<p>Do any of you know anything about Culver Academy in Indiana? They sent me a packet of information today stating that they were formally inviting me to apply for their Duchossois Scholarship. The school appears to be both college preporatory and military-oriented. Would anyone recommend me looking into it? Does anyone know about the school? I never requested any information, so I'm assuming they got my ACT scores from last year. Advice?</p>
<br>
<p>Cinnamon</p>
<br>
<p>There has been some discussion about Culver, but not recently. You might do a search of "Culver" to find out more.</p>
<p>My D has several (hockey playing) friends at Culver. Beautiful campus and fantastic facilities (we have visited), but once you leave town, you are in the middle of corn fields. They bring in a lot of culture (speakers, shows, etc.) to make up for not being in a city. </p>
<p>They wear uniforms, but it doesn't seem to be a problem for the girls there. Wide variety of academic opportunites. IIRC, you can even take Chinese there. I believe they issue every kid a laptop loaded with everything you could possibly want software-wise including video editing.</p>
<p>Selective with admissions, but not AESDCH level of selectivity. Places several kids in Ivies every year, but it is not a feeder. Fairly generous with FA, from what I've been told for kids they really want. Kids are more midwestern with not many easterners.</p>
<p>On the girls side, it is NOT military. They like to stress leadership training, though.</p>
<p>Might be worth a day trip if you are from Michigan (IIRC) to check it out.</p>
<p>I believe -- from hearing from others who have received the mailings (including my son getting one for their Batten Scholarship this week) -- they are quite liberal with their mailings for their scholarships. And if it makes you look more closely at the school and you like what you see, that is a terrific thing! </p>
<p>If, however, you are left with the impression that they're wooing you after seeing your credentials, don't get your hopes up (at least not on the basis of being on the mailing list). Stick to schools that interest you. And you may decide that Culver is one such school. Just don't let the seduction of a scholarship mailing artificially elevate or influence your perception.</p>
<p>Should you decide Culver is the place, go get that scholarship!</p>
<p>We visited Culver and I was extremely impressed. The facilities are incredible. The environment is nurturing and teaches good discipline. I liked it a lot, but they weren't looking to take on the likes of WildChild at the particular time we were looking at the school.</p>
<p>They have a beautiful campus (I visited there a year ago for a non-admissions reason) on a lake. It you like sailing or horses...it is THE place.<br>
They "market" it almost like 2 seperate schools "Culver Military Academy" and Culver School for Girls" or something like that. BUt it's just the leadership systems for boys and girls are seperate. The boys is military rank like based and the girls is the prefect system. Otherwise it is co-ed in every other way.</p>
<p>It is about 30 minutes from South Bend, but don't fly into there as your plane WILL be delayed. It's about 2 hours from Indy and a little over 2 from Chicago.</p>
<p>The town itself is probably one of the most "divided" towns I've been to in terms of the "haves" and the "have nots." You have the multi-million dollar homes around the lake and then you have the "shacks" elsewhere. I honestly saw very little in between. </p>
<p>The "downtown" is within walking distance of the school (or a bicycle) and is cute but not much there. </p>
<p>They like to compare themselves to Andover and Exeter. Their current head of school is a former CFO/Business Manager at St. Pauls and everyone I met with absolutely loved him. I met with him as well and was very impressed. </p>
<p>Although that's not much info about the school I hope it is a little helpful.</p>
<p>My son is a senior at Culver, and entered as a freshman. We had never planned to send him to a boarding school, but like you he was invited to apply for Culver's Batten scholarship.</p>
<p>Our experience at Culver has been fantastic. </p>
<p>CGA (Culver Girl's Academy) is very much part of Culver, but maintains its own dorms and girls' leadership system. Unlike the boys, who follow a military-type leadership system, the girls follow a prefecture system.</p>
<p>Culver is extremely challenging academically, has a huge number of sports (my son fences, was on the rowing team, and plays lacrosse), and above all, strives to develop leadership in both the boys and girls. </p>
<p>It also places a great deal of emphasis on the excellence of its college placement program. Rather than focusing upon admissions to elite colleges (although there are several kids placed there every year), the school focuses more on helping students find the right "fit": socially, academically, financially, and so forth. </p>
<p>Please pm me if you have specific questions that I can help with.</p>
<p>Good to have you around CanyonCreek. Glad to hear that your son is enjoying his time there. We usually get a couple or three kids who have interest in Culver passing through here every year and it is finally nice to have someone with first hand experience chime in.</p>
<p>I know several people who graduated from Culver (all men though). Based on my friendship with these individuals, my belief is that Culver teaches leadership. Few institutions provide the opportunity for real leadership at such an early age. Even being a non-commissioned officer at Culver offers more responsibility than most young people have throughout their entire high school career. My nephews attend the Culver Woodcraft camp every year. It is a great 6 week program, focusing on development of leadership skills, as well as normal camp activities.</p>
<p>Culver has a beautiful campus, but as GoalieDad says, once you are off campus, you are surrounded by cornfields. There are a vast number of EC's you can participate in---including polo and cheerleading--2 sports not found at most boarding schools. </p>
<p>I have heard the financial aid packages are good--plus every child receives a school-issued laptop. One thing to note--the acceptance rate is about 20%--not 49% as shown on boardingschool review.</p>
<p>I've visited Culver before, my younger brother is a sophomore at CMA, and its definitely an impressive school. I didn't attend Culver myself, but from what I've seen from visits and what my brother has told me, although the school has great facilities, myriads of athletics and performance activities, and solid academics, the military aspect can be hit or miss. What I mean is it can make great changes, or it can be a massive burden on students, especially because most of the protocol is student-enforced. </p>
<p>Brother is in the CMA Band Unit, and he often tells me that this unit is not as favored as the others by the school administration, and their residential facilities have been mismanaged and not as well maintained. There was a fire in his dormitory this year, and according to authorities the fire extinguishers were not in working condition. As a result his entire unit was transferred to the Summer Camp facilities for the better part of three weeks while repairs were performed. </p>
<p>Also he says that there is some small but noticeable ill-will between units, a sort of unwanted side-effect that is in my opinion is very much unlike my experience at Mercersburg Academy in PA. However, for the most part, he has enjoyed his experience. He is the first minority student to ever join the Color Guard, and for what its worth, the military structure has greatly boosted his confidence. I think his hard work will pay him back double on graduation day.</p>
<p>Thanks for your kind words, goaliedad. There is obviously much to say, but I'm going to do my best to keep it short. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions via pm.</p>
<p>Having been deeply involved with other parents, their sons, and of course my own son at Culver, I can certainly attest to the value of the leadership development system there. Our experience has been that the leadership system at Culver gives both boys and girls opportunities to deeply learn skills that are fundamental to high-level success in virtually any setting. I can't speak for other boarding schools, but I'm certain that my son would not have learned these types of skills, to the extent that he has, in a public school setting. </p>
<p>Once students have mastered responsibility for themselves, as evidenced by study habits, care for appearance, and care for their own rooms, they are given opportunites to progressively take on more responsibility for other students and ultimately for their dorm units as a whole, even to the extent where they are regularly interacting with senior adminstrators, school trustees, and visiting dignitaries (of which there are plenty, by virtue of Culver's Global Studies Insitute). </p>
<p>All of this happens against a backdrop of incentives (rank and to a certain extent, privilege) that provide students who buy into this with real motivation to succeed in the leadership system. Note that I say "buy into this" since there are students who choose to not to focus on leadership. For these students, Culver has a wealth of opportunities cultural, academic, and athletic. </p>
<p>I have watched my own son struggle to learn how to succeed in an environment that is amazingly similar to what I have experienced professionally in both academic settings (Ivy League Ph.D. program) and corporate settings. There is to a certain extent competition, so much of the same politicking, diplomacy, constraints due to scare resources, learning to manage and influence others, etc. are a daily part of life in the leadership system at Culver. As a result, my son has had an opportunity to learn crucial management and organizational skills before he even enters college. He has encountered and dealt with situations that I did not hit until I was in mid-level management.</p>
<p>I'll have to respond to tokyo's comment above regarding Band Unit, a unit with which I'm quite familiar. I would not agree that any unit is favored over another by the school's administration. In fact, the band unit plays a key role in all of the school's traditional celebrations and leadership demonstrations. So for a rational administrator to shortchange any group with such a key role would be absurd. Additionally, the level of compassion and commitment shown to all students by facutlty, staff, and administrators at every level, many of whom live right on campus, and have their own sons and daughters enrolled there, has been fantastic. </p>
<p>I must also respond to the comments above regarding the fire. I flew to Culver the morning immediately following the fire, toured the band building, and spoke at length with all students involved, as well as the administrators from top to bottom. The school had an inspection policy that rotated inspections of the extinguishers in all dorms. The contractor responsible for the inspections was required to finish all inspections by, I believe, Aug 30 2007. The band building was scheduled to have been completed the week following the fire. Really bad timing, and really bad luck, but certainly not neglect. And, regarding ongoing maintenance, as the parent of a Band Unit student, I am satisfied that the administation is doing everything necessary to ensure the safety of all students at Culver. If I wasn't, my son would no longer be living there.</p>
<p>Can't pass up a chance to comment on the cornfields... Yes, Culver is in the cornfields of Indiana, one hour south of South Bend, and about 2 hours north of Indianapolis.</p>
<p>But...</p>
<p>1) As others have mentioned, the campus really is breathtaking. It very much looks like a small college in the northeast, and it sits on a lake (Lake Maxinkuckee). My son's dorm sits right on the lake, and when the weather is nice in northern Indiana (spring and fall ;-) ), the view is divine.</p>
<p>2) For a small town, Culver has a shockingly large number of very good restaurants. This is by virtue of the fact that Culver is somewhat of a lake resort town, summer getaway for wealthy individuals out of Chicago and Indianpolis. The influx of well-off vacationers with lake homes, I have to assume, keeps the dining standards high in Culver. (ujnfortunately those standards do not translate to Culver Academies' dining hall, which is not very good imo)</p>
<p>3) Because it is in a very small town, Culver offers opportunities to do outdoor stuff that would hard to pull off in a larger city: boating on the lake (there are both crew and sailing teams), equestrian sports (polo, and jumping), even skeet shooting.</p>
<p>4) And most importantly, we as a family feel a little better having our son in an environment that is somewhat rural. We're midwesterners, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it, but we like the atmosphere there. It's safe, and seems both healthy and nurturing (except for those pesky dorm fires).</p>
<p>My husband went to Culver Military Academy in the 90’s. The stories he tells of sex and drugs make me almost faint. I was not insulated by sex and drugs at my school either, but his experience was more over the top inappropriate than most.</p>
<p>Sugartoes - that is a total shock to me - I graduated from Culver in 1986 and there was nothing like that - oh sure, there were the scandalous rumors that would go around, but the reality was much less so. I’d find it HARD to believe that thing were that crazy just 10 years later. I had a best friend that went to Cranbrook and his stories were much better than mine.</p>
<p>As others had said, the campus is amazing, I didn’t realize how good it was until I started touring small colleges and realized that our facilities were better than many of the colleges I visited, we had a great ice hokey rink, tennis facilities, etc. And we even had unlimited free dry cleaning, I used to even get my sweat pants drycleaned. :)</p>
<p>You do feel pretty isolated out there. We had tons of kids from all over, Hal Steinbrenner, now of the Yankees was one of my peers there, I think he was a year younger than me (quiet kid). Culver did a great job of bringing in events to the auditorium, everything from Chinese acrobats to amazing speakers.</p>
<p>One thing I realized, that by the time I went to college I had essentially been living on my own for three years at Culver, so going to college was no big deal as far as an adjustment, but I was completely shocked at how many kids lost their mind the first year of college - the first time away from home, they seemed to drink and party to excess since they didn’t have any parents watching over them. </p>
<p>I think having been at boarding school I had a bit of a disconnect from many in my freshman class in college.</p>
<p>I never completely embraced the military system, although lots of students did. I did manage to make many life-long friends and I was exposed to fellow students that were from all over the world. The Black Horse Troop had tons of kids from south america.</p>
<p>Having grown up in a regular middle-class household, I was a little taken back by home much money was there. I knew literally dozens of kids in high school that wore Rolex watches, one kid had a bodyguard that would come escort him from school on break, parents that would have helicopters bring them in from Chicago to land at school. It was a bit of an eye-opener for me.</p>
<p>…oh, and we had our own airstrip and you could take aviation as an elective to get your pilot’s license. :)</p>
<p>A great experience for me and was a major shaping of my life.</p>
<p>For academics, I was a straight-A student at a better public school before but was struggling to keep B’s at Culver, it’s a tough school. It wasn’t overtly competitive, just everyone there was smart, worked hard and had good study habits. I remember several classes grading on a curve. Someone down the hall from me missed 1 question on the SAT, a near-perfect score, and was beside himself wondering which question he missed. Pretty funny.</p>
I have heard many stories of abuse and or bullying as well. On top of the alcohol and drugs, this small town seems to be like every other small town filled with it’s diseases and lies. I have personally seem whip marks that are scares for life on one former student. These are from late 1990’s.