“St. Paul’s and Groton and Deerfield and St. George’s and Andover and all the rest say thank the gods it wasn’t us this time.”
One of the parents came up to me during practice this weekend and was giddy to show me the trailer for this flick on her phone. She is now officially obsessed with finding someone with first-hand experience of this story. I’m not sure she gets it is (obviously very loosely) based on something that happened in 1984, and, even though she has a child who graduated from a peer school of Choate, another in a peer school of Choate, and yet another who will attend a peer school of Choate next year, boarding schools simply don’t have too many people on campus today who were there in 1984–or alive in 1984. She’s so hoping to get some juicy gossip about this stuff, and it is never going to happen.
Also, since the internets is a thing now and anyone can read boatloads of primary source reporting on the whole stupid thing, I’ll bet a dollar that the movie will have essentially nothing to do with the actual story.
I worked on the film and it’s very authentic to the true story. The filmmaker has the life rights to the real character involved as a local scholarship student and he also used the 60 Minutes piece in 1984 featuring Ed Bradley interviewing all involved on campus. That piece is no longer available to find online but we included a portion at the end of the film.
This is the unbelievable real story adapted in certain fictitious areas to protect those individuals involved…but it will blow people away and hit the boarding school culture by storm…
This is the very real story of kids from Choate chartering planes to Colombia to buy and sell cocaine. I have friends who attended Choate at that time and later. Quite astonishing. Very true.
This is really old news. Saw the trailer, looks like an interesting film.
Since I am on campus nearly every day, including weekends, find it hard to see anything like that happening now. School is very strict about any alcohol and drugs and DD tells me of students getting kicked out for it. Last semester, one kid for drugs, one for alcohol. They give one warning for alcohol and you are on probation for a calendar year. ANY misbehaving, you are out. The kid for alcohol was on probation and was caught in a room that had alcohol, even though he/she was not drinking. Out he/she went. Others caught got that year probation. The kid for drugs had a longer probation, and he/she messed up with alcohol. Out he/she went, even though he/she had very strong connections to the school.
So, enjoy the movie when it comes out, but, remember, those were the 80’s. I worked on Wall Street at the time and what you heard was true…!
To put it in perspective, people in high school in the 80s are now old enough to be grandparents.
For the rest of the world, the 80s seem to have been a time of relative innocence. I think the boarding schools at the time caught the first blast of the culture of drugs and alcohol. The students had money and they traveled to school (and some traveled internationally.)
So I don’t think this will “blow people away and hit the boarding school culture by storm.” The original story was a sad misadventure by young people who made bad choices. Unfortunately, the dealers have improved their networks to market and distribute substances. There is no safe place now.
I agree with @Periwinkle. It will hit the BS culture with a yawn, same as threads like this one. This is an old story. There have been many other exciting scandals since then and we’re already bored with those. So, meh.
Every school seems to have had a scandal. There’s a new one every year or two. Just the ones I can think of off the top of my head…
Milton-hockey team being serviced by a young female student, Harvard-Westlake cheating, both Exeter and Andover faculty with child porn, St. Paul’s "Senior Salute, sex abuse at Deerfield, Brooks, St. George’s, Horace Mann and others, hazing at Groton among others, Lawrenceville videoing. The list goes on. I think the Choate story is interesting, but to my mind not new information, and not something that has any bearing on whether or not I’d send a student there today.
Editing to add… It’s a story that could make a really fun movie, much like 21, the movie made about the MIT card counting team. MIT was not exactly painted in a favorable light, but it certainly didn’t hurt the school’s reputation.
