Choate is larger than both of the schools and definitely has a distinctly different feel. Deerfield and Groton are both a bit more traditional, whereas Choate is a bit more “progressive” in its policies (i.e. very relaxed dress code, no formal meals, etc.). We feel much more college-y, imo. You are given a lot of freedom and independence. Support is certainly there in the form of dorm advisors and deans, and I’m incredibly close with my advisor, but in day-to-day life a lot of the responsibilities fall on you. Nobody checks to see if you’re actually working during study hours, your teachers won’t really reach out to you if you’re not doing as well as you want (you need to initiate the conversations), all of that. Personally, I absolutely love it. As someone a bit old for my grade, I’m glad there aren’t a lot of stifling rules and policies. Students are free to roam Wallingford (which is a really cute little town, quite a bit to do) really whenever they’re free and can very easily go to New Haven, New York, Boston, etc. just by getting a day permission slip.
Choate’s humanities and arts programs are INCREDIBLY strong. I’m much more of a STEM person, but both of these programs are insanely good. There are a plethora of humanities courses in all different disciplines: philosophy, political science, government, history, economics, religion, just to name a few. All of the classes are round table discussion-based with a heavy emphasis on participation and writing. I’m in Composition and Literature, the required sophomore English class, and I can definitely say my writing has improved substantially since coming to Choate. Lots of very specific feedback, teacher comments, peer editing, etc. I’m also taking macroeconomics next term, but I don’t have much experience with the HPRSS department, as I’ve not really taken many humanities courses here.
Visual arts is massive at Choate. There is a ridiculous number of courses to take (ceramics, jewelry making, painting, drawing, digital media, photography, videomaking, environment drawing, etc.). If you’re particularly interested in art, you can also apply for the Arts Concentration (and specialize in visual arts), where you’ll take a boatload of art classes and, instead of doing sports in the afternoon, will be given 2 hours to simply work on whatever art you want. I took Digital Media Design and it was incredibly fun. The teachers in the art department are wonderful and my skills were improved bountifully during my class.
Sports at Choate are big, I won’t lie. We have loads of school spirit and people love going to games. Would I say there’s a hierarchy with athletes at the top? Ehh, not really. In my experience, there isn’t much of a concept of “popularity” here, since the environment is so much different than other high schools. Everyone’s basically on the same playing field. Now, don’t get me wrong, some people are more well-known than others, and many of those people are athletes, but it doesn’t necessarily dominate the social scene.
Choate requires 10 hours of community service per year, which is a really low amount, but you can easily do as much as you want. You can do community service as an afternoon activity, where you’ll choose between different service projects weekly. Almost every club has a community service aspect. We have a website called X2Vol, where you can see all of the Choate-sponsored service events and sign up for them. There is an event about every week, often to the CT food bank. You can also do whatever service you want outside of school, as the freedoms given to students allow this.
Okay, Choate-puke over.
