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Boys' boarding schools

For a complete guide to boarding, including information about admissions, please see our introductory guide.

2. Choosing a school

Our boarding school guide has advice specific to finding boarding schools in Canada. For insights that are more general (on how to evaluate school options) we recommend you review our hub on choosing a school. You can also read our guides to questions to ask private schools and questions students get asked at school interviews.

Private school expos

Private school expos are ideal launching pads for your school-finding journey. All expos are held in the fall at a number of centres across Canada. There are three expos hosted in Ontario, one in Toronto, one in Halton-Peel, and one in Ottawa. Expos are also held each fall in Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary. All are opportunities to speak with administrators from leading boarding schools within the regions in which the expos are held.

Parent discussion forum

Word-of-mouth is another powerful tool in your school-finding arsenal. The Our Kids private school discussion forum allows you to discuss your options and debate topics around gifted education. You can use our community of parents, educational experts, alumni, and schools to help answer your questions and stimulate your thinking.

Upcoming open house events

Attending open houses is obviously a great way to learn more about a school and get a feel for the environment. For some advice on open house visits, go here. For questions to ask that are specific to boarding programs, refer to our main boarding school hub.

3. Tuition

Broadly speaking, the cost of boarding reflects the cost private school tuition in general, though with premiums added to cover housing and meals.

Many schools offer financial aid, including scholarships and bursaries. Financial aid is needs-based, and financial aid programs are created as a means of broadening the student base and attracting students, independent of means, who will contribute most to the culture of the school. Generally speaking, the larger and more expensive schools provide the most aid.

You can read more about financial aid and scholarships in our dedicated guide.

Below you'll find the range of costs at all boys boarding schools:

Institutional metrics

Our Kids Go to School specializes in listings of private, independent and boarding schools in Canada. Find extensive listings of boys' boarding schools from across Canada.

Boys' boarding schools allow young men the opportunity to learn in an environment away from the distractions created by daily exposure to young women. In a boarding school setting, boys are willing to take different risks and learn things they would not otherwise learn.

They are also exposed to less cultural and media pressures and are protected by the close scrutiny of administrators and teachers at the boarding school.

Boarding schools for boys:

• Allow boys and young men to participate in some activities that they might not otherwise when there are girls around. There are less concerns about appearance.
• May allow boys to challenge themselves in "non-traditional" subjects such as art and literature.
• Will simply afford them less opportunity to get "in trouble" with members of the opposite sex.

“The culture of schools tends to be defined by the dominant culture of society,” writes Garth Nichols, a member of the faculty of Greenwood School in Toronto. “These cultural ideals are messaged through schools’ language, curriculum, and traditions.”

Certainly, that’s been true throughout the ages. The first schools in Canada were boys’ schools less because of a desire to address the needs of boys that to address the needs of colonial society at a specific point in its history. They were boys’ schools by dint of reflecting the gender roles, the ideals, and the needs that existed in the culture at the time, prima among them being a need for human resources. It was understood that boys would grow to attain positions of leadership in political and military life. Schools were created in order to prepare them for those positions.

Schools continue to be defined by the dominant culture, including the position that boys’ schools have within the culture, though similarities end there. During the Victorian age, schools were means of establishing and maintaining a status quo, with the needs of society as the principal driver. Today, the opposite is true. Says Nicols, “It is critical that we interrupt dominant cultures by questioning norms and injecting new, more inclusive traditions into school life and curriculum.”

Programs, such as UCC’s Character Project, are designed to affect exactly that kind of cultural disruption. In 2015, Jim Power, principal at UCC, described the Character Project as a means of getting at something that he sees as essential to a boy’s education. “We can see how you’re doing in math, French, and English,” Power said during an address to the student body in 2015. “We can’t accurately determine, however, the more important questions: how do you deal with adversity? Do you demonstrate courage in the clutch? And most importantly, What kind of guy are you becoming?” An ability to answer those questions, Power believes, is as important as academic achievement. He added that the goal of the schools is, “to help you all find and become your best selves,” a process that includes social-emotional development, maturity, decision-making, and mental health.