Melia Robinson/BI

                               Phillips Exeter Academy came out on top.

      Going to a top boarding school can do more than help students         get into a good college — it can provide them with a powerful               alumni network, a solid education, and lifelong friends.

       We examined the most prestigious boarding schools in the                                           country to find the best of the best.

      To do so, we factored in each school’s endowment, acceptance                               rate, and average SAT scores, as reported                               by BoardingSchoolReview.com. We weighed each of those                                              criteria equally to rank the schools.

     Data that was unavailable on BoardingSchoolReview.com was                     taken from the schools’ websites or from Niche.