DEERFIELD — As Deerfield Academy transitions to a full boarding school, alumni worry the change might have the negative effect of drawing locals away, while others voiced the belief that boarding provides a more complete campus experience.
Jessica Day, director of communications at Deerfield Academy, has described the shift as a “rolling transition.” Current day students at the school can continue to commute from home, but those planning to attend in the future can only apply as boarding students.
Construction of a new dorm, which will contain 38 rooms for female students, will allow Deerfield Academy’s enrollment to remain steady at 650 as the school shifts its focus to admitting boarding students, Day said. In the 2025-2026 academic year, Deerfield Academy had 75 day students and 575 boarding students, according to the school’s profile online.
“This is really a mission-driven move and a core-values move, so we’re really leaning into the idea of Deerfield being a shared experience,” Day said. “We really believe it’s a transformative experience when kids go to school here and live together, and so we’re really excited to be able to offer this to local families as well.”
According to Day, the shift promises students joining the school in the fall of 2027 and beyond the “fully immersive experience” of learning and living at Deerfield Academy, including academic support from teachers outside of class and time to bond with classmates at the dorms. Day also noted the shift will “[support] student health and well-being” by eliminating the stress around traveling home. Between classes, athletics, arts and other responsibilities, day students often commute home late at night.
For the 2025-2026 school year, tuition and fees for boarding students came to $77,420 — $21,400 more than the cost for day students to attend.
Two years ago, Deerfield Academy introduced a new financial aid initiative that guaranteed free enrollment for qualifying families earning less than $150,000. Given that the median household income in Franklin County in 2024 came to $74,907 and $87,001 in Hampshire County, according to the U.S. Census, Day describes the financial aid initiative as “an amazing opportunity for local kids.”
Despite this initiative, many former day students believe this change will push local students away from applying.
“If I’m going to be boarding somewhere, why just be 30 minutes up the street? It feels a little silly,” said William Blauvelt, a former day student who commuted from Amherst before graduating from Deerfield Academy in 2015.
On the other hand, as a day student, Blauvelt said he felt that he missed out on aspects of the boarding students’ experiences at the school. When his a cappella practices ended at around 8 p.m., he drove 35 minutes home, while the members who lived on campus caught up at the dining hall, he remembered.
“There’s just going to be a million little moments after you go home where … the boarding students are still hanging out in their dorm rooms,” Blauvelt said.
Although Blauvelt said he would have still applied to the school if there was no day student option at the time, he said he would not have committed to applying early decision.
Dan Junkins, a former day student from Deerfield who graduated in 1980, said he did not feel he missed out on the “immersive experience” of boarding, as he built friendships with both boarders and day students through dinners and activities on campus.
“You really got to know other students at the sit-down meal, as well as the teachers,” Junkins said. “You felt completely part of the whole experience.”
With Junkins’ parents often driving other day students home, he said he felt more immersed in the school, as his family cultivated a connection to the school community alongside him.
He added that Deerfield Academy’s decision to become a full boarding school “hurts [his] heart.” He described the transition as “exclusionary to the ability of parents to get more involved, to get the local area more involved with the school itself.”
Elena Pullen-Venema, a day student who graduated in 1991, also described her experience at Deerfield Academy as “immersive.” She played soccer as captain of the girls team and lacrosse, while also performing in plays and serving in student government.
“Literally the only thing I did not do there was sleep there,” Pullen-Venema said. “It was still important to me to be able to lay my head down in my own bed at night with my parents and my sister around me.”
As a former day student who walked to his Deerfield Academy classes before graduating in 1975, John Abercrombie said he would have not attended the school without the day student option and he expects fewer locals will apply in the future.
“It’s important to have all levels of different influences in your schooling as you learn about life and learn about the subjects that you’re studying, ” said Steve Casey, a boarding student from Deerfield Academy’s Class of 1980. “The day students brought a different dynamic to the school that was important.”
Casey traveled from Troy, New York, to attend the school, where he said he gravitated toward the day students. He described his circle of friends as “some of the hardest workers [he’s] ever known,” who inspired him to emulate their work ethics.
Casey, Junkins and Pullen-Venema described the transition to a full boarding school as a move away from the school’s history.
When Frank Boyden became headmaster of Deerfield Academy in 1902, only 14 students were enrolled, according to Day. To grow the school, Boyden visited locals’ homes, convincing them to join the campus and promising them a spot in the school for free in what Day described as Boyden’s “undocumented financial aid program.”
“The history of Deerfield is founded on day students,” Junkins said. “That’s been a tradition.”
Day added that Boyden recruited both day and boarding students when visiting locals. She described the transition to a full boarding school as not a move away from the school’s history “per se,” given its “complicated” beginnings.
After the Anti-Aid Amendment in 1917, which banned public funding to private schools, the school lost state support. To survive financially, Deerfield Academy separated from the public Dickinson High School in 1923 and became a private boarding school — a “turning point” for Deerfield Academy, according to Day. She noted that boarding students brought more money into the school.
“Not to speak for Frank Boyden, but it was important to him that the institution continue to exist in service of the local families, but also to just young people in general,” Day said. “The ability to provide the education was the driving force.”
For Pullen-Venema, having day students kept the school grounded in the local community and its roots.
“Throughout my time at Deerfield, we were told, ‘Be worthy of your heritage,’ which we all took to heart,” Pullen-Venema said. “Deerfield and day students are a big part of Deerfield [Academy]’s heritage, and if they do away with that experience and that huge value that day students bring to Deerfield [Academy], then part of Deerfield [Academy] will be missing.”
