Help me choose a boarding school for my son

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>My son's in 8th grade and his SSAT result is:</p>

<p>Verbal 746 - 90%
Math 800 - 99%
Reading 722 - 93%
Overall 2268 - 96%</p>

<p>He is very strong in music. Plays the violin at about 1st year music conservatory/college level. He also plays the guitar, studies music theory and composes music. He plays guitar in a band at school and has played violin in string quartets & orchestras outside school.</p>

<p>His physical recreation includes soccer (school team), taekwondo (blue belt), scuba diving (PADI advanced diver), and he likes archery.</p>

<p>He is fluent in French, having studied in a French school for 3 years. He's also studied Spanish for 3 years and Mandarin for 5 years.</p>

<p>His favorite subjects are math, physics, & music.</p>

<p>We're looking for a highly selective school which is strong in math, science, music, and languages; and has a broad sports program. </p>

<p>We're currently looking at Andover, Hotchkiss, Cate & Thacher. Your thoughts on appropriate schools would be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>he sounds just like a hocthkiss studennt take a look at it</p>

3

<p>I’m obviously biased as I’m a Choate parent, but it seems as if Choate has everything you are looking for. They even have an archery team! The orchestra tours either Europe or China every year and sounds professional to me. There is no pressure to play interscholastic sports, there are plenty of other afternoon activities that count as a sport.</p>

4

<p>Also, the math department is outstanding. My children were only on the regular honors track, but there are lots of math prodigies who come in as freshmen taking Calculus. From there, they are taught college classes at their level. Honors Physics, taken by the brightest freshman, uses an AP level book and the students who do well all take the SAT subject test in the spring, and we’re told, score over 700. What other sports are you interested in?</p>

5

<p>Include Deerfield in your list</p>

6

<p>He’s not looking specifically for other sports. We’re looking for a school with a broad sports program to try and steer away from any schools that are narrowly focused on the more traditional ones.</p>

<p>We’ll take a closer at Choate and Deerfield. Does anyone think Andover, Cate & Thacher will not be a good match for him?</p>

7

<p>Hi again- I really don’t know much about the other schools, except for Andover, which I’m sure has the same depth and breadth of classes and activities as Choate. There seems to be a lot of crossover between the two schools with similar applicants and activities, and both have a reputation for having sort of a friendly vibe. They are also, of course, both very hard to get into. I think that Choate had a record number of applications last year, despite the bad economy, and only accepted about 24% of the students who applied.</p>

8

<p>Thanks. They all seem to be tough schools to get into.</p>

9

<p>Part of your decision is big school vs. small. Andover, with more than 1100 students is five times the size of Thacher. Hotchkiss splits the difference. </p>

<p>The debate in our household, after looking at several schools on the East Coast, including Exeter and Choate, was focused on well roundedness. We wanted a School where our son would have an opportunity to be exposed to, encouraged to and actually participate in areas OUTSIDE his core skill sets. We knew he’d excel in the areas where he was already gifted, but we didn’t want him to default constantly to those strengths, which we thought would be too easy (and go relatively unnoticed) in a big School. So many critical habits get hard-wired during these early to mid-teen years. Your son can pursue math, science, music, and languages to his heart’s content. But it’s what else he’s capable of that will be spotted and nurtured. You will be amazed at the range of his gifts and his self-confidence.</p>

<p>The other reasons that Thacher made sense for us: the combination of academic rigor with a love of the outdoors (if he doesn’t like the outdoors this would not be the right School), the Horse Program (once-in-a-lifetime opportunity), the humility and down right friendliness of every single person we met, which we later discovered is just the way it is, the Honor Code (there are no locks on dorm doors etc) and finally the weather, incredibly beautiful year round and a stunning campus too.</p>

<p>Andover and Hotchkiss are fantastic institutions, but they represent fundamentally different educational paths. Not better or worse in my view, just different.</p>

10

<p>I agree that there are many ways for a strong student to thrive, (and everytime I read Thacherparent’s posts I think it would have been great for my now-Andover daughter, but I limited her search to great schools close to home!). But I can only speak personally about Andover. </p>

<p>From the level of your son’s playing, you may want one of the schools with access to Boston or NY, to at least keep open the option of joining a super-elite orchestra. A number of Andover students spend Saturdays in Boston in the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (<a href=“http://necmusic.edu/ypo[/url]”>http://necmusic.edu/ypo&lt;/a&gt;), in addition to participating fully in Andover’s program. My daughter doesn’t do NEC, yet still has tremendous opportunity to play her heart out at school at a high level (chamber orchestra, full orchestra, band, and a different chamber ensemble each term). The Music dept would be happy to talk to you about the opportunities. Be sure to send an audition CD. </p>

<p>What’s nice is that the kids don’t get pigeonholed. Even the intense musicians are involved in many other things—newspaper, sports, academic teams, you name it. The school is working out very well for our academically driven daughter, she’s on teams for sports she’d not tried before, and getting interested in lots of new things, with diverse friends who support each other. Good luck!</p>

11

<p>My son is a first year student at Hotchkiss. Although we knew next to nothing about this school a year ago, it has met and exceeded our highest expectations. Just this first semester, he has tackled new ventures that he never would have pursued if he had stayed at home or if had attended some other BS. These new enterprises include joining the sailing team, participating in theatre and taking scuba lessons, all while maintaining a strong GPA. </p>

<p>Because your son has a great interest in music, sports and academics (especially languages), Hotchkiss looks like a match for your child. The music program and facilities are amazing; the athletic buildings are incredible (and the teams are first rate too, e.g., the boys soccer team won the NE prep championship this season) and academics are strong across the board (I counted 2.6 courses offered per student…I think only Andover, another great school, has the same or better ratio of the top NE BS’s). In addition, I calculate that Hotchkiss has one of the top, if not the top, endowment per student ratios of any BS in the country. </p>

<p>In the end, all of the top BS are wonderful. Just on first blush, your child and THS may be a good fit.</p>

<p>Good luck to you and your family.</p>

12

<p>I personally don’t like very small schools, but I know far more people interested in private schools are intimidated by bigger schools (or maybe I am wrong? It is surprising how Andover and Exeter are so sought after). If size is a big concern of yours, you may eliminate some schools right off from you list. For example, Andover, Exeter, Choate and Lawrenceville are considered bigger w > 800 students; Deerfield, Hotchkiss and St. Paul’s are mid-size (around 600 students); and Groton, St. Andrews and Thacher are small w 300 some students.</p>

13

<p>Geographic location is something that should be considered too. If you are from the west coast, unless you find a school in the east highly desirable, attending a quality school like Thacher or Cate, which is close to home makes more sense. We are 5-6 hours’ drive away from my child’s school and sometimes wish we were closer. Traveling from coast to coast can be expensive too.</p>

14

<p>I go to exeter and from what you’ve said it sounds like Exeter would be another good option for him. His interests seem pretty similar to a lot of people I know at exeter. The difference between exeter and most other schools is that for math and science classes use the harkness method too. Andover I know uses it for english and stuff but they teach math and science in the traditional way with rows and the teacher teaching. I think it can either be really good or really bad depending on the person. I personally like the way math and science are run. In my math class what we do is we have our eight math problems we do for homework the night before and when we get into class we write one of those problems on the board with our answer and our work. We go problem by problem along the whiteboard explaining and if it isn’t completely understood discussing the problems. For science I’m taking physics and our teacher usually gives us homework or reading from the book. If there’s homework we do different things depending on what the teacher feels like. Sometimes we do it like we do in math by writing the problems on the board, sometimes we will give our notebooks to the teacher and he’ll put the problems on the projector and we can see it on there, and sometimes we’ll just go over the problems out loud. We usually spend a lot the class period discussing them unless we have a lab or something. I don’t play any musical instruments but I know a lot of people who do. Here’s a link to information about the music program: [Phillips</a> Exeter Academy | Music](<a href=“http://www.exeter.edu/academics/84_803.aspx]Phillips”>http://www.exeter.edu/academics/84_803.aspx) Exeter does offer french, spanish, and chinese and we have a pretty broad sports program.</p>

15

<p>Lots of great points.</p>

<p>He attends a small school with a maximum of 36 students per grade. Even a small school like Thacher would be big to him. I think school as a transition to a college. Even a large school like Andover would be small compared to some colleges. Overall school size is not a big factor to me.</p>

<p>I don’t mind either east or west coast. The difference in traveling time to us is not significant. However east coast schools do appear to have better access to the arts outside school.</p>

<p>Thanks all for your thoughts.</p>

16

<p>You should ask at the interview how easy it is to combine a serious interest in music with all the other demands of boarding school life. Does your son intend to become a professional musician, or would you be able to accept a change in his interests? Some schools have sports requirements which are difficult to reconcile with the demands of outside musical interests.</p>

<p>Some schools will permit a student to substitute other activities for sports; others will not. It is worthwhile to ask specific questions, and to try to speak with the parent of a student who’s followed a similar program successfully.</p>

17

<p>Great point. I will certainly check out the possibility of substituting some sport.</p>

<p>I have no ambition for my son to become a professional musician, neither does my son… but he does want to be a good amateur musician.</p>

<p>Does anyone know if Andover, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Choate are strong in popular music? I did mention that he also plays the guitar. He likes rock and blues.</p>

18

<p>BSNovice…how self-directed, self-motivated is your son? On a scale of 1-10, if he’s a a 6 or less, a small school might be better. 7+ the big schools wold be great.</p>

19

<p>I’d say he was a 4 in G6, 5 in G7 and now 7-8 in G8. Big improvement this year.</p>

20

<p>All the schools mentioned in this thread are excellent and your son would probably do well at most any of them. But once you visit the various campuses, meet the faculty and students, there will likely be one or two that stand out as being the best overall fit. My son felt a special connection with Cate and it has been a great choice for him. </p>

<p>The fine and performing arts are part of the curriculum for every student at Cate. The school strives to develop students that are well rounded, much like ThacherParent’s eloquent articulation of Thacher’s philosophy. Cate has an orchestra, chamber ensembles, ( here’s a youtube link of a Cate cello ensemble - [YouTube</a> - Eleanor Rigby for Five Cellos (Music Arranged by Low Strung)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c363W2wFq-4]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c363W2wFq-4)), camerata, and even lots of different music is played casually among friends in the dorms. A few of the students also perform with the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony, and I vaguely recall hearing that the school has arranged transportation for students to attend L.A. Philharmonic performances. Other than music, Cate students express their art in sculpture, painting, theatre, film, etc…</p>

<p>An underlying tenent of the school is “quiet study and vigorous play”. Challenging academics and a broad selection of sport teams and out-of-doors activities are offered, but there are some tradeoffs when comparing it with the New England schools. A few examples… Cate has a competitive surf team, but no ice hockey. The school organizes a long ski weekend at Mammoth for the students, but doesn’t have a ski team. Foreign languages classes have great depth in fluency, but the breadth is limited to Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. </p>

<p>You mentioned scuba diving… the Channel Islands are directly off the coast of Santa Barbara, one of west coast’s best diving areas. Cate offers scuba certification and coordinates diving trips throughout the year for the students. </p>

<p>The school has a unique culture that differs from its brethren to the east. It’s difficult to put in words, but I think it’s what Mr. Cate called, “the spirit of this place.” The school isn’t better or worse than the east coast schools, just different, like Stanford and Yale. Smart kids, dedicated faculty and a great vibe. The weather is pretty great too.</p>

<p>CP</p>