<p>Anyone here applying for Cushing Academy?
Do we need to have EXCELLENT leadership achievements to get accepted to this school?</p>
<p>No, Cushing does not have very high admissions standards. Most people go there for hockey.</p>
<p>What?? I can’t play hockey. should I still apply?</p>
<p>I didn’t get that sense from our visit and the kids we met.</p>
<p>And I’ll take this opportunity to gratuitously mention that out of the nearly dozen boarding schools we’ve visited with 2 children over the past years, the Cushing Admissions personnel were by far the coldest, most unwelcoming, and utterly disinterested we encountered. Talk about feeling like an anonymous number or commodity. Not a single question about our child - not one. Just “what do you want to know about Cushing,” another round of sit-down essay writing/evaluation(!) for a jet-lagged child (never seen that before), and a rushed interview so the fellow could get back to the heavily recruited PG football player being courted in the other room. Yuck. They didn’t have our child’s application, so it certainly wasn’t a situation in which they’d pre-evaluated and a priori dinged us. Absolutely unimpressed - the experience was superficial, abbreviated, and a waste of our time given that we’d flown thousands of miles for it. This is also the only school where the tour guide actively trashed other schools, which is such a sign of immaturity, to my mind. None of the guides at Deerfield, Exeter, Andover, Kent, Salisbury etc. did this.</p>
<p>The way an Admissions Office conducts and presents itself with prospective kids and parents says a lot about the entire school, particularly when they are visibly drooling over a giant PG athlete in the “waiting room.” What a turn off. I hope our child isn’t admitted, because the good-looking food seemed to cast a spell and prompt a more favorable impression than was warranted to anyone paying attention to the more important things.</p>
<p>Wow I’m really glad I decided against applying to Cushing after all. Kartman did you also visit Salisbury? What was the campus vibe like? I really wanted to apply there but it came off my list when I was narrowing it down.</p>
<p>I am having an iterview w/ Cushing AO tonight!!
What should I do? How should I present myself?</p>
<p>Ouch! Sounds like Kartman hit Cushing on a bad day. We actually had a very warm and inviting reception from the admissions staff and, believe me, there were no athletics involved on our end. FYI, we looked at quite the range of schools, everything from HADES to the smaller, more intimate “gems” mentioned on CC in the past. We ultimately decided on Exeter (I know, a very different school but a friend in the B-school business suggested Cushing to us. For what it’s worth, you might be surprised at the number of Exeter alum or otherwise connected who teach/coach at Cushing. I know they compete with PEA, Andover, Deerfield, etc. in athletics as well.) We were impressed with the feel at Cushing and got the sense it’s a school to watch - perhaps just one of those well-kept, New England secrets. It has decent matriculation and the academics seemed solid to us, if not as intense as the HADES schools. Nice that they offer learning support to those who need - Choate, Andover, and other schools do, too, but this one seemed more structured. The headmaster, who we bumped into by pure chance, seemed genuinely enthusiastic and on the ball. (I think he’s a Stanford guy with various degrees. He impressed us.) The students we met seemed happy and engaged - lots of smiles. All in all, we may be giving Cushing another look for our younger child when the time comes. Oh, for what it’s worth, don’t know what to say about the library controversy. The building was beautiful and well-organized, there were in fact books, and our child felt the absence of a zillion-volume collection wasn’t a big deal. Anyhow, those are some impressions. I came across this thread rather accidentally through an Exeter search(!) and felt it was worth putting in my proverbial two cents since so little exists about Cushing on CC. And for the record, child seems to be loving Exeter - no buyer’s remorse yet. Good luck to all!</p>
<p>Funny, we had Kartman’s negative experience at Exeter! Interviewer was distracted, more infatuated with our son’s Air Jordan shoes than his talent. Seemed to have his own agenda, and not very interested in the student. Just goes to show…</p>