Will boarding school help me improve academically? Also what's the social life like?

I have recently finished my first year in (co-ed) boarding (Year 10/16 years old+) and I'm thrilled with the results. First of all, you're worried about your academics? It sounds as if I was in your position only a year ago...had the brains but not the self discipline etc. Well boarding improves your grades immensely. For example, last year I had been scoring around C/B's in my reports, however, this year I have achieved consistent A's. Boarding schools usually have "prep" after dinner, which is around 2 hours of studying each week night. My prep was located in the school's library and usually ran from 6:30 - 8:30 and they have teacher librarians on hand if you need any help. So really, it's a fantastic learning environment. Secondly, the social life. You're social life really just depends on the type of person you are. Some boarders like to hole themselves away in their rooms and not really talk to anyone. On the other hand, others like to talk in the common room and hang out. To enjoy boarding, one really needs to bond with those in the house, otherwise you'll will have a very miserable time. And the weekends, yes there are curfews (10:15pm for people wanting to leave or enter the house and whatever time, depending on the person on duty, for those staying in the house all night). But I just suggest making friends with day students and sleeping over at theirs. You can go clubbing/partying, but it all depends where exactly you're going to stay the night.

I know exactly what you're talking about!! My teachers always saw that I was intelligent but I was always more interested in meeting up with friends and stuff. In year 8 my parents asked me whether I wanted to go to boarding school, and at that age (12 btw) I though it would be really cool. However when I came it was really different from what i'd expected, I though it was gonna be like movies and stuff where you get massive rooms and parties every night. At my school, you technically end your school day at 7. Lessons end at 4, then you get an hours break and then we have this thing called prep-time, where you are forced to study by teachers, so you cant go to your room and you have to sit in your house's common room and study. At first I hated it because I though it was a waste of time, but later I understood that this was really benefiting. My grades are really good right now and are predicted to stay that way, simply because your forced to put in those extra three hours. After 7 it's dinner and everyone's free to do what they want (as long as it's on school grounds, and nothing illegal of course :p). On Saturday you're expected to do at least 4 hours work, but you're allowed to distribute this however you want, if you have a nice house master/mistress you can get away with doing it on Sunday instead (we went to this theme park for a whole day, so she told us it was fine to do our prep the day after :) The fact that our school's co-ed is really nice, you learn to become more independent and as it's a boarding school you form really close friends as you're with them loads of the time. Even though we're meant to be in our own houses at 10, people always sneak in and out, but we have to be really quiet. You have to be in your room by 11, rooms are shared with at least 1 other person at my age, but in sixth from you get your own, they're not really big, but they're okay i guess. At the moment i'm 15, so 16 next school year when i'll enter sixth form. Basically as you get older you get more 'rights' at our school, curfews are at 11, and prep time finishes at 5. Obviously if you're not that good at making yourself work then this might not be the best option, but you'll still be monitored regularly by you house master/mistress to make sure you're doing your work. On weekends if you want to go clubbing and things like that, you need to find some friends outside of school and say you're staying over with them (there's loads of other non-boarding schools around so that shouldn't be a problem, everyone does it :) you have to register that with your house master/mistress. We don't get many school parties, only the sixth form have a gala (prom kind of thing in England), but there's loads outside school and stuff. I know that our school is really relaxed about their students, i mean i'm sure that the heads of houses know that some of us are sneaking around at night, but ours is really nice and always laughs and says it's part of growing up :) A school called Radley College which is about half an hour away from ours (all boys) have expelled people for constantly being past their curfews, even when they're 17 (and their curfew are like 8 o'clock :p). It depends what you really want, all the Radley boys are really jealous of our school, some transferred and were really happy they did :)I hope this sort of helps, and good luck with choosing your school :)!!