I need to make a decision: Hotchkiss or Groton. Currently, in 8th grade, I will start my 9th grade this fall. There are two factors to consider for making my decision.
I am a STEM kid. I am looking for opportunities to participate in extracurricular STEM activities such as Robotics and math & science competitions. I know that both schools offer excellent curricula for math and science. However, I am not sure about engineering education. I am particularly curious about Groton’s STEM facilities and its supports since I was not able to check them during my school revisit. (However, I visited the EFX lab at Hotchkiss and loved it.)
I am a nationally ranked athlete, but neither of these schools offers my sport, so I need to try new sports and love to try new ones. Having said that, I am not that athletic. I am looking for a school where sports are less emphasized. (My impression is that sports are very critical in Hotchkiss.)
Your inputs are greatly appreciated and will help me to make my decision.
I have a child at Hotchkiss. I would not say that sports there are “very critical.” They have “thirds” teams (below varsity and junior varsity) in many sports, and students of various levels of ability participate in them fine. I know my child has friends with various levels of athletic ability, and all of them seem to be doing completely fine socially without having varsity potential in most cases. And you can work on the farm there or engage in performing arts for a trimester or two each year in lieu of participation on a true sports team. There’s enough diversity of interests at Hotchkiss that you can be who you are and do well.
I agree with everything @ameridad says. Hotchkiss hired a new faculty a few years back to lead the EFX lab, and engineering-related projects students involve in. He is very student-friendly and seems to have extensive experience. You might have met him during your visit. The robotics team is new, but they have already received a statewide competition award. I believe the faculty who oversees the team recently joined Hotchkiss from Andover. Like farming, you can do robotics in place of sports participation in the fall and winter.
There is definitely sports spirit at the school, but I do not think Hotchkiss is only for students who are into sports. Also, based on my child’s experience, I believe you can find almost any sports with almost no experience in the third or JV team.
Definitely Hotchkiss. Groton is all about humanities. To me, Hotchkiss has a decent athletic program, but not the top tier. It has a very strong art program (music and visual art). The fact that I love Hotchkiss more is that Hotchkiss is much more diverse and open-minded. It is bigger than Groton, therefore, you will meet more interesting and diverse people and have more clubs and activities in general.
Thank you for sharing your insights. The decision-making is hard for me since Groton was my first choice school and still is. I just love the school. The size, the people, the vibe, everything about Groton is just so special to me, except my concern for its engineering program. (Groton’s science class was just awesome, though.)
I like Hotchkiss as well. The revisit day on Hotchkiss made me fall in love with this school. The school is so lively and engaging. Just hard to make my decision.
I always love Hotchkiss. People are just really nice, warm and down to earth. My kid was deciding among Exeter, Groton, and Hotchkiss. Eventually, he picked Exeter because of his sports (Hotchkiss can’t accommodate his fall and winter sports). I heard cut throat kinda stories about Groton. It is just too small. It has pros and cons about being that small… I know there are a lot of rich kids with legacy and from high profile families at Groton. It could be tricky. Good luck!
Adding one thing about the STEM: I felt from the yield event that Hotchkiss is just much more balanced in terms of curriculum design while Groton has the reputation because of its humanities program. The yield gift we got from Hotchkiss is a LED light circuit kit and my kid loved it very much. I felt if you are a STEM. It should be a no brainer…
I was not aware of the presence of ‘rich kids with legacy’ and ‘kids from high profile families’ during my Groton’s revisit. My impression was that Groton students were rather down to earth. But you might be right. The school newspaper reports that 25.7% of this year’s seniors applied to a school for which they have legacy status. It implies that Groton has a certain proportion of legacy kids.
Actually, during my revisit, I felt that Hotchkiss students were cliquish. The newly admitted girls from NYC hang out together, with upper-grade students from the same area joining them.
As a FA kid, I am wondering whether all of these will matter. Any insights?
Well, that is a common problem (rich/snob kids) at all boarding schools to be honest. That is why I said the bigger population will have more diversity and more open-minded people. Groton is just too small. That legacy and rich family issue is more concentrating than that at other schools. The college matriculation is biased because of that. Hotchkiss is one of the most global and open minded to me among all top schools.
I think the clique issue is somewhat true of Hotchkiss, though less so as time goes on; there is a modestly sized wealthy Manhattan/Greenwich contingent, for example. However, plenty of those kids are fine, too, when you get to know them a bit, which you do through classes and extracurriculars. I don’t know about Groton in this way, but I would expect something similar among many EC boarding schools, though maybe more Boston than New York in Groton’s case.
My family is from the Midwest part of the country. My child’s main friend group at Hotchkiss includes kids from various states in the U.S., multiple foreign countries, several different races/religions and different socioeconomic status. Plenty of great kids from all around.
One issue your family may want to consider is how Groton and Hotchkiss have handled COVID. You may have a preference, in case things get bad again. Hotchkiss has handled it with logic and reason, taking it very seriously but not overreacting, in my opinion. I don’t know about Groton, but I’ve read they have been incredibly strict. You may like one approach over the other.
another thing I noticed is that Groton has longer breaks. For example, their spring break is three weeks, which I found is outrageous. not sure it is covid 19 related or not.
Groton is not full of rich entitled kids. It actually has some of the most generous financial aid of any school discussed here. More generous than many colleges. It has made a concerted effort to include middle class families in that financial aid program as well through the GRAIN initiative which is unique. Kids who are wealthy at Groton do not flaunt their wealth, that is not cool within the Groton community. There is zero competition to dress the best or have the nicest whatever. I believe that Groton has a higher % of students on financial aid than Hotchkiss does.
Because it’s small Groton does place a unique stress on kindness and cooperation. Many math and science classes are expected to be collaborative around problem sets.
I am not aware that Groton is “all about humanities” (my kid hates English and history and is all about math and science). Maybe the person who said that is referring to the classics requirement? The classics requirement is helpful for science though so it’s really not a humanities only req.
Ahh Covid. Groton started out as one of the best, if not the best. Last year when other schools were not letting day students on campus, or only having seniors and freshman come in person, Groton’s headmaster said everyone is coming to campus and we are teaching in person. But yup. Still wearing masks .
If Groton is the choice of your gut, I’d go with your gut. I think the info you’ve gotten in this thread is fairly off the mark in a lot of places. (I know nothing about Hotchkiss so cannot compare).
I think the small size of Groton does not make it worse in any way. It just makes you more connected with everyone there. All I know about Hotchkiss is from the threads here.
Of course, every top school will offer a lot of stem classes, which doesn’t mean they will offer top notch resources and programs focusing on STEM. Some school is famous for their writing workshops while some is famous for their math competition program and robotics. Some has strong global and environmental studies while some has strong classics programs. Groton is definitely not strong on STEM.
Bottom line: you cannot go wrong in choosing between these two schools. Huge congrats on having this amazing choice!
On the sports point, what does Groton require in each season? As others have mentioned, at Hotchkiss I know that there are several non-sports options that fulfill the Hotchkiss “co-curricular” requirement. I am assuming for Groton it is the same, but was not 100% sure.
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