<p>I have set up the majority of my D's school visits for the fall. Miss Porter's is on the Connecticut leg of our journey.</p>
<p>I was hoping that a current student or parent, recently graduated student, or knowledgeable parent could come forward to discuss this school.</p>
<p>I have read through some past posts, and I am not interested in dredging up anything related to the litigation from last year. I just want the mundane details related to residential life, relative importance of the arts (she is dance/art/art history), integration of FA students (we are middle class), and ways in which the school eases the transition of freshman girls into bs life.</p>
<p>If you are a family that applied last year, I also welcome your tour impressions, revisit day impressions, and if you like, why you did or did not decide to ultimately attend.</p>
<p>Thank you Shelly. I will try to come up with more questions as the viewbook materials start to arrive. I will also email the dance instructor directly to clarify the balance between ballet/modern. My D must have strong ballet instruction in place in order to be happy for the long term.
Good to know the visual arts are strong, that is a major plus.</p>
<p>My d applied to Miss Porter’s and we had a positive experience throughout the process. We first visited and interviewed during the summer so the campus was pretty empty and the interview was intended to be practice, my d was not interested in all girls schools. But we really liked the feel of Miss Porter’s, the rooms and layout of the campus was all very appealing to d. We also had a really good tour guide who gave us some good insight about living in an all female environment. The mostly good, but also some of the drawbacks. So we had a second visit in the fall, on parents weekend. We did not have a formal tour, but we attended a class. My mom and sister toured with us and while we went to the class they went to the dining hall and met girls and parents. The class was some type of history class and the teacher had a lot of energy and was very engaging. The girls, were also pretty engaged in the class and we left impressed with the quality of the teaching and the level of participation of the students. We did not have a tour guide after the class and randomly met a girl who took us to where we needed to go. We asked her lot’s of questions about living in an all girls environment and the responses were all positive. My mom and sister also got positive responses from people they talked to and thought the food in the dining hall was good, but remember this was parent’s weekend. </p>
<p>When d was accepted dad really wanted her to go to Miss Porter’s, probably because it was all girls, but also because she received a merit scholarship and generous financial aid. In the end, d decided they did not offer enough classes in her main interest and they did not offer the language she had studied for several years. I think the number of class offerings had to do with the two semester system instead of a tri-semester system. </p>
<p>Our impression of Miss Porter’s is that a girl could really do well academically at the school and be happy in the all girl environment . My younger d, who visited during the summer, insists she is attending Miss Porter’s. At the very least, we plan for her to attend the girl’s summer leadership program or one of the other summer programs in a few years. In my opinion the school is definitely worth a look.</p>
<p>Emdee, that was the kind of post I was looking for. Thank you. As for the schools she is looking at, we are mixing in some girl’s schools with some coed schools. My husband also really wants her to attend a single sex; D isn’t yet totally sold on the idea.
As for SPS, creative1, yes she is looking there. But (a big but…)to count on getting into SPS is crazy, as far as I know no student could be ‘recruited’ for Ballet. A happy surprise, but definitely a reach school for the majority of candidates. The requirement of a very strong dance department is causing no end to the headaches and grey hair related to this school search for kid #2. Frankly, there are very few if conservatories like Walnut Hill are taken out of the mix.</p>