Looks like my daughter is choosing Cate. I know it is underrepresented on this site but hoping some parents and students are lurking around.
Would love more info on the school. I am already dreading the travel stuff since we live in the Southeast.
My nephew goes there and loves it!!! Congrats!
It is a fantastic school. Congratulations!
Hi @msc3173 – I am a longtime lurker here. Figured this is the time to step up and give back. My DC is a Cate freshman, and I can hopefully answer most questions. I am not sure whether there are many current Cate parents on this board, so I am happy to take on that role.
We had very little boarding school exposure, so we didn’t know what to expect. DC applied to about 8 schools last year, including some of the East Coast usual/not so usual suspects (thanks CC for broadening our horizons!). Cate was the first place we toured and closest to home (yet still a very long drive), and while I am glad we toured other places for context, we could have finished our school tours right then and there. People say you know it when you see it, and for us it was definitely true. DC would have been happy at any of the places we applied to, but from the get go it was pretty obvious Cate was The One. Thank goodness it worked out!
We had high expectations going in, and Cate has exceeded all of them. What sets Cate apart for us? Cate people talk about “the spirit of this place” and “Servons”. Literally, the air feels different on the campus than anywhere else I have ever been. It is a weird combination of serenity and a buzzing enthusiasm. Maybe because it is high on the mesa and overlooks the ocean, but I think it is because everyone is authentically, deeply kind. DC was a public school kid from a very competitive school district, and summed it up as: before, the “smart” kids couldn’t admit to not knowing something for fear of being looked down upon. At Cate, the peer pressure is to admit what you don’t know and accept your peers’ efforts to help pull you up.
Move in day sets the tone from the get go. It took DC and me 2 hours to make DC’s bed, because a steady stream of students, teachers and administrators stopped by to introduce themselves and offer their assistance. And that was after we had the senior assigned to us (jumped into our car upon arriving on campus and directed us where to go), unpack the car, and help carry everything into the dorm. We left DC there that day knowing DC was where he needed to be – even though it wasn’t with us. It was hard leaving DC and driving down that hill, but it was made so much easier knowing that DC would be nurtured and would thrive at Cate. Especially if you are on the East Coast, as a parent that has to be your number one concern. Knowing your kid is safe and thriving and appreciated for who they are is everything. We have zero regrets.
One thing that defines Cate is its small size. The good thing is that everyone knows you. The (maybe) bad thing is everyone knows you. It is a bit of a fish bowl.
I could go on and on – are there specific questions I can help with? I know I can’t PM yet, but ask away!
If I may ask, who is a “DC” (Dear Cousin ? Daughter’s Cousin or Child ?) ? I get confused with the abbreviations.
Dear Child ?
Yup. Dear Child. Cate is a small school, and kiddo values privacy. Add together year, gender and geographic location, and there is only a handful of kids I could be talking about. I think DC would be mad at me for talking without permission. Even if all I am saying is the truth/positive stuff. Which is kinda why I haven’t put myself out here before.
@CateCAParent …thank you so very much for being willing to come out of lurkdom. I don’t have enough responses to dm either.
I am so overwhelmed at this point I don’t even know what to ask because there are a million questions floating in my head.
What type of laptop/electronics should we look into buying?
Does you dc have a roommate? What are the dorms like? I don’t recall seeing one when we toured. I just recall a long dark hallway.? I’m sure there are lots of ideas on how to decorate and what to bring spinning around my child’s head. How do the students there typically decorate their tiny homes?
I feel like I should put each question as a separate response so I can build up enough to dm.
@msc3173 – I totally get it. I practically memorized the Cate website combing it for information when I was where you are. Eventually you will get access to the “parent portal” which has a ton of useful information, including the handbook. Also, when teachers, administrators, etc offer help – and they will – take them up on it.
Most kids have Macbooks. There is a tech person who can answer tech questions before you arrive. And a tech team of students who will get your daughter set up when she is moving in.
Most kids have singles. That is good and bad – my kiddo was disappointed not to have a roommate, but has come to really appreciate it. The dorms are very social, and then at 8:00 there is a mandatory study period for freshmen – in your room. That is pretty valuable alone-time. The rooms are super tiny and not fancy. The dorms are older buildings, but well maintained. They have the basics. One of the things that is different between Cate and some of the East Coast schools is that many of the buildings aren’t as, ummmm, “upgraded”. Some of that is changing – a new state of the art student center is being built right now, and will open this fall. After that, there are a cascade of building plans. What some of the buildings might lack in window dressing is more than made up for by the view. I feel like Cate does an excellent job at focusing on the essentials, and I don’t much care about the cosmetics of the inside of a dorm. The kids spend so little time in their rooms other than when they are sleeping.
I was pretty blown away by what some people brought on move in day. Apparently I am pretty minimalist. We took the approach of bringing all of the essentials, and Amazoned everything else. There are a lot of great threads on CC about dorm decorating and what to bring, and I would go with what they say.
One of the things that sort of surprised me was how regimented Cate is. It is deceptive in its “chill”-ness. There is a very rigid structure about everything. There are room checks, for example. There is a strict code of behavior and consequences for breaking rules. But yet there is no dress code.
Next post: Ask me about how the adults and kids interact. And then ask me about the outdoor program. And then ask me about how the kids in different grades interact. And then the health center. And then travel. We will build up posts together. 
← do I get bonus points for using my first emoji?
I should clarify – there is a dress code, but it is pretty lax compared to other places. Jeans and t-shirts are a-ok.
@CateCAParent
Of course you get bonus points for emojis. ?
I would love to know how the adults and kids interact at Cate? I am hoping you have thoughts on that topic. ?
I am dying to know about travel. Mine will be flying. Would love to do SBA but LAX has a few nonstops. And she will be 14 so unless it is Southwest (not good flights for us) she is unaccompanied for a while. Oh the stress.
I think you need 15 to message. This may be 12 for me. Woohoo!
Adults/kids: Every kid has an advisor. Everry advisor has 5-6 kids, spread across grades. It is one of the multiple hats an adult has at Cate. The advisory sits together at assemblies (a couple of times a week) and meets together (I think 1-2 times/week). The advisor will meet one-on-one pretty regularly – including trips into Carp for lunch, etc. The advisor is also your point person. He/she will be the one who all of the teachers, coaches, etc report to, to make sure kiddo is doing ok.
Your daughter will have adults living in the dorm with her. They enforce rules about lights out (10:30), dorm chores, room checks, etc. The dorm parents also host kids in their apartments for various informal gatherings, and will know what is going on with your kid.
The teachers get to know the kids pretty well, pretty fast. You will get surprisingly detailed updates mid-trimester and with trimester grades. Honestly, I haven’t felt a need to directly communicate with a teacher – I text with the advisor every once in a while, who keeps me up to date. I get the impression that behind the scenes the adults share a lot of information all the time.
I was impressed at the fall Parents Weekend with how many adults knew my kid, what DC did for fun, and who DC’s friends were. Adults who weren’t directly involved with DC’s life knew a lot. You get the sense that there are adult eyeballs paying attention all the time. But not in a creepy or over-controlling kind of way. In a “wow, these adults really like teenagers and clearly love their jobs” kind of way.
Oh – I hope your daughter likes dogs. Seems like every adult living on campus has a dog. That is a major plus for us. :">
Travel will be a challenge while your daughter is too young to do connections on her own. I know each airline is different on that front.
The good news is that Cate has a point person for travel arranging. They will have ideas about what has worked best for people in your situation. As there are a lot of East Coast/international students, they have shuttles that go to/from LAX for breaks. Burbank is a smidge closer than LAX, but I don’t think they have a shuttle for Burbank.
SBA is really small – check its website to see what airlines fly in. We are going to try Contour Airlines for the spring break – I had never heard of it, but the prices are reasonable and they do go to SBA. I don’t think they have a Florida airport, but maybe another airline does.
If there isn’t an arrangement that works, I understand that available adults on campus will often agree to drive kids to airports.
Uber/Lyft is something some people do – but I am not 100% comfortable with that quite yet.
Re: health care – they have a robust health center. I am very comfortable with their level of attention and availability . If your kid needs an off-campus doctor appointment, there is a staff person who drives the child, for a nominal fee. I think it is like $25.
They have a list of medications that can/can’t be kept in dorm rooms. If your kid needs a prescription, they will get it filled at the local pharmacy.
If your kid isn’t feeling well, people will notice. If your daughter isn’t fit to attend class, someone, usually a prefect, will make sure she knows it is ok to stay in bed, take care of herself, and will notify everyone who needs to know that she is sick.
There is also an on-campus physical trainer (two maybe?) who can evaluate sports injuries – and how to prevent them.
The adult to kid ratio is among the highest out there, I think. It shows.
The kids take their roles in the community very seriously. If you did an interview, you know that the students volunteer to take prospective students to class with them. That’s where it starts. The older students definitely look out for the younger students. Not just the prefects. I was surprised with how much interaction happens between the grades. They totally hang out together.
Curriculum: The courses are pretty fixed for freshman and sophomore years. You can take advanced math and science as a freshman, but that is about it. If you are advanced in a language, you will get placed in a higher-level class. They have a survey course for the arts, and a combo English/History class. They have a freshman seminar that covers study skills and more life skills type stuff.
As a sophomore you can also take an honors-level language class and (maybe) Honors English class.
They number of course choices is more limited because of the smaller school size. I don’t think that is much of a problem, though. If your kid takes 4 years of math, science, English, and a language – there isn’t much room for electives no matter what high school you go to.
Cate is very serious about the outdoors. They consider it part of the curriculum and a connection with nature makes for better students. DC is not outdoorsy, so we weren’t sure how that would go. It has been fine.
They ease you into it. The first week of school is a trip to a camp ground – with cabins, so not really roughing it. But there is a lot of hiking. Sophomore year, the students have more of a full blown camping experience, and the junior year is even more so. By senior year, you have a choice of whether you want to tour colleges, supervise the freshman trip, or (I think) do a senior trip.
If your daughter is really into outdoor things, the opportunities are amazing. You can get scuba certified, learn to surf, rock climb, ski, you name it. That isn’t my kid, so the specifics are murky to me. There are teachers who organize weekend outdoor activities, though, all the time.
Congratulations! I have been a Cate parent of two kids, one now in college and one a junior. Happy to answer questions too.
Freshmen girls are all in doubles while the boys are almost all in singles. The girls freshmen dorm, 25 house, is bright, clean, and thoughtfully run by faculty. Great way to start living away from home.
Travel from LAX is the norm. The school coordinates rides.
The kids by and large are smart, kind, engaged, and authentic. Our family loves the school - it is well run and the faculty is truly outstanding!
I think you will be happy with your student’s choice!
Hi @MomInSB – I just learned something! I don’t think I have ever been in 25 House, other than maybe as a short cut on my way somewhere else. And am apparently outed as a parent of a boy as a result. :)) I guess I can start using “he” and 'him" with reckless abandon.
It is definitely a great way to start living away from home, for sure. I feel like kiddo will have a lot of life skills under his belt by the time he goes to college. I remember what a culture shock it was to have to learn all of it my first year of college! BS is a kinder, gentler stepping stone approach.
I remember hearing the headmaster speak last year on how Cate is a bubble by design. They aren’t trying to be the “real world”. They are creating an environment that allows kids to stretch and grow and experiment – so that they have the confidence, resilience and skills to deal with the real world when the time comes. Makes sense to me.