<p>Hi everyone</p>
<p>I'm just curious to know about dorm life at boarding schools. Im applying to andover, exeter, st. pauls, and milton.</p>
<p>my top choice is andover :)</p>
<p>does anyone have anything to say about dorm life? pros or cons? if you have a roommate, do you generally get along with them?</p>
<p>any current boarding students up right now?! its only 10:55pm on the east coast where most of the prestigious boarding schools are!!</p>
<p>At Exeter, the internet shuts off at 11 on school nights…</p>
<p>but even if they close off internet access, can’t students still watch videos, play games etc? (they can download stuff, then use headphones)</p>
<p>do students care a lot about fashion/clothes? (would wearing the same thing for two days leave a bad impression or not)</p>
<p>i know it varies depending on which school, but whats it like at your current school? (for those who are at boarding school)</p>
<p>internet off at 11 is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard. First of all, what if students are working on homework, papers, etc. that require the internet? I mean you can try to get it done earlier but sometimes you might just have a ton of work. Second, if you’re 14-18 years old and attending boarding school you should have the freedom to determine how late you want to stay up on the internet, regardless of what you’re doing.</p>
<p>bbc…My kid–who’s regularly on the internet until midnight at home–has never complained to me about this. After a full day of class and sports, he’s usually ready to roll into bed by then. I imagine you’d just plan out your work so that if you did have to stay up late, you’d do the stuff that required internet access first. Some kids, of course, just access through their cell phones after 11.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of thing that’s good to know in advance…if the very thought of the internet cutting off at 11 makes you crazy, I’d check out the policies at various schools. I know Exeter isn’t alone.</p>
<p>Oh…Great information,Classicalmama!</p>
<p>i’m a new lower at exeter. sometimes the internet off at 11 rule is an inconvenience, but it really forces you to manage your time, to make do with what you have, and make sacrifices to produce quality work. i’m usually in bed by 12, if i procrastinate, and even the last hour is just spent doing readings for classes, not internet research anyway.</p>
<p>dorm life at exeter’s pretty chill - lower classmen check in at 8 pm on school nights, uppers at 9, and seniors at 10. on saturday nights, everyone can check in as late as 11 pm. </p>
<p>students don’t necessarily care about fashion and clothes other than the dress code, but there are always impeccably dressed kids. people make an effort to look decent, some go all-out, and some are just fine with polo shirts and jeans. there are lots of different people.</p>
<p>I suppose Preps must check in at Seven?..
Btw aaeroplanes can You chance me on my profile?
Thanks.</p>
<p>exeterrr, i don’t like idea of chancing - everyone is different and only AO’s can truly tell you these kinds of things, and even then, there are a lot of contributing factors on your application. there is no “formula”
nope, preps check in at 8 along with lowers. lowerclassmen are freshmen and sophomores.</p>
<p>Oh ok… Thanks I did not know that</p>
<p>Hi, I am a current fourth former (10th grader) at Choate. </p>
<p>In regard to your roommate question, Choate was really good with trying to choose the right roommate for me. After admission, they sent me a link with a roommate questionnaire basically asking about my personality/cleanliness/music preferences/etc. and they basically tried to match me with another incoming student.</p>
<p>Turns out, my roommate is awesome and our personalities fit together really well. This said, it’s not always going to work out so well, and even if you’re fine with your roommate, I can guarantee you will not like some people.</p>
<p>btwthis doesn’t really apply to you, bigblue, since you’re not applying to Choate, but Choate’s internet shuts off at different times for different grades. Freshmen have lights out at 10:30, and their internet shuts off at 10, while as a sophomore, my lights out is at 11 and my internet goes out at 11. Juniors and seniors do not have internet cut-offs or lights out.
Now after the “Facebook scandal,” we can’t access Facebook from 7:30-11:00 at all.</p>
<p>Internet cut off’s not a big deal for me because I’m a fast worker. In general though, we don’t have much work that involves the internet at all, unless it’s an essay or research project, with which you shouldn’t be procrastinating and pulling late nights anyways.</p>
<p>Ok, on the internet cutoff thing, I am really curious. Kids are bright, and resourceful, and run circles around us dinosaurs 
Aren’t there fairly easy ways around this for kids today? Alternate browsers, or something? I am way out of my league here…I’m using the wrong words, so bear with me. I have seen kids come up with amazing things - to get around any attempt at internet filters, for one. My question is, at boarding school, if the BS ‘turns off’ the internet, is that really all there is to it? One student has told me that his school does this, but the kids have found another way.</p>
<p>Swampedwithwork - are you really? Choate is high on my D’s list and one of the questions we have never been able to get a handle on is just how much work there is at Choate. Do you feel pressure or overwhelmed? Are the assignments reasonable and worthy ones? IF you manage your time can you get your basic 8 hours of sleep?</p>
<p>2kids - kids access internet through an ethernet cable in their dorm rooms. The school shuts the network down to cut it off. It’s kind of like the school is the ISP. Imagine if the cable company shut off your internet from the pole downt he street, there would be nothing you could do.</p>
<p>But…if you have a wireless network card installed on your laptop, you could access it from your cell phone account. Or, you can always go online on your phone. </p>
<p>The 11:00 shutoff hasn’t been an academic problem for my son. Yesterday, for instance, he was in a snowball fight with another down and was exhausted by the time 11:00 rolled around anyway. Sometimes, when he’s done with his work and would like to chat with a friend or me on Facebook, it gets cut off - but he should be in bed anyway.</p>
<p>I’d also like to add that Choate has one of the better prep school ITS departments. There are kids that have tried to get through the Choate walls, and if they succeed, the ITS basically enlists them in helping them with improving their system. It’s kind of neat, actually.</p>
<p>But there is no way around the internet cut-off on computers. If the internet is off, that means it’s off, and by that time, trust me you WANT to sleep.</p>
<p>Madaket, I made this account before getting into Choate, so by no means make any assumption based upon my screen name. I feel like the workload is reasonable. It also depends on which courses you’re taking, and how many courses you are taking, but in general, it’s manageable. I’ve always been a bit of a procrastinator, and I have pulled a couple of late-nights, but I can find time. There is pressure, but the pressure primarily comes from myself and my own desire/drive to succeed. I don’t know your daughter or her study habits, but if she is a good student and she is doing well in academics at her current school, she should be okay. Currently, I get about 7 and a half hours of sleep a day because I go to bed at 11 and I wake up at 6:30, but it can be more or less. Of course it gets overwhelming, but that’s just part of the growing process.</p>
<p>Thanks, Neato & Swamped! I guess smart phones would be the answer if some students were hell-bent on accessing the net after hours. As someone mentioned, video game access is 24/7 anyway. Giving the addictive nature of video games, at least for some, I suppose that may be the bigger risk.</p>
<p>Even as an upperclassman, internet shutting off at 11 hasn’t been an issue. Some people get along just fine using just the computer labs which close around 8 or 9. You just have to manage your time, that’s all!</p>