you want to do crew.  Then Deerfield.  Andover and Exeter are like Harvard and Yale, for better and worse, with plenty of opportunities and brand recognition.

Regardless, the traditional Big-5, Andover, Choate, Exeter, Hotchkiss, St. Paul's, now joined by Deerfield for an effective Big-6, are the best of the best for reasons beyond last year's test scores and college admissions, and people will pay a premium for those damn good reasons.  Lawrenceville and Northfield Mount Hermon play in that traditional sandbox with the Big-6 as well, and don't ever believe that doesn't count for something.  These peer schools are self-selecting, and they haven't self-selected any other schools in 40 fucking years.