Every year the Rhodes Trust awards 82 scholarships and 32 of those goes to Americans. The Rhodes scholarship is a prestigious one that it screens highly qualified applicants that attains exemplary scholastic achievements.

The highly competitive curriculum that most boarding schools offer is the key factor that contributes to the high percentage of scholarships granted to students who had prepared for college through boarding school education. Boarding schools promote an exclusive environment that caters to mold an individual to be ready for college life. With its highly demanding academic curriculum to its highly qualified professors who take part in the learning of students and the overall feel of independency of living away from home and making it on your own has greatly influenced boarding school graduates to their advantage. With this more parents are feeling that they have made the right decision in investing in a boarding school education even with its high price tag.

An important factor to consider as one of the qualification of the Rhodes scholarship is its requirement that an applicant should be truthful, courageous and has a moral force of character that is potential for leading his or her fellow students. Most boarding schools are equipped with the necessary trainings and workshops on instilling camaraderie, leadership and moral responsibility in its students. Aside from teaching academics they are immersed into the values of being responsible, independent, and reliable in their various extracurricular activities.

A graduate from The Hill School in Pennsylvania, who is a recipient of the 2010 Rhodes scholarship, attested that he owes much of what he has to his boarding school experience. Not only did it prepared him for the vast academic curriculum he will be facing in college but rather more of a preparation into the person he needs to become to survive college. The ability to be able to interact closely and work together with colleagues, teachers, staff and administrators and be able to adapt to different cultures, beliefs and values of everyone else without sacrificing individuality is the best lesson in life.

All such ceremonies are poignant, but this one stood out.

Two high school seniors with severe autism received certificates to mark the completion of their 12th year of school Thursday. They attend an alternative program called Step-Up, at the Stepping Stones Center in Indian Hill. The program for autistic teens is the only one of its kind in Greater Cincinnati.
Frank Tolliver couldn’t stop smiling as he held his certificate and posed for photos. Eric Cain was more reserved and probably wondered if people would ever stop snapping pictures.

“It’s good!” Frank said of his moment in the spotlight. He wore his mother’s cap and gown.

“I am so proud of him,” said his mother, Sandra Tolliver. “We are looking for nothing but good things from him.”

Eric’s mom, Dorothy Payne, was proud, too: “I’m not a crier, but I might cry later.”

It was the first such ceremony for the Step-Up program, which is about 4 years old. Technically, it wasn’t a graduation but a completion ceremony. The two will continue at Stepping Stones because school districts are obligated to educate special needs students until age 22.

Those in the Step-Up program for teens have classic autism, which is the most severe form. Among their characteristics: hypersensitivity to their environment, including noises, touches and other stimuli; non-verbal; aggressive or violent behavior.

Those who run the Step-Up program see progress in all eight students currently enrolled.

Read the news article here.

Phillips Academy (also known as Phillips Andover or P.A. or simply Andover) is a co-educational University preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12. The school is located in Andover, Massachusetts, north of Boston.

Phillips Academy is the oldest continuously running incorporated boarding school in the United States, established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr. Phillips Academy’s endowment stood around $670 million on June 30, 2006, the third-highest of any American secondary school.

The academy traditionally educated its students for Yale (and to a lesser extent, Harvard and Amherst), but students now matriculate to a wide range of colleges and universities.

Among other notable alumni, Andover has educated two American Presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, four Medal of Honor recipients, inventor Samuel Morse, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The Phillipian, the school’s student-run newspaper, is the oldest secondary school newspaper in the US. Likewise, the Philomathean Society is the oldest high school debate society in the nation, established in 1825.

Reference and picture credits.