<p>I'm wondering if any of you attend, or have children attending these schools. They both have a reputation of being less welcoming to the non-traditional prep school tpyes, and I"m wondering if any of you have found any truth to that. </p>
<p>Thanks for the input</p>
<p>I don't know anything about Groton but a great deal about St. Paul's. To my certain knowledge, St. Paul's is welcoming and supportive of "non-traditional prep school types" which term would certainly have described my children who went there.</p>
<p>They're of the same reserves, but completely different once you look at them. Groton seems to me to be more welcoming to a certain type of people and not others, and SPS seems to be definitely more welcoming to all times. I'd say the schools are considered alike, but I personally think that SPS is very different. Groton actually seems more conservative, with mandatory chapel (I don't know if SPS has this).</p>
<p>SPS has maintained a distinct Episcopal identity, probably more so than Groton. St. Mark's, St. Georges, Trinity-Pawling, Holderness, Salisbury, South Kent, Kent and the rest of the original Episcopal schools have all scaled back dramatically on the church side, although they all maintain Episcopal clergy and follow the Episcopal liturgy. Kent has an Episcopal Priest as its head and until recently so did SPS. Salisbury had to amend its charter to allow non clergy to run the school. H**l, when I was there in the 70's we had serious chapel 5 days a week, run by one of the 4 Episcopal ministers on the staff! We wore suits to Sunday evening chapel (full communion) follwed by a fairly formal dinner.</p>
<p>I guess I should be careful about lumping St. Paul's together with Groton, but I'm looking for answers to both.</p>
<p>I know that Groton has not been welcoming to groups of consultants and non-profit program directors. A group of us were in town visiting Lawrence Academy, but Groton didn't want to meet with us. I had the impression they are used to working with people who already know them, and maybe not as interested in getting the word out about the school on other ways. So I was wondering what others may have found.</p>
<p>I am attending SPS this year</p>
<p>I don't have personal experience with SPS other than our tour/interview. I have visited the campus more than once and have a good friend who attended back in the late 60's-early 70's. He went from age 12 to graduation and still meets up with his old classmates all over the world.</p>
<p>It is 100% boarding and all faculty reside on campus. After visiting Andover, Exeter, Choate, Taft, Deerfield, Loomis Chaffee, Governor Dummer, I'd have to say SPS and Deerfield topped our list.</p>
<p>SPS is very traditional, as are many of the above schools, however there was a feeling on campus that you were glimpsing something exclusive, small, and elite. But, it was a good feeling. Our family is traditional, conservative, and non-urban, which all likely contributed to our positive reaction.</p>
<p>The dorms are incredibly gorgeous. For what it's worth, SPS wrote the best rejecton letter.</p>
<p>errrrr, don't you mean Governor's Academy? In my opinion that name change ranks with invading Iraq as one of the "Dummerest" things I've seen in a long time.</p>
<p>I go to sps. I almost attended groton, so I know quite a bit about it too. I'll post my thoughts tommorrow.</p>
<p>SPS was more diverse on my visits than I expected. They seem to have made a huge effort over the past few years to bring more diversity to the school. Sure, you'll see some of the madras short wearing preppy set but I didn't feel that was the majority. </p>
<p>Although I loved Deerfield, it felt much more homogeneous to me than SPS.</p>
<p>fun is fun...I agree. That's why I'm still calling it Governor Dummer!</p>
<p>Why, exactly, did they make this brilliant change? It's been their name for like two or three hundred years, hasn't it? You'd think they'd trust it by now.</p>
<p>I said I’d respond to this ages ago, so here we go!</p>
<p>First, this question is loaded. I don’t want to immediately say yes that SPS is less welcoming, because the reader would immediately make up his/her mind about the school. However, there is some truth to that. The school did a “diversity survey” where a group came to campus to evaluate at the end of last year. The results were just released and it does show that the most comfortable people in the school were “white males”. Other worrisome stats were that almost half the student body felt the need to change to “fit in” at school and a small but significant number do not feel that they belong at school. </p>
<p>That being said, this is exactly what the school is trying to work on. Welcoming everyone to our school is the issue our Rector keeps stressing and discussing with the school, and he has the support of the students and faculty. </p>
<p>Here’s where I defend SPS a bit: I think that this is an issue at all boarding schools. If you don’t think it is a specific one, either the students aren’t admitting it to themselves or you’re only talking to the group that has always felt welcomed.</p>
<p>It is a problem at school and should not be ignored. At the same time I don’t think it prevents the majority of students from loving the school. For example I know when doing that survey I answered that I felt like I had to change and a couple others similarly but I am still happy at school and have the best friends in the world there. </p>
<p>In the spirit of drnancie’s thread, I’m a senior at SPS.</p>
<p>I agree that the results of the recent SPS survey apply, to all boarding schools. In fact, when I read it, I couldn't help butr think this applies to all of the USA! </p>
<p>I respect the leadership at SPS for having the wisdom to undertake the survey and the courage to publish the results.</p>
<p>Interesting no one has anything to say about Groton?</p>
<p>NEprep, I really think that no one's talking about Groton is because few people applied this year and even fewer on this board go here, and most of them have left.</p>
<p>I liked Groton. I personally thought that they wrote the best waitlist letter, of Deerfield, St. Paul's, and itself. Very kind, but not so much that I felt they were being condescending.</p>
<p>SPS and Groten are very different schools regardless of their similiar religious affiliation. SPS is very welcoming of all students regardless of background. But St. Paul's School has a large contingent of brilliant, wealthy students and alumni. They will and do respect all others, but remember that they too wish to be respected and understood. Groten is also full of wealthy, brilliant students- but, maybe, not as willing to accept diversity as readily as SPS. Both schools, however, are outstanding educational institutions with the first and fourth ranked college placement success of the elite boarding schools. SPS, Andover, Deerfield and Groton were in a class by themselves with respect to college placement success.</p>
<p>Pseud08--that was a thoughtful and informative post, from the horse's mouth. :) Thanks.</p>
<p>I was just talking to a St. Paul's junior today about the culture of various schools, and she mentioned three things that set St. Paul's apart: 1) chapel; 2) ongoing talk about diversity ("although I'm not sure it's doing much"); 3) liberal/progressive political opinions (among students). </p>
<p>Her comments seem consistent with the rest of the posts here.</p>