Boarding Schools

Ever since I read Harry Potter when I was ten years old, I've wanted to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Though now that I've grow up a bit I have realized it gives a unrealistic outlook on how boarding schools actually work and how they are portrayed. When J.K. Rowling wrote the books she said she wasn't supporting the 1940s versions of boarding schools. She claimed the only reason she made Hogwarts a boarding school was because it is easier to write a novel about children without parental figures in the picture. You can see the appeal it gives to young children. They are thinking I get to go to Hogwarts away from my parents and have feasts three times a day. Also it is like you are living with your best friends during the school year (and you get to learn magic). I looked up a "real" boarding school called Wayland Academy in Wisconsin. Wayland's only goal is for you to graduate and get you into a four-year college. At Wayland they have a 100% placement rate into 4-year colleges and to get onto the Deans List you have to have at least a 4.0. The average day at Wayland's consists of waking up between 7-7:30am , then breakfast is served from 7-7:45am. Next classes start at 8:00am and end at 3:30pm, after that you have mandatory after school sports from 3:45- 5:30pm. Now you can finally have dinner and you have to have permission to go off campus. Then you are in the library and you have a Mandatory study time from 7:30- 9:30pm, then its lights out at 10:30pm. Between all of the activities you have to do I don't know where you could find time at Hogwarts to go explore the castle and defeat Voldemort. Personally I still think boarding schools would be fun but I might still be harboring unrealistic ideas about boarding schools.