<p>Taft is a truly exceptional school, paintballknee. Thank you for your wonderful post! Good luck M10!! </p>
<p>I agree with paintballknee and photographermom about Taft. During my visit, I had the most amazing time talking to my tour guide. She spoke to me as if we were old friends and gave me a great view of campus life. My favorite memory was when the tour was almost over; we were walking back down the path and to guys rolled by us on a skateboard blasting music and giving people high fives! They looked so happy, and even the teachers were smiling and dancing as they rolled by! The happiness that they radiated put me in a happy mood for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>Fantastic post, readyforwork. Thank you so much! All the best and good luck M10!! </p>
<p>If I were a kid, I would be posting why I want to go to Taft, too!</p>
<p>Thank you!!! @photographermom</p>
<p>as much as i love st paul + lawrencevill + hotchkiss…i REALLY like kent school…i guess its a hidden gem school but the students were soooooo nice friendly and everybody said hi to me 
and my interviewer kept in touch with me after my visit remembering every nitty gritty detail i told him in my interview so i though that was really nice of him </p>
<p>when i came on the campus i just had that nice feeling you get when you get under your warm covers on coldest saturday of the winter…lmao that sounded weird but u know what i mean 
</p>
<p>Thanks for the great posts, Jersey! Kent is a wonderful school. I love the town, too!! Good luck M10!! (I know your Dad will really appreciate the note, too )</p>
<p>I really loved Choate. To be honest, it wasn’t very high up on my list to start with but by the time I felt the campus, I felt as if I had finally found a school where I belonged (sounds cheesy but I’m not exaggerating). Coincidentally, I saw my friend’s brother who goes there. My tour guide there wasn’t like the other tourguides I previously had. She was very open about the social aspects of the school as well as sharing her personal experiences with adjusting to the heavy workload. I expected people at Choate to be really snobby, prudish, stuck-up, and really involved in their studies because after all, it IS a really prestigious school. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw students tossing frisbees on the quad and laughing and smiling and socializing and it just seemed like a really friendly and nice place to be! The interview was pleasant and my interviewer and I conversed about topics ranging from Twelve Angry Men and truth, ethics, and justice to library storytelling. She was easygoing and made me feel very comfortable. </p>
<p>@geeza1 what I really liked about Pomfret was warmth from all of students really! My tour was shared with this other girl (applying for 9th) and we had two tour guides roughly my age (11th) , and they both played squash, just as I do, and they also showed passion for it. What my independent private day school lacks is just that-- a similar passion that I have. Nobody plays squash where I live, and I want to be in an environment where actually a lot of people like it, and in fact knows what it is. It was just so friendly everywhere, where it was different at the other schools I visited-- my Loomis tour was rushed, and that overall took away from my intake of the campus. It may have just been a busy day and my tour guide didn’t like the cold, but you know how that is, it can take away from your overall experience. I don’t know. All I can say really is that I wouldn’t mind repeating my junior year there, especially when the coach emailed me saying he wanted me his #1 on his varsity team, not me having to do the opposite. Some schools aren’t like that. All I can do is hope I get in, and if not, there are other schools. :)</p>
<p>The School for me is Collegiate, although my mom would rather me go to Brooklyn Latin, I love not only the way the name rolls off the tongue, how close it is to where I grew up or how it looks like my very first school, BISNY, I love the students and just the warmth from the teachers, maybe it was a charade to lure me in, but if it were, IT WORKED!!!</p>
<p>@Enthusiasm @sarahpolo57 and @swimmergirl- Thank you so much for the wonderful posts!! </p>
<p>@sarahpolo57<br>
Thank you for your post. I hope you get into to Pomfret. It really is a great school and sounds perfect for you!</p>
<p>@photographermom @geeza1 I definitely agree that the campus does feel a little isolated-- driving up to it from nyc, we felt a little surprised, and it was my first tour out of five so we didn’t exactly know what to expect. Ultimately I think I fell more in love with the campus than my father did. Pomfret did have the best squash facilities by far than the others that we visited, so that is a plus but I LOVE the fact that it is isolated and literally everything is done within campus. The chapel was INCREDIBLE and the way the tour guides expressed their love was really nice. My favorite part was that little area in between the athletic facilities outside, that little porch-ish thing–overlooking Connecticut and the mountains. It took my breath away, it was just so beautiful. After visiting Pomfret, I then went to Hotchkiss—which is pretty different so it was hard to grasp. I have countless friends that attend there, and it has EVERYTHING there, really, but I just didn’t get the same sort of feeling. I still really love Hotchkiss! However, I come from an already small school (upper school of 160), and so I guess you could say I am accustomed to smaller crowds…It was sort of overwhelming at Hotchkiss and Loomis in regards to how many people attend there (even though 600 - 680 is not too many people). I still quite liked both of the schools and I think I would be happy there, it’s just so different when the school is smaller and isolated in a small quaint town- it just seems right to me! But that may just be me So @photographermom , no need to worry, really! I just hope I get the chance to be accepted this year! My first impression of the school was definitely wrong though, you really have to give it a chance. I also got the same feeling from Millbrook, but feel as if Millbrook may be a tad smaller in a lot of aspects. In actuality, I will be happy wherever I can get in. 
I just do not know anybody at any of the schools I applied to except Hotchkiss, so I think it may be hard for me coming in as a repeat junior :/</p>
<p>@sarahpolo- I think you’ll be warmly welcomed wherever you go! Thanks so much for your thoughtful post. The squash facilities at Pomfret are pretty amazing :)</p>
<p>The staff at Hotchkiss have been really friendly and keep reaching out to our daughter. It is starting to be kind of giving an unintended (or, hopefully, intended!) message. Andover interviewer reached out to her for her birthday-was so sweet. Have not heard from one of the schools so curious how that goes ultimately-will they really go all by what is on paper versus making a “holistic” decision?</p>
<p>Thanks for your post, dowzerw. All contact is nice, but your best bet is not to read into anything you’ve received. And that goes for the contact you haven’t received, too! All the best and good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>Now that M10 is ALMOST HERE, I would like to thank everyone who stopped by and contributed to this thread. It’s been informative and a lot of fun! I truly appreciate the humor and all the wonderful posts. Please feel free to keep posting or follow up after decisions. Good luck and I wish you the very best M10. You guys are the best.</p>
<p>I can’t believe its almost M10 I feel like it was just yesterday that I was finalizing and submitting my applications. </p>
<p>Love this thread - thanks PhotographerMom! </p>
<p>After reading it start to finish, a quick observation is that MANY of you mentioned the beauty of the campus (or a physical attribute) and the happiness of the students as reasons for liking a particular school. I find that really interesting, because we all get so hung up on the quantitative rankings and lists and scores etc. </p>