<p>Do you know if exeter has a quiz bowl team or any sort of organization affiliated with the NAQT?</p>
<p>Also, is it difficult to be elected to class rep/ASB positions if you come in as a new sophomore/junior?</p>
<p>If there’s a QB team, I’m definitely joining. haha I’m full of random facts about all sorts of stuff. hah</p>
<p>Promotional, there is a quiz bowl team. They compete at New Hampshire Quiz League tournaments. The team only went to a couple of the tournaments this year. There is also a science bowl team (associated with National Science Bowl). The team was supposed to compete over break, but I don’t know how they did.</p>
<p>Ranabona, I have not heard of any activity from the martial arts club, unfortunately. That may be one of the several inactive clubs at Exeter, but I don’t know for sure.</p>
<p>Ranabona: My son says he thinks there’s more than one martial arts club–he knows the guy who runs the “western” martial arts club (whatever that means). He says he also says that on his way to sports practice, he’s seen a kid taking martial arts lessons. You might check in with PEA teacher on his thread–he’d probably be more helpful.</p>
<p>Anyone going to preseason sports?</p>
<p>Thanks, classicalmama. I’ll do that.</p>
<p>Hi you guys. I’m a current 10th grader, accepted to both Andover and Exeter as a future Upper. </p>
<p>I’ve been talking and posting to quite a few people, and have gotten the biggest response from andover students. My inquiries have been about dorm quality and meal quality, compared to andover’s, freedom/independance as an upper, accessibility to transport and being able to move around, and internal social activities. </p>
<p>If you’d like to see what I’ve heard so far, its on this two-page thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1104992-accepted-torn-andover-exeter-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1104992-accepted-torn-andover-exeter-2.html</a></p>
<p>I’m really hoping to hear from some exonians as right now i feel like the reason im inclined towards andover at the moment is because of the lack of response from exeter alumni/teachers/students. </p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>calipaki - </p>
<p>we as exeter students are not supposed to… demean other schools as a way of promoting our own. I saw that thread, and specifically refrained from posting on the thread. However, if you ask me now, I will.</p>
<p>Main Issues that stood out to me:</p>
<p>Dorms- at exeter theres a variety of good/bad dorms, but wherever they end up most people are satisfied because something usually makes up for the bad things (for me, it was an old dorm but the people in it are SO amazing.) from what ive heard, some of the dorms at andover are so old their floors are slightly angled. other than that, i dont really know.</p>
<p>food- theres one way to put this. exeter food sucks, but the desserts are amazing. and the days we have special food (brunch, jazz brunch, chinese new year) the food gets better. but andover’s food clearly wins. but most people dont go to exeter for the food.</p>
<p>dress code is something that girls do have to follow, but its very light.</p>
<p>any other questions?</p>
<p>A plethora! If you don’t mind answering them, here they are. (Some address a couple of topics I asked about before, only with a tad more specificity.)</p>
<p>How would you describe your dorm?
Is it spacious and comfortable?
Are there any restrictions on what you can have in your dorm?
How does the dorm placement system operate? Can you make specific requests? Not just for a specific type of room, but the exact building or such?
Also, I’ve heard that new Uppers are generally housed well, in your experience does that hold true?</p>
<p>How is the internet speed across the campus during the day?
How would you describe the social dynamics? Do “groups” mingle with others, is there an attitude of social outreach?
How would you describe the culinary performance of the school?</p>
<p>How much freedom do students have? Are we free to leave and enter campus as we like?
What are you allowed to do on weekends? Putting aside school-organized activities, can you venture out into the city to do your own thing?
How does one get around the actual town during weekends? Public transport, school-provided transport, or whatever we can manage ourselves?
What exactly is nearby? Mall/drugstore-wise?</p>
<p>How would you describe the atmosphere in the student body? Is it often tense and strained?
What are the light guidelines girls must follow under the dress code, if they are not exactly what’s been written on the site?</p>
<p>My dorm - I love it! I [personally] think its the greatest dorm, because everyones so tight, but you wont hear much about us because we dont really advertise our dorm.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t describe it as spacious and comfortable, because i have a triple (dont worry, there are only 2 on campus), but thats just my room. our hallways are huge and our whole basement is our common room. so i would think its spacious.</p>
<p>I think you can request dorms if you’re new, but its your parents who do that, i believe. for specific rooms youll have to wait until the end of the year to choose for the next year, and seniority gets priority on that, so youll get first pick at the end of next year.</p>
<p>Uppers are mostly sent into houses, if im correct. Im not exactly sure on that, might wanna pm someone else about that. But houses are pretty nice, it seems.</p>
<p>Internet speed. ha. until the end of winter break it was horrendously slow. they finally doubled the bandwith so we can almost watch a 360p youtube video without interruptions.</p>
<p>friends - youll most likely find a group of friends (for me its my dorm) but it still varies a lot with your schedule each term because youll find you have things in common on your schedule.</p>
<p>culinary performance is not a topic our school does very well on. the dining hall cooks certainly have the capacity to make good food, as you can tell from our desserts and our rare once in a while brunches and special meals.
Students are allowed to leave campus, theres like a 10-mile radius or something you can roam around in without getting an out-of-town permission form.</p>
<p>weekends-lots of things. dances, performances, shows, games, bus to mall and movies. you can venture into the town of exeter, but going to boston requires you fill out an out-of-town permission slip.
theres trains, and you can hire a taxi if you wish to go out of town. buses are provided only to the mall and movies/to the airports on leaving/arriving days.</p>
<p>we have a bunch of restaurants and small shops; theres a sports store called george and phillips, a (very popular) mexican restaurant called las olas, a couple of chinese restaurants, many other shops, and a walgreens, a walmart, a stop and shop.</p>
<p>the student body - well the atmosphere is always loose, despite having so much work.
girls dress code im not really familiar with… it seems like as long as youre wearing pants or leggings of some sort and a decent, unmarked shirt you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>1) Is the student government active at Exeter? Big presence on campus, or is it more behind the scenes?</p>
<p>2) What’s the climate like for LGBT students and is there a lot of support for GSA?</p>
<p>3) Do requirements outside of academics - such as art, phys ed, etc. - ever bog your schedule down? Can you possible show us an example of your schedule? The one of Exeter’s website is really confusing.</p>
<p>4) What do kids do on the weekends and/or weekend evenings? Are there a lot of events such as fashion shows, talent shows, club events, cultural shows, dinners, plays, dances, etc.? Are they heavily attended? Do you feel like you have a built in social system/network or is it more, to each his/her own?</p>
<p>5) Is theatre a big thing there? How about acapella?</p>
<p>6) Do you guys have class rankings and can we see where they’re posted? I want to know if top students get straight 11s and/or if the highest grade for most students is like a 9.</p>
<p>7) How many APs do students take on average? How many satisfy diploma requirements? Such as taking a world history course that covers AP material, AP English Lit or Comp as part of your 4 years of English, AP Calc, etc.</p>
<p>8) How big is MUN, how popular, and how competitive?</p>
<p>9) What are the most popular Varsity sports students attend? Or is sports not as big a part of the social scene? If not - what is? Theatre? Concerts? Student productions such as talent shows, fashion shows, charity auctions, etc.?</p>
<p>10) Is the International Club filled more with a) Asian students or b) European students?</p>
<p>11) What’s your favorite thing about being at Exeter?</p>
<p>12) What’s difficult about being at Exeter? </p>
<p>Thanks for answering questions!!</p>
<p>1.) The student government is great! They do a lot of things for us. Recently they just reduced the number of saturday classes next year and got us discounts for an extremely popular restaurant. I dont exactly know what you mean by behind the scenes, but they do do a lot of things.</p>
<p>2.)There is and there isnt any discrimination against them. I dont know about GSA, but it seems to be a pretty big club.</p>
<p>3.) art is part of your schedule. everything is part of your schedule. Sports as well. Unless youre a prep, you dont have phys ed and get to choose your sport, so most of the time, you choose an enjoyable sport, not a boring one, so you wont feel it bogs down your schedule.</p>
<p>4.)There are tons of things to do on the weekends. dont worry about it if you come here. most of the things you named, we have.</p>
<p>5.) It is. we have a huge theatre production at the end of every term, and theyre GREAT. although ive never managed to obtain tickets because they are taken so quickly, Ive heard that theyre wonderful.</p>
<p>6.) We dont have class rankings. however usually the highest grade in a class is 10.8.</p>
<p>7.)APs… I dont know, sorry!</p>
<p>8.) MUN is pretty big and has a decent amount of members that attend regularly, they go to large competitions and just left today for one at 7:30, in fact.</p>
<p>9.) Extracurriculars aren’t really social at this school. you wont be judged for what sport you do.</p>
<p>10.) There are separate clubs for asian and european students. I dont really know about the international club.</p>
<p>11.) haha typical questions now. The thing i like most - Harkness.</p>
<p>12.) the hardest thing - time management, but you slowly learn.</p>
<p>Hey guys! I was just accepted to Exeter as a prep, and I have many questions considering life at Exeter… I’d love for you to visit the thread that i just posted, Phillips Exeter Academy… but I have one question that I figured I’d post here on this thread: Does each dorm have a specific “personality” (e.g. sporty, nerdy, preppy…)? Are there certain dorms that are more popular than others? Im not trying to sound superficial, but this is just something that I am curious about. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>to an extent, i guess some dorms do have a bit of a tainted “stereotype” but you’ll really find all kinds of people in the dorm regardless of their supposed stereotype!</p>
<p>AP’s - The only official AP classes (which are actually labeled as “advanced”, not specifically AP) are biology, chemistry and physics. These are second-year courses, so a student must have taken intro bio, chem or physics before they take those courses. Students “will be prepared to take the AP exam” after taking normal calculus, but there is no specific class for it. I think some of the advanced Latin students take the AP exam as well. I am taking 2 AP exams this year. Most juniors and seniors will only take one or two a year, if any.</p>
<p>Thanks for this thread! I was just wondering if it gets really competitive when everyone’s applying to the same colleges etc…and how hard it is to get As? Challenging, or never happens? Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m applying to Exeter either this year or next, and i was wondering how hard it is for international (UK) students to get used to the style of teaching, timetableing etc. I will either apply for 10th or 11th grade</p>
<p>@prep123, it is really competitive college wise…apparently senior fall is super stressful, especially with ED, but I actually was abroad that fall and missed all of the supposed drama. In the spring, there was a little drama, but people seemed to avoid it by just not posting things on facebook (that helps a lot).</p>
<p>As for how hard it is to get As…that really depends. For English and history, I feel like a lot of it is natural talent. I was always “good” but almost never “great” and as hard as I tried, I rarely got As in English/history (probably got equal #s of A-'s and B+'s in history)–the thing is, I would read the A papers and they really were better than mine (people are just really talented). I think I got…two A’s and two A-‘s in English out of my 12 English classes (and those are spread out over all four years). Also depends on your teachers–some English/history teachers have reputations for being easier graders vs. harder graders.
Math and science really depend on how well you get the subjects, how much you study for bio/if you have a knack for it, and how good you are at problem solving. Whereas I always had trouble getting A’s in the more subjective courses (excluding art), I almost always did well in science and math (and language). Some people do have a really hard time with Exeter math, no matter what. And biology tends to be a killer, especially for preps (omg, I wrote freshmen. I am far too removed from Exeter…so sad 
) I actually did super well with biology, but that usually kills a lot of preps’ first year GPAs. I’m unusual in that I tended to get A’s and had above a 10 (out of 11) GPA prep and lower year…and then once upper winter hit, my grades crashed (and by crashed I mean I got B’s and got a 9 something. In retrospect not bad, but at the time devastating). Most people tend to do poorly in the beginning because they have trouble adjusting, and then show improvement in their grades.</p>
<p>While you don’t get ranked, you do find out what percentage of each class got “above a 10 average” and “above a 9 average” etc. each semester. 10 average is A-, 9 is B+. When I graduated, by what I could tell from cum laude, the top 20% went to 9’s…but I don’t know what range in the 9’s-- would put you in the top 20%, and upper year, I think I saw something that said maybe 13% had gotten above a 10 average? (Cumulative, I think. It was ages ago).</p>
<p>Basically, A’s are hard to get, I guess. And it is competitive for college. 300-330 graduate every year, and maybe only 80-90 (rough estimate) go to Ivies/Stanford/MIT (some of that does have to do with financial aid, though. I know someone who got into Cornell and went to a smaller liberal arts college because they gave her a scholarship, and someone who got into Harvard and went to Rice because of a full scholarship). Supposedly if you have above a 10 you are guaranteed to get in an Ivy/top school, but I’m not sure how true it is. If you’re African American, anything in the 9’s will get you in everywhere (seriously though, almost half of the people going to Harvard from my year are African American and didn’t get Cum Laude, aka didn’t graduate in the top 20%. Obviously they’re still really smart, but they do benefit from college’s desires to get under-represented minorities that they <em>know</em> will be successful).</p>
<p>If anyone has any questions about Exeter (or Penn/Wharton, actually), feel free to PM me…I was getting nostalgic and decided to visit some Exeter threads =)</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone who’s answering questions on this thread.</p>
<p>Could you please highlight the pros and cons of taking Biology prep year and the pros and cons of taking Physics prep year?</p>
<p>Also, what are some of the common electives preps select, and in which terms to do they take them?</p>
<p>Once again, thanks, your time is much appreciated.</p>
<p>My kid took history, religion, and art for electives this year, in that order. History was by far the most difficult, so maybe wasn’t the best to take first, when he was still adjusting to school–on the other hand, each term has seemed easier than the last, so maybe it’s good to get the tough one over first. </p>
<p>Lots of students take the comp. sci. elective prep year in place of one of the above.</p>