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It's no surprise that more than 60 percent of students enroll in boarding schools because of the promise of better education. More than 90 percent of students concede they find their schools academically challenging, and the figures back it up: boarding school students spend more than twice as many hours (17 vs. 8) a week on homework than their peers in public schools.

Thanks to the unique and encouraging campus environment boarding schools provide, students are tremendously active outside the classroom. Across the globe, boarding school students participate in more extracurricular activities than other students, whether it is exercising and playing sports (12 hours vs. 9 hours), engaging in creative endeavors like music and painting (6 hours vs. 4-5 hours), or participating in student government and club activities (35 percent vs. 27 percent).

One distinctive characteristic of boarding schools is that character development counts as much as academics. The environment--in which teachers live among their students and students live away from home--lends itself to the cultivation of self-discipline and independent thought. Leadership opportunities also emerge. More than three quarters of boarding school students say they have been given leadership opportunities, a far higher percentage than public and private school students. At the same time, students gain the distinct advantage of regular interaction with their teachers outside of the academic setting.

It is almost universally acknowledged that boarding school environments--through the balance of greater mentor guidance and greater personal responsibility--deliver graduates to university with an unequaled level of preparation. 87 percent of graduates concur, while nearly 80 percent added that they were equally prepared for the non-academic aspects of college life, including independence, social life and time management.

Beyond college, boarding school graduates are most often professionally accomplished and philanthropically active adults. By mid-career, more boarding school graduates achieve top management positions with more frequency than students from other schools. More impressively, 60 percent of alumni give to social service organizations, compared with 46 percent of all others.