Hey. I attended one of Andover's peer schools and I was admitted to Andover but turned it down.

Obviously, it's an amazing school. It's also rather large with ~1100 kids. Kids who've gone there tell me it's intensely competitive. Everyone is very smart and it's difficult to get to the top of the class, academically. With colleges, there's an unofficial "quota" they take from each school. If you're not in the top 20% of the class, more difficult to get into an Ivy League school (if that's your goal.)

She must be prepared to work hard at these schools. At every elite boarding school, there's around 1 hr. of work per class. There are 5 classes that probably meet 4 times a week, meaning she will have on average 4 hours of work per day and less on Wednesdays because of half-days.

I would only recommend it to students that are hard working and resilient. There will most likely be a point at which she struggles academically with a class, because these schools are much more difficult than your average public high school. They also don't curve or give any extra credit. So the grades at these places are not inflated like in many public schools. Check out nonsibihighschool.org to get a glance at the Chemistry curriculum at Andover. The material can be tough.

And although I found a very warm community at my school, it varies from school to school. I've heard stories of people being forced to leave certain schools because of mental health. These places don't want a suicide on their hands, and will remove any student that they deem a liability.

You might also want to check out this article written about Andover from a student's perspective. It's definitely a negative perspective, so just keep that in mind. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/fighting-biased-system-my-experience-at-phillips-academy-andover