Not if you are a junior. Juniors can do all that stuff and still be a junior.
1 Like
Guess I wasnât seeing why they did.
Got it, I am zero help with most things rules related. Thanks!
1 Like
Sounds like your parents are trying to teach you a life lesson. And bring you back down to some reality⊠kudos to them!
There will be no fomo here. You need to think about your future and what itâs going to cost you. Your parents arenât a blank check for you to do whatever you want. You are going to be an adult soon and as Mick Jagger said âyou canât always get what you want.â 
13 Likes
OP, if you want to PM me- I too went to my complete DREAM all girls boarding school a loooong time ago, but I hear the tuition now is about 75k⊠If itâs the same school, and if my experience is at all typical (I think it is) DISREGARD the people saying to go to a different school 
I wouldnât trade those 4 years for all the money in the world. And no, I didnât bring a horse, but yes I did ride on the team.
As far as making money? If selling the horse is not an option- pet/ house/ farm sitting. It pays 100-150/ day (some people charge more, or by the animal etc) and itâs easy work, and cash. The pet sitter we use (100/ day, she stays in our apartment, 1 dog) also has a âreal jobâ but she makes 60k a year just pet sitting.
4 Likes
Your best bet would be to look for additional scholarships. I think itâs unlikely you will be able to earn that kind of money in 6 months (and I know I for sure couldnât now as an an adult, let alone a middle school or high school student!) Start by contacting the schoolâs admissions/financial aid office and asking if they have any recommendations, but also search online for private school scholarships and grants. Some are open to students from certain states, some are by income, some are restricted to members of clubs, religious groups, etc. Your parentsâ jobs or organizations they are members of might be possibilities as well.
5 Likes
Yep. OP, your parents are not lying to you. They seem to have a grasp on the situation.
I canât think of any way for a minor with not even a completed high school education to make $50k in 5 months.
The majority of adults alive in this country today cannot achieve that. A relatively-speaking few adults with elite educations and highly-compensated jobs and/or income opportunities are able to do that.
If you do find a way, please share it here! 
But then ⊠what about the following yearsâ tuitions until graduation?
Oh, and, selling your soul ⊠many people do sell their soul when they see $$$ on the horizon. But most donât get $50k in 5 months for it.
Agreed. (Also, re to the rest of this post not quoted above, this seems to be a high school / secondary school, not a college.)
OP, it sounds as if your parents could actually put you through other schools. That is very much the way to go in this situation.
Many young people do not go to their ideal college because it is out of their price range. They go to the school they can afford, and on to good lives afterwards.
OP, if you did sell your soul to go to your ideal school, in a few sad years I donât think you would think that it had been worth it.
It is easy to idealize an image of something when we havenât yet had the fully immersive experience. Believing that something is the perfect experience, the perfect solution, rarely turns out to be true.
It is good to have idealistic dreams. Part of maturing is being able to see the boundaries between dreams and reality. And reconcile and rationalize them, so that you do see the value of what something can offer, both in positive and âlearningâ experiences.
To do something for income like the riding school discussed above requires a major investment in horses and facilities. Unless those are provided at no charge and already in place, the expenses of starting and then maintaining a riding school can be significant. Some people can make it earn well. But it doesnât always work out that way. And there is an early curve to build clientele that will eat up part of the 5 month lead time.
If your horse were to go to school with you, could you teach lessons on her enough to pay her expenses? What happens if the lessons arenât enough? Or if there is a down month, such as holiday seasons?
FWIW ⊠some young people fantisize that they will do the Bill Gates thing (didnât finish college at Harvard), or the Steve Jobs thing, etc. & so on. But thatâs not a realistic take on the actual experience of Gates, Jobs and others as young entrepreneurs. And it took time to make it to the big payout.
9 Likes
For OPâs benefit, as someone for whom expensive high school did pay off, hereâs a reality check from the other side of the discussion:
My parents made a conscious decision to put my older brotherâs and my education before everything elseâpossessions, vacations, where we lived, everything. The preschool that we both went to was private, as was our elementary/middle school, and we both ended up at the best prep school in the area for high school even though our parents absolutely couldnât afford the tuition, all else being equal. My brother was the star soccer player, so he got plenty of financial aid. I was always a great student and we both added a nice dose of socioeconomic diversity to the place, so I was on a named (endowed) grant for three of my four years (specifically designated for a lower-income girl that the aid office identified) and had a nice âstandardâ financial aid package for the fourth.
The price of that grant was writing a letter to the grantor every year expressing my gratitude and letting her know what I was doing at school as a result of her generosity. The price of that education was giving up any hope of horses for my high school years, because my parents couldnât afford what remained of the tuition and also support one lesson a week or even every other week for me. I knew that when I was twelve, when I was thirteen, before we âsigned the Magna Cartaâ (as my mother likes to say) to send me to that school, and I made that choice anyway.
I made that choice because I knew that when you went through the 30 under 30 list for our city, at least half the people on it went to my high school. When you looked at the list of CEOs of corporations based here, half of them went to that school or sent their kids to it (or both). That school has churned out Pulitzer Prize winners, screenwriters, musicians, Tony award winners, legal scholars, film and television actors, notable climate and LGBTQ+ rights activists, politicians of all flavors, a Super Bowl winner, and so many others (including a handful of professional show jumpers, although we didnât have so much as a riding club). Even if I didnât end up being one of them (and I havenât, so far), those were the people that my parents knew Iâd bump elbows with. Those were the people that I knew Iâd bump elbows with. They taught me how to fit in with them, and that has opened countless doors for me.
Those doors that were opened put me in a position where I can afford most of the things that I wanted in the horse world when I was younger (after keeping my head down and working my butt off in college and to get my CPA license ASAP after I graduated). I can be in the barn that I want to be in. I can train with the trainer that I want to ride with. I can afford (most of) the shows that I want to attend, and buy whatever saddle pads I want, and pay for whatever vet bills my horse decides to incur as a result of his nonsense. I gave up four(ish) years of riding as a teenager to put myself in the position to have these things now, because I knew even then that I was playing the long game (and truly, if I didnât love horses so much, Iâd be a poor PhD candidate right now, but, for better or worse, I love horses more than I hate working in business).
OP, you say this:
My question for you is, why? Why would you sell your soul to go there? Is it just to have the experience of going to a private boarding school where you can ride (and itâs fine if thatâs the reason), or is there a longer-term reason driving you to it? You need to know the answers to those questions.
Those kind of schools are hard, and I donât mean academically. Theyâre absolutely beautiful from the outside, but I had my fair share of mental breakdowns trying to deal with the pressure and the constant competition and the perpetual need to perform. My friends and I still refer to our school as âthe simulationâ because it is genuinely impossible to get anyone to understand what our experiences were like unless they went through it too. I wouldnât trade my time there for anything, because it left me with wonderful friends in the form of both schoolmates and former teachers, and it taught me how to put my nose to the grindstone and work hard, but I also wouldnât wish it on anyone unless they had a good reason for putting themselves through it. Itâll mess with you on some level no matter who you are or where you come from, and you have to decide if the potential benefits are worth the very real psychological and financial costs.
25 Likes
Others have made some very great points very eloquently. I can only second those that gently say this is not an obtainable goal, short of selling or leasing your horse (and even that may not be enough, I am not sure what the lease market value of your horse would be). I will also add as someone who did the whole âsell my soul to go to horse schoolâ thing, I wouldnât do it again and regularly recommend against it unless the cost is absolutely the same/ free. Iâm unclear on if the OP is talking about college or high school. Iâd doubly recommend against it if we are referring to high school - no job will care where you went to high school (corporate doesnât care and horse people donât put much stock into horse schools). The expense is immense and while it may seem in the moment that you are setting yourself up for future success that isnât necessarily the case. Speaking from my own experience, I (and arguably most) would have been better off if I had gone to the free college available to me. Instead I have student loan debt (partly due to not getting full scholarship and partly due to funding my horse care through college) that I am spending what feels like every waking moment working to pay off. It has held up my buying a home, showing my horses, and other big (and small) life events. My biggest advice to anyone is pursue the most affordable education available to you without taking out any loans.
If you are wanting to make enough money on your own in 5 months, you are looking for a job that pays roughly $90 an hour and is full time. $50K / 5 months = $10K a month. That does not exist for someone your age. That doesnât exist for most adults either in their lifetime.
9 Likes
Not to derail too much here but curious if you could elaborate here? What sort of doors/ opportunities do you attribute specifically to going to that school?
1 Like
The cost of board is cheaper than most of the barns weâve been to, only being about $1,200 a month. The cost of the riding program is $5000. Shows are also less than the barn we show with now, being around the cost of board for one month.
A lot of people were telling me not to go and save it for college, but donât really realize that I canât make connections in the horse world without going to this school. I live in the middle of nowhere where H/J isnât a thing. The closest show barn to me is 2hrs away, and we tried boarding there but the trainer was shady and was way too expensive for us. Currently, I keep my horse at home and only show a few times a year. I canât have lessons very often, maybe once every 3 months do I get a lesson.
I think going to this school would help me move up in the riding industry as they have multi-million dollar lesson horses and I could pursue my dream of doing the big eq, and possibly the jr. jumpers. They also show at many different big venues and could help me find success in riding.
The only problem of leasing my horse out is that they may not let me compete at the level Iâm at now without my horse. I currently do the 3â3ââ Jr Hunters with my mare and qualified for the finals this year, but we donât know if we will go because if we do go to the school then the show on top of that it will be too much. My mare is really amazing, and when I rode one of their 3â6ââ Jr Hunters it couldnât even begin to compare to her.
Many graduates from the school have gone D1 and gotten scholarships from riding, or have gone pro to show with Olympians. One even recently won a 2* Grand Prix at Miami with Laura Kraut.
I think my best option now for making money this summer would be house-watching, grooming in my area, pet-sitting, etc. I will try to find more scholarships as suggested as well.
A lot of people are thinking Iâm going to try and make the $50,000 by myself, which I know isnât possible. I am going to aim for $15,000-$25,000 to help my parents pay and not show at all this summer.
If anyone still has any further suggestions Iâd love to hear them!
1 Like
Have you paid a braiding bill lately?
3 Likes
I want to know what school has multi million dollar school horses
39 Likes
They have a 2 million dollar one, two 1 million dollar ones, I think two 750k ones, and multiple 500k-250k ones. The thing thatâs a little off-putting is that not many people jump high. They told me I would be on their Varsity riding team as I would be their highest-level hunter (the other hunters do the Childrenâs and lower), and their best rider only does the 1.20m. Iâm not sure why they donât jump higher?
2 Likes
On an obvious level, I know a lot of people. Have I leveraged that directly into getting any of the jobs that Iâve had? No, but Iâve had the opportunity to (Iâve gotten multiple âHey, are you looking for a new job? So-and-so needs X in finance and it sounded like something you might be interested in. No? Okay, do you know of anyone who is looking?â texts from both friends and some seriously random people since I entered the workforce), and when you work in finance (and more specifically, in treasury) it can be helpful to name-drop that you know the family of the CEO of the biggest bank in town. The school also hosts alumni events all over the country (and internationally) multiple times a year and, shockingly, people actually show up to those things, so they remain perpetual networking events (we even have an app for that. Itâs functionally an alumni-exclusive LinkedIn).
On a more subtle level, it taught me things that youâd probably know already if you grew up in that social class, but I definitely didnât. My grandpa was a steel worker. My mom grew up in the middle of nowhere and had to actively train herself out of her âruralâ Appalachian accent to be taken seriously in professional settings (and she still slips sometimes). I had to learn how to dress, how to talk, how to carry myself, how to shake hands and maintain eye contact and how to not be intimidated by all those ~important~ people (they lose a lot of luster when they become your friendâs dad or that mom from the soccer team or the person who picked you and your friends up from a different friendâs house at 2am), which made me comfortable interacting with C-suite members in a way that isnât normal for people when theyâre fresh out of college.
Beyond that, itâs honestly hard to explain. My brother and I both repeatedly have the experience of forgetting how weird the whole thing is until weâre around people who donât get it and then itâs like, oh. None of that actually was normal, was it?
7 Likes
Jumping high has no bearing on ability. They likely want to keep their million dollar horses sound.
22 Likes
Generally speaking, those horses were probably donated to the school at that value as tax write offs when they would not actually sell for those prices. Maybe for reasons related to soundness, maybe for other reasons.
45 Likes
I would not put too much stock in what people say are the prices of these horses. In all likelihood, million $ horses are not sitting at boarding schools - they need show records with top trainers, juniors and programs to command those sale prices. Also, they would be more than capable of doing the 3â3â.
Not to say the horses arenât nice - Iâm certain they are - but the opportunity to ride million $ hunters is not likely at boarding school.
14 Likes
Never, actually. Never needed a horse braided so am admittedly very out of touch with braiding pricing. Is it reasonable for someone to make $2500 in a week or $5K in a 2 week period? Not sure how to average out cost per horse to $/ hour (it would take me well over an hour to braid 1 horse and likely not well).
OP what are your goals? What is your goal/ what do you hope to achieve by attending this school? What do you want to do after this school (assuming this is high school)? What do you want life to look like 10 years after that?
You mention that youâve qualified for nationals for the jr hunters - that is pretty impressive for someone who only lessons a few times a year. What specifically do you hope to learn at the school? Is the main draw the ability to ride other well schooled horses, learn a different discipline, jump higher, learn how to run a business? I ask as the school is a large investment and there may be other paths that lead to your Rome that arenât as expensive.
Also I want to commend you OP for seeking out ways to make this work and for taking all of the input in this thread in stride, even if it may be tough to hear.
4 Likes
Letâs say 10 horses a night, mane and tail ($125), for a total of $1,250 a night, Wednesday through Sunday. So $6,250 for the week. Some braiders will do 15 horses or more a night, which would come out to even more money.
There are also braiders who charge higher prices, but $125 for a mane and tail is not unusual at all.
Plus the out of pocket cost to get started is extremely low. A ladder, some yarn, a pair of scissors, a few other odds and ends, and a lot of practice.
6 Likes
