<p>I visited Deerfield and I have to say that right now it is at the top of my list closely followed by Exeter and Andover. What do you guys think about (especially in comparison to the other 2 schools):</p>
<p>1) the Academics
2) the Athletics
3) the Social Life
4) the Overall Experience</p>
<p>all these schools are on par academically, however you will have more class choices at A&E. check the course catalog to see if that makes a difference for you. no saturday classes at DA, you have them at E. </p>
<p>depends on your sport. DA is a major, major force in LAX, less so in other sports. all the team records are on line for each school, together with annual or seasonal summaries - that should give you a glimpse.</p>
<p>social life - one key difference between DA and A&E is that there is much more interaction with faculty/staff through sit-down meals at designated tables for 5 to 7 meals per week. most kids really like that aspect, some don’t. A&E are more like colleges - go to meals when you want, with whom you want, sit where you want. Da is redoing its main social center (the Greer) and its Fitness center - should be open by Fall 2010. </p>
<p>Overall experience - I think the vast majority of kids at DA love the place.</p>
<p>Thanks. By saying that the vast majority of kids love DA, is that implying that it isn’t so at Exeter and Andover?
also, which one is more rigorous? im looking for a challenge…</p>
<p>by no means implying kids don’t like E&A experience, just don’t enough knowledge to have an opinion. </p>
<p>to your last point, I would make a generalization and say that you can probably go deeper into a specific topic at A&E, due to their larger size, but overall I think the quality, or difficulty, of academics would be comparable. the gross generalization is that A&E are more oriented towards specialists, and DA is more oriented to educating the all around student.</p>
<p>While visiting DA, asking each of the 4 students we met where else did they apply, get accepted etc, each said they got into at least 2 HADES schools yet selected DA because of their sense of community</p>
<p>and it showed, those students loved DA and were happy as heck to be there.</p>
<p>Everyone we met, students, admissions people, the lady that takes care of sports uniforms, to the older gentleman that was cleaning up in the admissions building were happy and loving being there</p>
<p>I was impressed, so was my mom and most importantly my d :-)</p>