<p>I was just talking to a graduate of Hotchkiss and he said the most disappointing thing about boarding school is the way so many nice kids end up becoming arrogant snobs by senior year. </p>
<p>He actually enjoyed freshman year at Hotchkiss the most when everyone was the most friendly and the cliques hadnt formed yet. I think this is a problem for all boarding schools, especially the top-tier ones. I can see why attending an elite school like Andover/Exeter, etc. goes to some kids heads and they start to think of themselves as superior. </p>
<p>I didnt want to go to a public high school and am really grateful for this opportunity. But will attending an elite school turn me into a conceited elitist?</p>
<p>Not if you don't let it. I know pretentious snobs in my public school. And I'm sure there will be pretentious snobs in your elite private school. If that's not who you want to be, don't let it.
Here's an example... Kind of.
A public schools 'typically' has a ton of unmotivated "stupid" students, who don't care about their education. Does that mean that a good student entering this public school will automatically, without a choice, become unmotivated and "stupid"? No. They have a choice, and it is all about your personal integrity and how you view the world. Are the kids from your old, public school inferior in anyway as a human? Not in the least. It is their choice to be who they are, as it is for you.
A boarding school has snobs, duh, but they don't automatically become snobs because of boarding school. They may have been that way before, and it may have been peer/environment/parental conditions. There is no one deciding factor in how you turn out, and how others behave or view the world around them.</p>
<p>Final Remark: If you don't want to be a snob, you don't have to be a snob.</p>
<p>I don't know if you necessarily become a snob because you go to a prep school. I really think it all depends on your personality. </p>
<p>However, there will be many arrogant WASP types that will come to the school as freshmen. Also, since you (or me-i'm from chicago) don't live in the Northeast, I think that you will find the people just plain different. I'm not going to go into the specifics of it, but, suffice to say that I preferred the people in the Midwest compared to people from the Northeast.</p>
<p>Do prep schools lead to arrogence:
Um, well . . . yes. They can.
Do they have to:
No.
My honest answer would be (after 1 year at Andover--so I'm not at the same point as your Hotckkiss graduate) yes, prep schools can lead to arrogence. Being among some of the smartest and most talented students in the world, and counting yourself among them, does lead a disproportionate number of students to either get a huge ego, or to have diminished self-esteem. It is a negative of prep school. However... you can live with it. You can detach yourself from that mentality, and you do not have to become it. I don't find it to have a major negative impact on my life. Yes, it is an influence, but, it's sort of a "take the bad with the good."
I'm sorry if this wasn't as encouraging as you might have hoped, but...if you wanted the truth, this is what I think.</p>
<p>From my own experience with people at my school, a lot of kids changed by their junior or senior year. I remember many people (whom I'm not talking to anymore) who used to be extremely outgoing, nice, and friendly to me when we first met, either when we were just freshman or when they first entered the school as sophomores. I think it has to do with forming cliques because we no longer interact. They passed by me with their noses in the air, often distant and exclusive always when they were with their other friends. They were either with the most "beautiful and popular" group or with the smartest group...I agree with the person above. Intelligence and wealth (whom most of these kids have) do tend to lead to arrogance. I know plenty of kids who were too smart for their own good, backmouthing and being extremely rude to teachers because they think they are smarter. It's a pretty sad situation. It's their choice however to act this way. I think that a boarding school experience upholds this proclivity toward snobbiness. Still I think it has a lot to do with personality. If you don't want to be a snob, then you don't become one. It's all your choice.</p>
<p>This is a question I have wondered about. Because my D is leaving a scrappy, beat-up underfunded school for a beautiful campus with facilities, faculty, and opportunities galore, I couldn't help but notice the strikingly unequal distribution of resources to our country's children.</p>
<p>Most of the kids at these elite schools are from very privileged backgrounds. I think many kids from wealthy and powerful families know that they have gotten along so far as a result of their parents' position. But when they are at prep school, where there is a lot of work expected, a high bar for achievement in athletics and academics, naturally these kids begin to feel that it is their own hard work that has earned them their place in society. They believe their hard work has entitled them to go on to the Ivy Leagues on a crew or equestrian scholarship. They aren't wrong: they have worked really hard to achieve what they have. Their hard work in college may propel them to degrees from professional schools afterward.</p>
<p>What they don't remember or realize is how much their starting point mattered. They are unaware of how much of their success is due to luck and to their initial privileges. They might believe that other people who have achieved less must have worked less and not consider how few kids have ever had a meaningful interaction with a teacher, how almost no one outside of prep school rows crew or rides horses, how little support many kids get from any quarter.</p>
<p>I think that is the source of the self-importance that people perceive from some prep-school graduates. They believe they are entitled to what they have.</p>
<p>Will being in prep-school make you arrogant? I don't think it has to. If you are grateful for all the things you have been given from all the people who have helped you I think you can remain pleasantly down to earth. You should try to appreciate other people's talents and skills and while not claiming false modesty, you should recognize your own limitations. Figure out how to use the advantages you are receiving from your education to give back to society. Empathize with other people who have not received the advantages that you have and imagine yourself in different circumstances. Help others.</p>
<p>well,
this isnt my words,
but someone told me that prep schools do not lead to arrogance,
but they are a product of arrogance...
i think that's kind of interesting to consider</p>
<p>To tell the truth, I'm surprised by the responses on this thread. Every kid I met in every school I visited was so nice and respectful to me as an adult. I never get that from kinds in our town who attend the local public gang-ridden school. No, my town certainly is not a town of snobs, but the kids in bs are by far more friendly and considerate and polite - at least to adults. I can only hope my daughter turns into one of them in the next four years.</p>
<p>You can very easily surround yourself with people from one socio-economic background and end up that snobby breed. But you choose who you hang out with and the things you let influence you. Boarding school offers an incredibly opportunity, and you can take advantage of that by studying and hanging out with everyone, from your international roommate to your girl-next-door study buddy to the WASP from Jersey. Snobs form everywhere, including public school, but the only people who become snobs are those who don't appreciate the opportunities they've been afforded.</p>
<p>Seems to me, that the wealthiest and most accomplished people are usually very genuine and humble -- they have nothing to prove. Any "snobs" I've met in my life are usually striving to fit in or "wannabes".....I tend to doubt that BS creates snobs -- I think that comes from your upbringing; what BS does encourage is a strong work ethic and striving for excellence. If excellence is elitism, then call me an elitist -- but not a snob.</p>
<p>Prep schools do not lead to arrogance, but they certainly do raise expectations, which can easily be perceived as arrogance. There is nothing wrong with higher expectations, it's only bad when you look down on someone or something because it didn't meet your expectations.</p>
<p>At prep schools, you usually become accustomed the luxurious facilities, classes, small class sizes, etc.--all things great and characteristic of prep schools. So when you become placed in an environment that lacks those things that were once so readily available to you, it's hard not to wish for "better."</p>
<p>Many people go into good boarding schools already arrogant; they were always the best at everything and expected the world to be handed to them on a silver platter.</p>
<p>Some still <em>are</em> pretty arrogant, but probably much less so than they were before. Exeter kind of has a habit of destroying your self esteem like that, when you have to study 5x harder than you did before just to keep up.</p>
<p>Au contraire, they break your spirit and make you realize that there are other people who do what ever you do better than you do. If anything, prep school has humbled me -- and, as other posters have suggested, raised my expectations of myself. That being said, there is a little phrase called "Andover arrogance" floating around my debate team... but I think that's just the nature of debaters.</p>