<p>"We were unable to offer you admission"</p>
<p>It's harsh... I don't know how I would handle reading one of those, at least for my first choice...</p>
<p>I seriously think you'd be fine...</p>
<p>What's your first choice anyway and why?</p>
<p>That's really nice of you but I honestly don't comprehend how anyone can possibly say that with anything even near certainty =/ I'm not very special</p>
<p>Andover is my first. I was a little biased to begin with because my mom went there and is a total Andover fanatic. Strangely enough, though, I was the one who suggested I apply. It's my first choice, though, because it just feels so collegial. Kids there seem, well, really old - mature. It feels a lot more like a college campus than Deerfield's did, and even a little more collegial than Exeter's campus. I'm also pretty much astounded at their EC offerings. It's a lot of stuff that makes me love it.</p>
<p>Which is your first choice?</p>
<p>It's so funny you say that about Andover, Tom. My son would completely agree with you and it's the reason he doesn't like it. Fit is surely in the eye of the applicant.</p>
<p>Oh: So you're a legacy? (I hope I'm not butting into your convo, if I am, just ignore me!)</p>
<p>That should make it a bit easier, right? But being international will sort shadow that (just MY opinion, don't get discouraged!).. Hehe, international legacy. Perhaps that's a hook of some sort, too :P</p>
<p>You're so lucky you get to visit the campuses! My mom certainly won't let me (airfare, hotel, blah blah blah) so what if a school looks good on their website, but the vibe is totally off once I get there? If I'm lucky enough to make it, anyways. My SSAT scores were terrible, so I doubt I should waste more of my mum's money applying. Hm. :/</p>
<p>DiveAlice: where are you applying? Maybe I could give you an idea of the big two (A/E) and Choate...</p>
<p>Haha, lol, those are exactly the schools I'm most interested in! (Exeter, Choate, and Andover, in that order)
I was also looking into Deerfield, but now .. I'm under an extremely tight budget, so I'm limited to schools with large endowments. D:</p>
<p>Could you describe Exeter, Andover, & Choate? So apparently Exeter's nerdy (which I love, btw. But it could be just a stereotype), I have no idea for Andover (college-like?), and Choate was really friendly or something. Teehee.</p>
<p>Oh, I could help too! I toured the Exeter campus, and while I didn't get the chance to tour Andover, I have a really good grasp on it. I have a really good friend (I met her on CC, actually! Hurrah!) who is applying to Andover, and has been really informative about it. If you need to talk, feel free to send an e-mail.</p>
<p>Deerfield has a larger endowment than Choate by $114M.</p>
<p>But Deerfield is more competitive than Choate, isn't it? In terms of getting in. That 6% can make all the difference.. (I really, really wouldn't want to waste my parent's money!)
Hm.. Then again, why am I applying to a/e? I'll have a very long chat with my conscience about that later.</p>
<p>Augh, I can't believe Exeter doesn't have a diving team. How depressing is that? Do they have a swimming pool ?</p>
<p>Of course Exeter has a swimming pool, they may even have more than one. And I'd never heard of diving as a high school sport before a few days ago. They have really competitive swim teams though!</p>
<p>Yeah, that 6% can make a difference, but it just means that Choate's student body is dumber. Compare their stats to Deerfield's at Compare</a> Boarding Schools - Boarding School Review</p>
<p>To say they're dumber is sort of .. mean, isn't it? I mean, that might be your opinion but there are people that attend / have attended Choate who might read that, so.. </p>
<p>It doesn't necessarily mean they're dumber. What if Choate gave them more FA than Deerfield? (unlikely, but not impossible) Also, Choate has more international students than Deerfield, so .. Choate also has more ECs and more AP classes.. Well, both schools are great schools, but just because Choate has a higher acceptance rate doesn't mean it's worse. Maybe more under-qualified students applied for Deerfield? Who knows?</p>
<p>Again, look at the link I put in my last post.</p>
<p>My experience with Choate has been that they absolutely detest Deerfield solely based on the fact that they're "rivals." This is, of course, a vast generalization to make and Choate is, of course, still a very good school. It just simply is not as good as Deerfield and doesn't belong in the same category. Again, there are really smart people at Choate just like Deerfield, but once you look at the stats again there's no way you can deny that, at least academically, Deerfield is a better school.</p>
<p>Obviously, choice of school is all down to the candidate and isn't always about academic prestige but my experience with Choate is that there is this attitude that is transmitted that it's okay to have a bad attitude regarding competitor schools. There's also quite a drug culture going on there - all boarding schools have drugs circulating but Choate really takes the cake. There's a reason that it is commonly known as "Coke Rosemary Hall."</p>
<p>Didn't mean to be mean but in my opinion Choate is simply not on the same level as HEADS schools</p>
<p>Oh, and Saer, if you see this post, I don't mind that you loved Choate, you're still one of the coolest posters on CC =)</p>
<p>My goodness, Tom, that's such a stereotype! But thanks, I'll take that to heart <3</p>
<p>Exeter: LOVED the campus! We were driving up main street and took a left turn and suddenly... We were in the middle of students switching for 2nd period, in between the science center and another huge academic building. The buildings were neat, gorgeous, and centralized. The dorm we saw was clean, and though the singles room was tiny compared to Choate's, it was well-kept and the closet was big. The program is great, and I got a personal tour of the art studios from an art teacher. They have seperate studios for drawing, architecture, painting, photography, ceramics, everything. The science center was gorgeous. All in all, the place is amazing, and people were kind. I didn't see the dining hall or gym.</p>
<p>Choate: Best dorms out of the three. Brand new this year, the 10th grade dorms at least, they were mainly singles and I saw a single that was larger than my mother's double room in college and a double that was almost twice that. The atmosphere was great, and I got to meet with the volleyball coach personally. Everyone was kind and very eager to help out and answer questions, and the interview itself was relaxed and went very well. The campus was gorgeous, with an I.M. Pei designed arts center and Georgian buildings. The campus was a little separated- Dorms over here and there mixed with the gyms (there were two? Or a pool, it was confusing!) but the facilities were top notch. Personally, my mom and I loved the fact that the volleyball court was permanent, which said to us I could have a great time there playing volleyball at a high level. The training/workout centers were amazing, the hallways neat, and though it was raining horribly, the campus still looked gorgeous. The dining hall DID look like Hogwarts!! And they had a good book lending program to students on financial aid.</p>
<p>Andover: Though an amazing place, it was huge. The furthest girls dorm is 0.7 miles away from Commons. The Commons were under construction during my visit, and the ice rink (unCommons) was being used for a dining hall. The school had no student center, as Exeter and Choate had had, and that was a negative for me. The library was huge though I only saw it from the outside, and they had a program for lending books to financial aid students, also. The campus was pretty desolate, really, because it was a Saturday morning, and the construction really put me off. The dorms were tiny and old, but the rooms were large and well-kept. The apartments for faculty were right there next door to the boy's rooms, and my mom and I liked that a lot. The theatre was great, and it was all decorated for the Nutcracker, which they perform every other year. The science center smelled weird, and though it is only 4 years old, it had none of the shiny-new-sciencey feel that Exeter's center had, though it had seperate floors for each discipline, and the space was huge. Every classroom I saw was clean, and large, and had a lot of materials in it.</p>
<p>There's my huge analysis of my three tours. On a scale of one to ten, personally:</p>
<p>Overall:
Exeter: 9/10 (Clean, beautiful, great architecture, centralized campus, amazing art program with lots of resources)
Choate: 7/10 (Beautifully kept, but a little strangely scattered campus, amazing volleyball program, great dorms)
Andover: 5/10 (Scattered, way too huge campus, but the town was within campus limits, so easy Starbucks trips, great volleyball program, theater program is awesome)</p>
<p>"and the closet was big" <- haha, lol, then the rooms are +50, tyvm. ;D</p>
<p>thanks so much! i love detail, hehe, and your posts are always full of it. :)</p>
<p>q : do you think student stereotypes apply to schools, or are they each diverse? does 1 school have more .. people from one group (ie jocks?) than another, or are they pretty much equal/hard to notice? because the "exeter= geeky, andover = laid-back, and hotchkiss =incredibly hot " comes up alot. :P not that being geeky is bad, but it'd be sort of awkward in a school with like, 98.2% geeks. & i'm a geek too, haha! i'm not helping the statistics here ..</p>
<p>I lurve detail, because writing about it and just thinking about it makes it so much more real!! Gosh the closet was humongoid, so nice, and the girl had like eighty storage things stacked under her bed, in her closet, on her dresser, it was amazing how she found space.</p>
<p>About the stereotypes... I am artsy, math/science geeky, and sporty. Should I apply to a school thats only one of those things? NOO. I applied to my schools because they each are well-rounded. For the past couple years, maybe Exeter wanted to build its math team (etc. I don't know!) so it gained a geeky reputation. Andover wanted jocks (once again, making things up) so they accepted a lot of athletes. It depends on what's been happening the past few years, but this can change with each admissions cycle.</p>
<p>Apply to the school that you like, not the stereotypes that a small demographic (CCers, lol) perpetuate through rumors and exaggeration!</p>
<p>If you think hot is preppy beyond belief (wearing three polos at once, each with the collar popped) then yes, Hotchkiss is "hot."</p>
<p>And yeah, I believe that some schools simply attract more of one kind of people than another school does. There will be geeks, jocks, and preps at each school but the balance is different at each.</p>
<p>Yuck, prep. I am so alternative/weird/funky its funny!
But my personality is so happy and funny! People look at me like... You are NOTHING like I thought you'd be!
Haha</p>
<p>@ Saer: Haha, thanks! But when stereotypes get posted over and over again I start to doubt myself. After all I've never seen the campus, right? :P</p>
<p>@ Tom:
so Hotchkiss is preppy ? huh, i never knew that. i don't know much about Hotchkiss, but apparently there was a phenomena going on there, but i can't verify anything, haha! i was just repeating what was said (not MY personal opinion)
now that i've checked out the website, the JV soccer team isn't half-bad, though.. teehee!</p>