Congrats to everyone who received good news this M10! I am a current student at Hotchkiss who absolutely loves my school and I created this thread to hopefully show others just how special of a place it is. If any of you are considering Hotchkiss, I hope that this thread can help inform you while making your decision. Feel free to ask any questions you may have! I also decided to list some things that I (as well as most students) absolutely love about Hotchkiss!
The Campus
Hotchkiss students definitely do not take the beautiful campus for granted. We have a lake that is a two minute walk from the main building (if you luck out, you might get a dorm room with a lake view!), a nine hole golf course that students can use at any time, a farm that provides a lot of our meat and produce, and I believe about 500 acres of woodland. In warmer months, teachers love to hold classes outside, and you can always find a group of kids passing a lacrosse ball or a frisbee on Bissell Quad. Our rural campus provides other benefits besides just beauty, as students tend to leave campus for the weekend pretty infrequently, creating an even more tight knit community.
The Humanities Program
Whether or not you love English, History, Philosophy, and the arts, most students look forward to Humanities classes. The same group of students will be in your English, History and Philosophy classes, which allows everyone to form a special relationship, facilitated by the open ended discussions that happen around the Harkness tables.
Living in a Dorm
Personally, I know that I was really curious about what dorm life was like before I went to boarding school. I can assure you that it is one of the most fun experiences I have ever had. While the amount of students on a floor can vary from six to over twenty, no matter the size, your floor will get very close. Each floor has two or three proctors, upperclass students who have a leadership role in the dorm, who are always there if you need someone to talk to, or just want to hang out. “Feeds” are awesome snacks that your dorm faculty member will sometimes provide for your floor after check in, a great thing to look forward to at the end of a long day.
Holidays
Hotchkiss gets three holidays a year. If you aren’t familiar with the tradition, a holiday is a secretly planned day, announced the night before, when no classes are held. While we do have Sundays, and some no class Saturdays to relax, there is something about holidays that encourage students to unplug and relax by spending time outside and with fellow students. The administration knows that students work hard, and always seems to plan holidays just as students begin to start feeling overwhelmed, giving them a day to slow down.
Bearcat Pride
One universal commonality about Hotchkiss students is that we truly “bleed blue”. This is true in the classic athletic cheering area if that’s what is important to you, but it extends so much farther than that. The blue and white society does a great job of rallying support for games, theater performances, music concerts, and any other events involving students. Another great example of how much Hotchkiss students love the school is the enthusiasm for being a tour guide. The admissions office usually has about double the necessary number of tour guides for each period because students just want to show prospective students exactly how amazing Hotchkiss is. Our alumni-student connection is pretty incredible too. Hotchkiss hosts alumni networking events for students on campus so that they can learn about different fields and gain connections in the field, and current students have tremendous pride for bearcat alums (I’m pretty sure the highlight of the Oscars for most students was watching former bearcat Alison Janney win best supporting actress).
Of course, I could go on forever, but I hope this list gives you a glimpse at what an amazing place Hotchkiss is. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask (I’ll try to be a bit more succinct than this, I promise).
The Hotchkiss community is absolutely wonderful. Flyerkid2 has a fantastic group of friends who are very supportive and have become like sisters. The faculty and staff are warm, caring and available. Even the parent community is involved and friendly.
I’m am entering PG. how are pgs integrated into the community? Is it hard to fit in? How does the academic pressure and culture compare to Lville and Exeter?
Every prep (9th grade) gets the same computer when they enter the school. Everyone starts with the same software, etc. This makes socioeconomic differences a little less obvious.
Since the majority of classes are held in the main building, you don’t need to worry about putting on a coat or anything to travel between classes. Even the science building is just a few steps away.
There are lots of comfy areas - chairs, couches, etc. - where friends, family, etc. can hang out between classes, on visits, etc. In nice weather, there are lots of benches and the porch attached to the admissions building was one of our favorites.
Its only 2 hours from NYC and on breaks the school runs buses to the train in Wassaic that goes all the way to Grand Central. Since there are many Saturdays without classes, its possible to occasionally go home on weekends.
You can have the same advisor all 4 years - or you can switch advisors until you find a good fit - regardless of your dorm.
There are proctors and (usually) faculty living on every floor, which means more adult support/supervision than in many other schools.
Because of its remote location, most students and faculty live on campus. Very few day students.
My kid is in college now but still sees/communicates with Hotchkiss friends every day. Those blue bonds are strong!
How would you say the culture compares to lville and exeter? what are usually classes that seniors take, and are there any really good/well-liked classes among seniors that you’d have to experience?
@trynagetthere I would say that PGs usually fit in very well at Hotchkiss. I would attribute this to the fact that there isn’t a lot of separation by grade in social interactions – so Seniors will hang out with Upper Mids (Juniors), PGs, and often lowerclassmen from their classes, dorms, teams or clubs. Also, you will be participating in so many different groups (like your sports teams, clubs, classes, advisory group, dorms) that it will be pretty easy to make friends. People generally like the novelty of PGs as well in a class with so many returners so they will definitely reach out to you.
@trynagetthere on the academic/social culture question, I can’t really touch on Exeter because I never toured there, but I will say from touring Lville and having friends there, it sounds like the community doesn’t feel as tight knit because people go to NYC more often for weekends and there are more day students.
On academics, Hotchkiss has definitely challenged me in the classroom (specifically, I have become a much better writer, improved my language pronunciation and proficiency, and learned how to synthesize large amounts of information), but it has not been unbearable and you definitely have time to do other things (all students do sports for about 2 hours after school per day, most students are involved with community service, debate, The Record (our newspaper) etc.). I would think that as someone who is into a HYP school as you said, you would want to be intellectually challenged without being absolutely crushed by work and Hotchkiss can definitely deliver that.
@FunintheSun1211 in the upper grades when most students take electives, it definitely varies on how many electives people take. The typical courseload is five classes but if you want to take an elective it can be your sixth class (this is what I have chosen to do) or you can take one in place of history or science. Some electives include photo/art/music classes, specialty science courses (anatomy, astronomy, neuroscience) and philosophy and religion courses (you can also take a P&R class instead of a history). There are also history electives – about half of the upperclassmen take them as their history instead of an AP class.
@hotchkissbearcat since you have friends at Lville and now attend Hotchkiss, what would you say are the major differences between the two schools? how do they compare athletically, particularly in lacrosse? how do you and your fellow bearcats feel about the new head of school at Hotchkiss?
@GoldSilver Not sure what you mean…you have a lot of flexibility in science after the prep science course. My kid took Physics BC, Limnology, Biochemistry, Computer Science, Robotics.
@GoldSilver Hotchkiss had pretty deliberate reasons for implementing Prep science. Basically, they realized that after a student took a science subject in 9th grade, they had forgotten almost all of the content by the time they got to the AP in 11th or 12th grade. Prep science teaches general lab and science skills to prepare for any AP sciences you would want to take. Additionally, no college would ever punish a student for taking Prep science since every single kid in the grade does so.
@resurgo8 Can’t really touch much else on the Lawrenceville vs. Hotchkiss topic. I would say that my friends don’t absolutely love it in the way most people feel about Hotchkiss but it’s a small sample size so who knows.
We don’t compete against Lawrenceville because they are in the mid-Atlantic athletic conference while we are in the New England one, but that itself is a pretty big difference (Hill, St Andrews and Lawrenceville are the only mostly boarding schools I think so they would be competing against day schools with fewer recruits, whereas the NE league is mostly boarding schools which have a lot of recruits).
Personally, I feel that Mr. Bradley has really grown into the job this year and been a great figurehead for the school. Whether in disciplinary proceedings or administrative issues with student clubs, he always respects student opinions and advocates for the students when appropriate. I have noticed that he stands outside of his office between class periods and says hi to passing students by name, which really shows how connected to the student body he is.
