—

[ShenanAnna]

There are some great responses here.

I agree that the chosen boarding high school is just out of realistic reach for OP.

What does seem within reach is to enhance the high school academics where they are with online, community college courses, studying on her own, etc., while using the ranch-type resources locally to learn management and horse-related everything. It’s also true that having your own horse at home is likely to give you more saddle time than at school. It’s also a good idea to ride/experience many horses. Look beyond the hunter/jumper world for these experiences.

You say you want to make connections in the horse world unavailable in your area. Wouldn’t it make more sense to make those connections closer to the time you’ll be needing/using them?

Going to college is probably a pretty good idea, whether you choose a career in the horse world or not. A degree or coursework in an accessible, well-paying profession can serve you well in any case. Even horse professionals can get injured or age out of such a physically demanding profession, and some just decide to do other work.

As you’ll find in this and other threads over and over, many folks choose to get established in a financially secure position before taking up horses after school. That’s how I did it – master’s degree, internship, temporary position that turned permanent, share-boarding to reconnect with the horse world, then a fixer-upper horse that could do (and had done) everything I wanted.

So many more options than you’ve encountered in your young life! Spend a bit of time reading these threads and you’ll learn so much – from people who have done it. And don’t discount your parents and school counselors as sources of experience, either.

Good luck!

[LSBC]

I can tell you for a fact this type of school does not help you get into college. It also does not often help you get into a D1 riding program. We too have six figure (tax write off) school horses, a robust show team (WEF, Devon, etc.) as well as a winning IEA team with at least 10 riders competing in the Big Eq each year. In the last five years, maybe 2 or 3 have gotten scholarships to ride in D1 in college - and they had to show at Maclay Finals, WIHS, and Medal Finals AT LEAST. These D1 schools are not choosing kids who aren’t competing in those finals. Remember, the cost of the school is the basis, but I could see you easily paying at least $15K more to show.
I’m not trying to get you down on your dream, but as someone who has gone though this and also facilitates this process for other students, it is exceptionally difficult.

[vxf111]

There is no realistic legal way a high school aged person can earn $50,000 in 6 months with no lead time or substantial assistance from an adult with a serious network.

Can you make great money doing all the things suggested on this thread (braiding, pet sitting, running a summer camp, etc.) sure. Especially with experience, an established network/business/connections, and the flexibility/freedom that comes with not having to attend school or be subject to work limitations for minors. But the OP has none of that. She cannot snap her fingers and have a full schedule of braiding all summer long, nor transport herself to shows and stay in a hotel without significant parental support. Of course this is all if her braids are even up to snuff. Nor can she snap her fingers and have a petsitting client arranged every day that she can get to/from all summer long on some magical schedule. Nor does she have the overhead to run a summer camp. These are all ways to earn some money and maybe could be maximized into $50,000 if everything were to fall into near-magical-place for someone not in high school… but that ignores the OP’s reality.

I hate to be the naysayer here but these are great ways to earn SOME money and perhaps if the OP had started a few years ago she could have chipped away at the sum here and there over time… but it is unrealistic to expect the OP is going to earn $50,000 with no runway doing anything within the realm of possibility for her.

[dmveventer]

Unfortunately $20k is not any more realistic than $50k. To make $20k after taxes you would need to earn about $150 per day almost every single day for the next 5 months. The fact that you’re talking about “only” $20k like it’s no big deal tells me you’ve probably never had a job or dealt with finances before, and don’t have the experience needed to make such an expensive decision. I’m assuming the school is going to need an enrollment decision fairly soon so you won’t have time to see if you can earn the money before you commit to spending it, and as several other posters have pointed out if these costs are annual you’re not going to have any way to pull together next year’s tuition.

Your parents are right, you can either have the horse or the school. If your focus is riding, keeping your own horse is the smarter call. Finishing high school in your hometown is not the end of the world. Lots of people go to rural schools in towns they don’t love and things turn out just fine. The quality of your high school doesn’t really have an impact on college admissions as long as you get good grades, and then you can choose to go to college in a different part of the country or in a city or whatever you want to try out.

You’ll find though that you’re going to experience favoritism and unfairness and feeling out of place at times no matter where you end up, including the boarding school. These are things everyone goes through and they don’t stop after high school. Learning to make the most of less than ideal situations is an important skill that will serve you well in life. I hope no matter what choice you end up making here that you find a way to appreciate what you have and make the best of what’s in front of you.

[Ponyplusaninch]

I’m going to be the odd one that says I don’t thinking boarding school is a bad idea necessarily for this OP or others. I’ve read a lot of “high school doesn’t have an impact on college” in this thread, and to some extent that’s true. It’s a rare day a college/university cares about what high school you went to for admittance purposes. That said, high school in some ways can be as formative if not more so than college because it’s prime time to cut your teeth and figure out how to learn.

If someone can make it work to go to an independent school and/or boarding school, I could not recommend it enough. The kids I know that did (and I’ll admit I have some bias—both my great aunt and my uncle were deans at a couple well-known boarding schools) came into undergrad knowing how to get shit done and finding things are a lot easier than expected. And generally speaking, they were just better settled. Knew how to be on their own, room well with others, etc. When you can be that settled at school, you can get a lot more about of the actual college experience and excel more readily in your academics.

OP, I really think it depends on your intent/what you think you want to get out of this opportunity. If the end goal is in fact to get more riding opportunities and eventually become a professional rider, there are some better paths that will take you there (I’m thinking a working student role and doing online schooling, looking at community college courses for business, etc. among other options).

But if you recognize the value that this type of education could set you up for in your college academic life and ultimately career–and realizing maybe it’s best to ride as an amateur–then I think you should seriously consider leasing out your horse and going for it. The timing of leasing out your horse I recognize isn’t ideal; however, I think what your parents may be trying to impart to you is the lesson that if you want something bad enough, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

Others in this thread have commented on how tricky it is to earn that much money in a summer. It’s not that it can’t be done but it is rarely done without a lot of hard work and other sacrifices.

If you’re still gung-ho to go down the path of trying to earn the money, I would highly recommend considering lawn mowing services if you’re not afraid of some physical labor. In our neighborhood, we’ve got a kid in high school who is raking in more than $3k/mo doing lawn care. It is not light work for the faint of heart, but he does it on Friday/Saturday/Sunday and has a regular roster of clients.

I’d also prepare for the reality if you can’t raise enough money–what happens then? What path are you willing to take next?

p.s. IDK why folks are being so opinionated on the OP’s fam’s finances when we really don’t know. Like unless we see some bank statements, who knows what their parents can/can’t afford. I don’t think it’s particularly fair to pass judgement on that.

[OverandOnward]

@Ponyplusaninch

It’s not that it can’t be done

Yes it is. It is that it can’t be done. Not $20k, not $50k.

OP is not living out a fictional story. Trying to follow that path will lead to missed opportunities. And a huge amount of frustration and wasted time and energy that could have gone to a better outcome.

@Ponyplusaninch

p.s. IDK why folks are being so opinionated on the OP’s fam’s finances when we really don’t know.

From the first post:

@LilahEquestrian

and got a $25,000 riding scholarship but unfortunately it still is not enough to cover the $50,000 more needed.

They don’t have it. Or they aren’t making this much available, as they are wisely budgeting for her future tuition.

[Scribbler]

All we know is that the parents gave the OP a response that is equal to “we aren’t going to pay this.” It’s true that we don’t know whether they absolutely could not pay this, or if they could make sacrifices and pay this, or if they could easily pay this but think it is not worth the cost. All of these are completely valid positions on the part of the parents.

The costs for this boarding school are at the far upper end of independent schools, and such schools are designed for the super wealthy. Obviously they confer benefits for their students, which is why the wealthy continue to support them. I’d argue they likely confer more benefits on the very wealthy because they help remove the kids from potentially extremely indulgent family situations and can structure teaching responsibilities. There was a reason high end boys’ boarding schools like Eton were so notoriously Spartan and even harsh, to instil some resilience and stamina into children of the upper classes ( and send them out as officers of Empire). They also gave more supervision to children whose parents were busy being wealthy socialites.

Not every child needs that reality check

But if your parents can’t or won’t fund the costs, there’s about zero possibility for a teen to raise the money. This school costs more than the average family household income.

[Ponyplusaninch]

@OverandOnward

Trying to follow that path will lead to missed opportunities. And a huge amount of frustration and wasted time and energy that could have gone to a better outcome.

Sometimes you have to let young people make decisions that cause a lot of frustration, wasted time, and energy for them to be real learning opps. And miss opportunities

I know there were days my parents were about ready to pull their hair out—or my hair—over trying to get me to make life decisions they firmly believed better for me, but I had to take the long hard road to learn the lesson they already knew.

To be clear, the OP’s situation is a very fortunate learning opportunity at a level most kiddos won’t ever experience.

I 100% agree there are better paths to take if getting more H/J exposure and riding at a higher level is the end goal—I think quite a few have made good suggestions for what getting there might look like.

Hopefully the OP is doing some deep thinking, because there are a lot of interesting perspectives to glean from the thread.

[Scaramouch]

I apologize if I’ve missed this detail, but OP are you just starting 9th grade this fall or are you further into high school? If you still have four years of HS ahead of you, it might be worth changing the goal (and the conversation with your parents) to staying where you are for 9th and 10th grade, and deferring the boarding school until your junior and senior years. That would give you a couple of years to help earn enough money to significantly contribute to the costs and, maybe just as importantly, demonstrate to your parents that you’re seriously committed to this dream. That would also give you the most “bang” for your tuition money, since your junior and senior years are going to be the most impactful to your overall academic and life trajectory. Just a thought!

[Bogie]

@LilahEquestrian

I would like to be able to compete in multiple disciplines and be successful. My parents cant afford the nice horses so I have to make all of mine, and they don’t have the funds to pay to own multiple horses just to compete in the bigeq, jumpers, etc. If I went to this school I would be able to compete on different horses and be successful. After, I would like to go to Texas A&M and study equine sciences along with barn management classes, and compete on their equestrian team.

It’s hard to give up on a dream. I think you need to look long and hard about the long term feasibility and the cost/benefit ratio. And the ability of the program to reach your goals.

You said none of the riders at the school are competiting higher than 3’. That sounds to me like a horse issue. Just because the horses were donated for $$$ doesn’t mean that they can still perform at the level you’re looking at.

But more important is the long term feasibility of spending your highschool and college years pursuing an equestrian job. I know people who have succeeded and a lot of people who live hand to mouth, nursing injuries. As part of your research, I suggest finding out what your future might look like if you were a professional rider or a barn manager. It’s easy to look at the people at the top of the sport, who are winning big money Grand Prixes and aspire to that life; it’s another to look at the young riders trying to achieve that. I suggest reading Tik Maynard’s book, In the Middle are the Horseman. Among other things he covers is the life of a working student trying to gain a foothold in the professional life of a trainer/rider. It’s not an easy life.

[Lost_Shoe]

OP, congratulations on your scholarship! That is a big achievement. It is commendable that you want to work hard to try to make this work out. By following through with your plan, you will likely out-earn your peers who will be working full time at minimum wage summer jobs (40 hr/week x 9.50 = 380 week). But to manage expectations, if all goes well and you are able to line up enough odd jobs, you will likely only earn a couple thousand/month, at a maximum. It is still worth it to follow through, as a good work ethic will serve you well for your lifetime, and perhaps this is all that your parents need to see to send you to this school with your horse (assuming they are wealthy).

There will be 3 categories of horse girls at this school:

1. Girls who bring their own horses. Of this group are the ones who will be showing at non-IEA shows and jumping higher than say 2’6”.
2. Girls who do not have their own horse and who dream of having their own horse in their backyard. They will likely think you are nuts for choosing boarding school over your horse.
3. Girls who have or had their own horse but cannot bring them to school, and made this decision based on academic/other factors, not related to riding. Everyone I know who went to boarding school fits in this category.

Although attending the school without your horse will allow you to maintain your skills and improve some, do not expect to jump any higher than around 2’6” on a lesson horse (this is industry practice to preserve the lesson horses). From a riding perspective, you would be much better off with your horse. But realize that bringing a horse to prep school is something that only the super wealthy can actually do. One compromise to talk to your parents about is to lease out your horse only during to school year, so that you can at least ride her during the summers.

[trakehners]

@Bogie

You said none of the riders at the school are competing higher than 3’. That sounds to me like a horse issue. Just because the horses were donated for $$$ doesn’t mean that they can still perform at the level you’re looking at.

But more important is the long term feasibility of spending your highschool and college years pursuing an equestrian job.

Seconding this. A horse that I used to ride was donated to the equine studies program at a university and, while I don’t know her donation value, I can guarantee you (general) that it vastly exceeded her listed sales price. I had a lot of fun with her but she wasn’t an easy ride and she ended up being returned to her owner after a few years because she just wasn’t enjoying being a university horse.

OP, I used to have a lot of dreams about being a pro in the horse world. Then I grew up and realized that I actually really like having health insurance that will cover most of my medical bills when my horse kicks me in the ribs and puts me in the hospital for three days with a liver laceration, and being in a career that will let me buy the property that I want one day. Yes, I work full-time, but I have a ton of exposure to various parts of the horse world because my trainer happily lets me reprise my barn rat role, gladly involves me in whatever she’s doing, and is definitely already plotting to have me moonlight as her FEI groom once she has a horse back at that level.

The most successful people I know in the horse world (from a financial, business stability perspective) who didn’t already come from money are people who worked a “real” job before they turned pro and really understand how to set up their horse business as a business. My trainer was a vet tech in a private local equine practice for almost a decade. My old barn owner was the sales director at a hotel before she went full-time with the horse thing. Don’t underestimate the value of a seemingly non-horsey education and career before you go pro. I still have a personal ambition to set up a little program dedicated to helping make Thoroughbreds A Thing again in eventing. It’s not what I was envisioning when I dreamt about going pro as a kid, but the difference is that now I can do my own taxes and can always find work (whether part- or full-time) as an accountant/finance person, rather than being solely reliant on the horses for income (or benefits).

[541hunter]

@Ponyplusaninch

I’m going to be the odd one that says I don’t thinking boarding school is a bad idea necessarily for this OP or others. I’ve read a lot of “high school doesn’t have an impact on college” in this thread, and to some extent that’s true. It’s a rare day a college/university cares about what high school you went to for admittance purposes.

I tend to agree with you—there are some serious advantages to certain private high schools.

Admissions officers may not care about the high school at the top of your transcript (although I will argue that there are definitely some names that will catch their eye), but they certainly care about what classes are on that transcript and all the extra opportunities, experiences, and test scores that are often far more readily available at college prep-focused high schools. Think of the International Science & Engineering Fair. Annual participation was required at my very academically intense private school, and your project made up 25-30% of your grade for whatever science class you were in that year. We always had a couple students make it to the finals in Sweden—one of my classmates found a way to purify polluted wells using water hyacinths and put it into practice in rural Bangladesh. You bet that was a major part of why she was accepted to 3 Ivies, MIT, and Stanford (though she ended up at Michigan so she could work in a particular research lab). That’s not an opportunity available at many rural publics, let alone a requirement.

And that’s to say nothing of what happens after you get admitted to whatever school.

College was SO EASY after my high school, I was shocked. I was in a top-10 journalism program, double majored, worked 15-20 hours a week in a job that ended up getting me hired full-time immediately post-grad, wrote for numerous campus outlets, studied abroad for a year, and rode (first on the IHSA team, then a year of USEF shows while working back gate to pay for it). Oh, and I have ADHD, so it’s not like I’m particularly good at time management lol. Graduated in 4 with a 3.8. In high school, by contrast, I always felt like the “dumb/lazy” one in my grade. (And I will say there’s a whole other side of the elite high school model that leaves everyone feeling inadequate and constantly striving for “better,” which can set you up for some fun mental health issues later. @trakehners I laughed at your description of “the simulation”—my high school friends and I have veeeery similar conversations about our experiences these days! There’s just no explaining to someone who hasn’t been through it.)

Not sure if the one OP has chosen is truly an elite college prep school, but I certainly understand why a boarding school could set her up better for the next step than her local public school, both in terms of admissions and success in her future university classes.

One word of warning on the Equine Science degree route: OP if you do that, PLEASE think about a backup in the form of a second major or something. A very dear friend of mine got an equine science degree, became a successful pro and was on a real upward trajectory in her riding career. And then she had a career-ending injury in her early 30s. She can still ride, thankfully, but riding 5-10 horses every day would cripple her. She’s now going back to school because her equine science bachelor’s plus resume of only riding gigs wasn’t ever going to get her a job in another industry. So if you’re lucky enough to go to college before launching a pro career, think about setting yourself up with an insurance policy, something you can fall back on if you get injured, old, or just plain sick of riding other people’s horses.

[OverandOnward]

@trakehners

@Bogie

You said none of the riders at the school are competing higher than 3’. That sounds to me like a horse issue. Just because the horses were donated for $$$ doesn’t mean that they can still perform at the level you’re looking at.

Seconding this.

Thirding this.

It is black-type written policy in many lesson programs, not just schools, that lesson horses do not jump higher than a fairly low height.

Note that the IEA does not do higher jumps. I don’t know their max, but it will conform with their member schools’ policies.

Even the shows these programs attend regularly will have divisions accommodating the programs by conforming to their height limits.

Insurance is another huge reason. May be the primary reason, even above horse welfare. The change in the cost of insurance depending on what activities are taking place, especially jumping, is sharp enough to make or break a program. Including a school program. They can’t afford to jump higher. Their students couldn’t afford the lessons if they did jump higher, due to passing on the insurance costs.

And insurance agents and companies have strange ways of finding out that yes, jumping over their permitted height is happening in the program. Also that cross-country jumps, including ditches, banks, etc., are on the premises and being used in lessons.

The program gets a letter from their insurance company advising of new rates that are sudden, unexpected and catastrophic. Either pay up, or be dropped. It can be hard to fix this with the company and get the old rates back. I was in a program that had this happen, and the cost of the program went up over 50% overnight. They explained why. It was not their choice, but it was necessary because of the change in insurance cost.

Plus, even if a program starts comparing rates with other companies, the program activities information will carry over, even if the program claims to max at a lower height. I don’t know exactly how the companies find out so much that isn’t disclosed by the inquirer, but many of them do.

Do not expect to jump more than 2’ to 2’6" on lesson horses, maybe 3’ in some programs. Whatever the max height is in that program, that is truly the max height, regardless of the super-cool jumpers they are using. I don’t know if this changes if the horse is leased from the program. Maybe some establishments will exceed what they are allowed. But don’t expect it.

And btw this max height info is not likely to be included in their brochures and promotional communications (including school visits). You have to ask, and if the answer is not direct, you have to keep asking, insist, on knowing their max jump height. And complexity, including oxers, jumps with decorative fill, and cross-country obstacles.

The program doesn’t want students who are uninformed about all of this to rule out their program when they themselves know that the student won’t find different elsewhere.

As I said in a couple of places above … insist on knowing why their students don’t show at higher levels, and ask if there is a policy restriction on height. Don’t accept a re-directed or evasive answer. Find out – and do this for every school or lesson program that anyone inquires about.

[trubandloki]

I would agree with this theory if the OP said they want to go to a college prep high school that had a strong academic program, but they have said they feel going to this high school will help them get a job with horses.

@LilahEquestrian

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.

[hoopoe]

important to keep in mind re minimal wage jobs when calculating earning potentials

in the current real world, many workers are not getting full 40 hours, even if they are open to it. this requires them to have more than one job and often they are at the mercy of short notice time schedule flux , which makes the situation even more unmanageable.

[ShenanAnna]

I wonder whether there is a middle ground between this elite boarding school and the OP’s local high school, perhaps a lower-priced academically- oriented one that the parents might fund or OP could get full scholarships to, or a lower-level (and lower-priced) horse-oriented one that is not only affordable/accessible but will help OP in college and beyond.

Yes, this is not what OP currently says they really want, but options or alternatives may become necessary.

[trubandloki]

@ShenanAnna

or a lower-level (and lower-priced) horse-oriented one that is not only affordable/accessible

Does this exist?

[ShenanAnna]

I don’t know, but imagine there are schools with riding programs and contacts or at least are located in areas with the horse accessibility that OP currently lacks.

[BostonHJ]

On the horse/finances side of things, if you bring your horse to school, will you also need to pay for the gap between boarding her there and keeping her at home? Because that in and of itself could be substantial money, easily $2k a month (plus shipping her to and from annually). If the lesson horses at the school are jumping small jumps, this tells me it is not the path to getting you in the BigEq or Junior Jumper rings - and that’s fine! I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but you have your whole life to jump big jumps. As other posters have said, unless you are the child of a pro, the best way to get into the bigger rings is with your own money that you earn outside of horses.

If your parents won’t fund/allow a gap year before college, you can always take a gap year AFTER college to be a working student for a show barn. You may lose your amateur status for a few years doing this but that isn’t the end of the world.

Of course your high school education matters, but prep school can be a real sink or swim experience, and potentially lonely for anyone but certainly for someone coming from more modest means than someone whose family is legacy and/or paying full tuition. There are 100% ways to have a more interesting academic experience than going to boarding school - others have already mentioned these. I went to junior college my senior year of high school which earned me both high school and college credit. I was able to schedule all of my classes for Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could work and ride MWF.

Finally, I know some high schoolers who are making an absolute killing financially… doing junk removal. They started with a cheap pickup truck for hauling. They work really, insanely hard, are very nice and responsive, and recruit some paid friends to help them when they need extra hands. In the summer they work more than full time and during the school year they will do jobs before and after school. It is the opposite of glamorous but they are easily making “adult” money - $50k plus a year.