I’ve heard that Andover’s academic rigor and workload is extremely intense. How much more intense is it than other elite Prep schools like Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, Middlesex, etc.? Don’t all these schools give out similar workloads? Also, how is the workload and pressure at boarding school different from elite private day schools like Dalton and Trinity in NYC?
IME, kids at day schools often have tutors. Less so at BS unless a subject is particularly challenging. Kids at day schools may have more parental pressure but also more involvement in activities unrelated to school.
It’s very hard to compare one school to the next. It depends on the student’s aptitude, course choices, organization, competitiveness, etc. Every school you have mentioned is very selective and will have a very capable and ambitious student body.
I havent heard that at all: I know a fair number of kids at a variety of prep schools and Andover seems to be very manageable. It is my opinion based one conversations with kids and parents of past and current students that Groton and Exeter are the two schools with the biggest workloads. Dalton is closer to Exeter/Groton. Collegiate may be more demanding that Trinity in workload. Keep in mind that schools treat sports differently and having to do a sport (20 plus hours a week) or at minimum, fitness/gym, while doing all that work can dramtically change the math of the workload.
Really? Everyone was telling me Andover is 5 or 6 hours of homework a week. I’m surprised it’s considered reasonable.
5 or 6 hours a WEEK would be very reasonable. My DS has on average about 3.5 hours each day of HW and/or studying which is not terrible, but made harder since he also is a varsity athlete and a member in the school’s music ensembles which practice 2 nights a week. Cannot speak to the workloads at other school.
And keep in mind, as I said on another thread, the HW expectations can go up in later years. For a Senior taking Multivariable Calculus, Fluid Dynamics, and a few other classes, 5+ hours would be closer to the norm.
Absolutely^. The 3.5 hour average I gave above is for all seven days.
How do you manage this 5 hours of homework if the internet is shut down at 11:00? If you do sports and you don’t get back to dorm until late, then how do you get the 5 hours of homework in? Also, do you turn all your assignments in via an online platform?
@Golfgr8 I cant speak to PA but many kids turn their lights back on after lights out. They use their phones for internet access.Lastly the 5/6 hours of work is often whittled down a little during the day between classes.
Unlike some other schools, Andover does not shut down the internet at night. Only 9th graders have an official “lights out” time of 11:00; 10th and 11th graders (in the Fall) have to be in their rooms by 11, but do not need to be in bed.
That’s an average per school night, but some can be done/should be done on the weekends. Additionally, there are free periods during the day when one can/should get some of the HW done. Even with sports, I did a fair amount of HW while traveling to away events. Some EC’s, like theater, have a bit of a “hurry up and wait” aspect which let me get some HW done. Time management is crucial.
Not all written assignments are collected. Assignments can also include non-written work. How assignments are turned in will vary by instructor, but online submission is common.
PA doesn’t turn off the internet in their dorms and lights out doesn’t mean you are not able to silently work on your computer in a dark room until much later. Time management is extremely important when handle the workload at many BS and using any free time between classes, during weekly conference times as well as working during your lunch block to whittle the amount of work down is necessary.
Hey BigBlueSwim, how far along is your daughter at Andover? Is she only a Freshman, because I heard the academic workload increases significantly every year you’re there.
@umichwolverine23 just pm’d you
In most cases you don’t need the internet to do homework. The internet is actually just a distraction.
1 hour of free time per day during school hours (official free or class lets out early or whatever). Between 8-11 is 3 hours. That’s 4 hours. Wednesday and Saturday have more free time (especially if u do work on the bus). Sundays are free.
This is typical - most kids do sports/dinner/hang out between 3-8. If the homework is really bad, they skip hang out time between 6-8 and get started early.
OP, did you really think 5-6 a week was unreasonable or did you mean to say “per day”? Because 5 to 6 hours a week is very light no matter what high school you are in.
We asked a kid about the workload at one of our most academically challenging local schools.The response was priceless: “Five hours a night if I have my phone with me. Three hours a night if I’m disciplined enough to put it in my Mom’s room to charge.”
I’ll give an example (from another school)…So one girl in my DS English class was stating she is “so tired” because she spent THIRTY (30) HOURS on a paragraph assignment! My son said it took him a half hour; 45 min max. He got an A-. So some of it is working hard vs. working smart; and some could be language proficiency in this case (the girl is not native English speaker). Now, I did notice the girl was on the winning Math team so she must be smart. But taking 30 hours to write a paragraph is not going to work forever. So my point is, some of this depends on difficulty of classes, study habits, and how smart and efficient the student is with school work. And, sometimes you can’t get an A in everything as I suspect some students are conditioned to do. That is why colleges like kids with extracurriculars.
Sorry, I meant per day. haha.
CaliMex, was that a public school or a private? I heard privates give way more homework than publics.
@umichwolverine23 I am a little baffled by your obsession with quantifying work load. Most RIGOROUS Boarding and/or private schools have more work than many publics but NOT publics like NYC’s gifted and talented schools or Regis or Northern Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson etc etc. Some of the best schools in the country are public or test-in… That being said all privates are not harder than all publics: many New England boarding schools that are more sport focused for example are incredibly weak academically.
The main point of my post was that ever-present smartphones can actually make homework take longer than it should. This is not a public vs private thing (though from what I hear, teachers in our local, academic test-in magnet public school assign a lot more homework than private school teachers).
BTW: Why are we equating “rigor” with “sheer volume”? Ugh.