We all know that the Boarding school and college admission process has changed drastically since the pandemic. Some have become test-optional and have relaxed some academic requirements. Also, there is more mental stress among teens than ever before if you look at national statistics. I would like parents and students of schools to share their experiences in terms of how their classes have changed in terms of rigor, grading policies, deadlines for assignments etc. Also are the faculty and school counselors more supportive? For students is the stress and rigor in classes similar to what you expected coming in or is it worse or better?.
How are the schools addressing mental health and student expectations?
Thank you for your posts
This is our first year at Lawrenceville so I cannot make a comparison, but I can share our first trimester experience. As many know Lawrenceville made a huge push in the metal health arena this year. So far we have been impressed with the covid management and facilities in place to support sick students. It is clear that mental health is a focus with meaningful programing, staffing and support. Additionally, there was full executive functioning programming put in place for freshman (and new students if needed). The pass/fail in 3/5 classes first semester for freshmen also helps with the transition and balancing academics with the social and emotion pieces during this time. Regular webinars, advisor meetings and notes sent hame make us feel very connected to what is happening on campus and understanding what is important and on the staffs radars. Our daughter feels like there are a lot of eyes on her, that she is known and seen. (this was actually a concern of ours given the schoolâs size, but they do a good job focusing on the different form groups. So not sure if this directly answered your question but it at least speaks to life post covid.
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@sroo Thank you for your answers. We heard about the pass/ fail for 3/5 classes during the interviews. Also they said they will transition to no classes on Saturdays. Nice to hear about the webinars, advisor meetings and notes. Seems like a trend in the right direction. Also heard that Exeter also does not include grades from first half of the first trimester in the final transcript.
Are you looking at lawrenceville? Happy to answer any questions. They have been doing a lot of work on a new schedule to be rolled out. I am not sure where the Saturday classes bottomed out, so you may know more than me(lol). Either way my daughter does not mind them.
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My student attends Proctor Academy and is finishing up the fall term now (finals next week). Everything is going well - there are numerous points of contact to ensure students donât fall through the cracks. The teachers all have office hours, there are student tutors that do âfirst aidâ to help others brush up on skills, etc. They have a system in place whereby a teacher or other adult at the school can write a ânoteâ to any student and it goes to the student, their parents, all of their teachers, their advisor, their class dean, their coaches/club supervisors, and dorm parents. That way, everyone knows what is going on. For instance, we got copied on a thank you note another adult at the school sent to our student for volunteering to help with construction of a temporary structure on campus. But, teachers can use that to note that a student must attend extra help or that they are worried about the student not keeping up in a particular unit or needing help with their writing, etc. This way, all the adults connected with the student can keep track, so if you failed a test in French, your other teachers and coaches, etc know that and know to keep an eye out, reach out to offer help/comfort, and generally are aware of other things happening in your life. I really like the web of support there.
The other thing that is very apparent at Proctor is the focus on the students and their learning. The goal is not prestige or acceptances from certain colleges. The goal is that students learn, that they develop a love of learning/seeking knowledge, and that they find out what they enjoy and where their strengths are.
The first time a student takes an art/skills class (boatbuilding, metal sculpture, painting, choral ensemble, etc), they donât receive a grade. They get an âeffortâ grade. That encourages students to try all sorts of new things.
Because this is our studentâs first year, we canât speak to how things were pre-Covid. But, the level of instruction is great. As far as I can tell, the grading policies havenât changed. And of course, for at least one class, there is a teacher for whom a 90 is an outstanding grade and to go beyond a 90, the student has to be showcasing an extremely high level of scholarship and writing.
The school also does something (I donât remember what it is called at the moment) where they have students provide feedback into their engagement in each class, their happiness, etc each term. The staff then dig into the data and see if there are particular classes or teachers where students are saying they arenât engaged and they work to change that. They also look at a studentâs overall responses and they gave an example of one girl who indicated she was disengaged in just about every class and generally not happy. They met with her and found out she was incredibly homesick and not feeling connected. The adults in her web worked to find things for her to engage with and to get her more peer connections in the community and by the spring term, her engagement and happiness scores were all much higher. They truly care about the students and want them to succeed.
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Wow! Looks like Proctor is really doing a lot of things to not only keep the students engaged but also address any issues they may have. Particularly like the communication with the student and the family. Hope more schools take a cue from this if they are not already doing it.
Itâs not perfect (no place is), but I really feel they are trying hard to do their best with the studentsâ best interests and outcomes in mind.
Just a quick correction (from a Lawrenceville '23 alum): they are considering transitioning to no Saturday classes. I believe that a decision will be made by the end of this school year; thatâs what they told us when they piloted âalmost no Saturday classesâ last Spring Term.
Neither of these were in place when I was a freshman in 2019, so I can personally attest to there being a change in these senses. Iâm very glad that the school has moved in this direction.
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Most schools have systems in place to keep track of kids. Some do a better job of gathering and processing data points from different sources. I love @RoonilWazlib99 description of Proctorâs system - it sounds so comprehensive.
My sense is that most schools have added mental health services and awareness training for the community. Many let students take mental health days. Most try to get out in front of situations that may be challenging. (My kidâs school did a âhow to talk to your family about applying to collegeâ program before Thanksgiving, for example.)
Some of this ends up being serendipity. If your kid gets a dorm parent they connect with, if their advisory group clicks, a coach takes a special interest â all great. Programs and processes are wonderful but itâs humans who deliver. And some kids really try NOT to connect, so itâs not just the school.
If anyone is asking this as they are applying, definitely explore this â as well as the whole philosophy around supports, culture, etc â where you are applying. Some schools are all-in in creating a family environment while others prefer to give the kids room to create family/community on their own and want adults there for support as needed. (Btw, both approaches work really well.) Some approaches or environments may just feel more right for your kid and your family.
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Thank you for the clarification. When we interviewed the AO told us that the data showed that students prefer (Marginally) to not have Saturday classes based on the pilot last year and they would move in this direction since the verdict was in at Lâville.
Fwiw, Saturday classes at schools that have them have been good at making Friday night less of a time for getting into trouble. Itâs also a good way of getting day students on campus for at least 1 weekend day as most stick around for afternoon activities, planned and ad hoc. Schools can schedule one of the weekdays as a shorter day and do sports competitions on that day and Saturday so thereâs little interference with the academic âflowâ.
They are particularly challenging for kids who have an elite sport or EC off campus. They also make going home for the weekend hard for all but the most local boarders. The former applies to only a handful of students while the latter can be an advantage to those who live far away.
Not sure where you are, @GPS, in your thinking about this. My kid hated the idea! But I have come to realize itâs a bit more nuanced than just ckass schedule.
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We are in the southeast so far away from the schools in North East we are looking at. I hear a lot about day students going off when there are no Saturday classes. But days students range from 25% to 0% at the schools we are looking at and although there are fewer students when they go home, there are still plenty to hang out with. Also, these schools are trying to make weekends more entertaining to keep the kids engaged. I feel that two days off gives them enough time for ECs and engagements that the kids have and time to decompress. At Grton we heard that they have study hall on Sundays so kids can finish their homework etc.
Hope to hear from more parents and kids. @DrPrimo - how is the situation at Choate?
Thank you all for your opinions.
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All the boarding schools I know have sports obligations/games every Wednesday and Saturday, so kids have to be on campus whether there are classes, or not. Thereâs a half day of school on those days.
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While it doesnât matter to @GPS , for those who are thinking about being day students â itâs easy to see Saturday classes as a particular burden as itâs another day of transportation to/from school. But it can be worth it for other reasons. (We have a lot of contact with Lâville families who have seen this. Perhaps @confusedaboutFA can pipe up.)
It does reduce the day/boarding divide that can happen which may feel different on campus beyond having people to do stuff with. Wanted to clarify for other/future readers, not just OP.
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I totally agree with @gardenstategal. The lack of Saturday classes will definitely take away from the experience on weekends, but there is only so much we can control.
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My son is at Williston, they have a half day of Saturday classes every other week. On the weeks when they do have Saturday class, they have a Friday morning sleep in/later start. Every Wednesday is also a half day for sports/extracurricular activities. We live close enough that he could come home on an off weekend if he wanted to, but so far he hasnât asked (other than the long fall family weekend). It doesnât seem like a ton of boarders leave on weekends, but he is only a 9th grader, so he may not know what older students are doing. We may pull him a few weekends once ski season starts, Williston is conveniently half way between our house and a few ski areas we like in VT. 
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Good day,
Just curious why Saturday classes would be a burden - âanother day of transportation to/from school.â I get the sleeping in part - but what about the rest of the day/weekend?
Donât day students have to be on campus Saturday and/or Sunday for athletics, clubs, ECs, volunteering, farming, learning center, library/research?
I wonder, if day students arenât on campus for at least part of the weekend, does boarding school start to become a regular high school for day students?
We have observed the full spectrum of day students at our BS. Everything from kids so involved and âpresentâ that other kids donât really realize that theyâre day students, to others who lean/cling so hard to their middle school/neighborhood friends (who donât also attend the BS) that theyâre sort of non-factors. They do the absolute minimum and go home.
Seems sad but I donât know what else goes on in their lives. I do know of at least one whose parents pick them up on the way home from work. On some days that happens so early that the kid doesnât even get to eat dinner with other students. But thatâs when the parent is willing/able soâŠ
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HmmmmâŠI donât remember being surveyed on that, but maybe they werenât asking us seniors :). Either way, the excuse teachers used to give us was that, shockingly, the student body voted to keep them back in the mid 2010s, so itâs interesting to see how that sentiment has changed (although I am not surprised).
I was a day student at Lawrenceville, and I can definitely attest to this. My parents are certainly very relieved about not having to wake up on Saturday mornings, but other than that, Saturday classes were a huge boon for meâeven though we have a much larger day student population than our peer schools, I would certainly say that our day students were very well integrated into the student population at large (to the extent that the school president my junior year was one). It gave me an excuse to go to campus on Saturdays, and from there I was able to stay into the night/until Sunday morning, so I was really able to engage a lot with the campus outside classes. There are certainly âflaky day studentsâ (i.e. those who just go to class and leave), but IME they are few and far between; the campus experience there was so all-encompassing that even as a day student, I pretty much only went home to sleep, and I would say the same was true for most of my peers.
I wouldnât say that a day/boarder divide existed at Lawrenceville to any meaningful extent (i.e. beyond playful jokes)
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"I would certainly say that our day students were very well integrated into the student population at large (to the extent that the school president my junior year was one). It gave me an excuse to go to campus on Saturdays, and from there I was able to stay into the night/until Sunday morning, so I was really able to engage a lot with the campus outside classes. "
This is exactly what we heard from the parents of Day students who were at the interviews to converse. Their kids wanted to come on Sunday as well si what i heard