Some accounts by recent graduates suggest that little has changed at Elan since Mr. Skakel attended, in 1978. Tatiana Karam, 21, who attended Elan from 1996 to 1998, said she witnessed three or four boxing sessions, or ''rings'' as they are known, and said she saw a student placed in a corner in plastic restraints for so long that she became malnourished and was sent to the hospital.

Ms. Karam said that phone calls to her parents, who spent more than $100,000 on her schooling, were monitored and that the students who accurately described life at Elan were punished for being ''manipulative.''

Ms. Karam, a student at Northeastern University in Boston, said she was sent to Elan from her home in Dubai after her parents, who were looking for an American school that would shelter her from Western sexual mores, saw a school brochure featuring idyllic photographs of the outdoors and students on horseback.

At one point, when her parents sent a fax to the school saying they planned to pick up their daughter, Ms. Karam said, she was pressured to call them and ask for more time at the school. When she refused, a school official called her parents and told them their daughter was not ready to leave. It was only after she left Elan, Ms. Karam said, that she was able to give them the details.

''My mother, when she found out what happened, was so disgusted,'' Ms. Karam said. ''She tells me she's sorry all the time.''

Kiriaki Vlahopouliotis, 23, a classmate of Ms. Karam's, said she still has not told her mother details of her time at Elan. ''It will only make her feel worse,'' she said. ''There's no horseback rides, there's no skiing. There's scrubbing toilets and floors all day. My parents had no idea when they sent me that in two years they'd only see me three times or that I'd get to talk to them 15 minutes once a week, if I got my telephone privileges. They said that which doesn't kill you makes me stronger. They didn't kill me so I guess they made me stronger.''