<p>I love mercersburg! I’m currently a student here and really loving it. The fine arts program is amazing, from ceramics to writing music to dance, everything is just wonderful! And you get the chance to try so many new things. The athletics is really great too and it gives students a chance to explore many sports. The school community is really welcoming and there isn’t many cliques here. It’s mostly just different friend groups but they are very welcoming an include everybody. It gets a bit boring on the weekends but overall, I love it here!</p>
<p>S went to MBurg 2 years before I moved him.</p>
<p>School full of drugs (both by townies and students)
Poor supervision. He missed the majority of meals and went to town as his advisor was on the admissions committee and never there. But she got what she wanted as her family were xth generation from founding class. Because she was gone, nobody checked him in at meals.
Very preppy. He had to get new ward robe to fit in. Heard even worse for girls.
For “punishment” he had to “walk the quad” in the snow and rain like in the Army.</p>
<p>P’Dad - for years now, you have provided an endless stream of fear mongering about drugs, local towns (“townies”), and kids gone wild. You cast aspersions about schools with a constancy that borders on weird.</p>
<p>I’m applying here for the next school year, the campus looks great, the academics as well, and I seriously doubt that anything P’Dad says is true.</p>
<p>I’ve seen a few weird dudes on the prep school forum, but I have to give the title of Weirdest Dude on CC Prep School Forum to P’Dad! :)</p>
<p>“Beat the Pros” photo contest winners for this year:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.mercersburg.edu/podium/tools/SlideShow.aspx?a=221877&uid=2997372[/url]”>https://www.mercersburg.edu/podium/tools/SlideShow.aspx?a=221877&uid=2997372</a></p>
<p>I wouldn’t be so hard on him. Any of us might act a little weird if one of our kids had a really bad experience at a school that we thought was the school’s fault. At any school, some kids have a bad experience, and sometimes it is the school’s fault (although probably not as often as the kids tell their parents it is!). And to some extent, small samples and anecdotes are all we have to go on. The two kids who took us on tour at Mercersburg were real gems who clearly loved the school and were thriving there. Are all students at Mercersburg like them? Probably not, but despite the small sample, they managed to make us feel very good about their school.</p>
<p>Thanks twins
You are very correct. I can only tell my D’s experience and how she and friends and their parents related problems to me. Did my daughter have lots of the blame? - of course she did, she is the one who went to Romeos every night for dinner. But as her surrogate parents, I did not expect the school to let her. Am I bitter toward them YES</p>
<p>But some feel that this forum should only be a Pollyanna. I wish I had read some negatives so I would know what to demand (ie the advisor should be someone who is usually present and not someone rarely there)!</p>
<p>Princess’Dad brings up a great point…and I am definitely one of the more pollyanna-ish folks on the forum. In some ways, I don’t mind that one recurring ■■■■■ who posts links to issues at Andover…because they are real. They happened. Prospective parents SHOULD be aware of that stuff.</p>
<p>You people are unbelievable. Is there right and wrong in your dictionary when you show sympothy to an insane ■■■■■ or agree with someone who characterizes a mainstream boarding school “full of drugs”? Are you serious? what your reaction would be if this is SAS P’dad was talking about. And wait for it. He did Thacher already.</p>
<p>I value P’Dad’s posting his point of view, even if others disagree. I assume his family had a terrible experience. I don’t think he’s ranting, because the question was opened to the community, and he responded with a short appropriate personal opinion.</p>
<p>I always feel conflicted about what to say when review of a specific school is requested, because we too had a terrible experience with my older daughter’s boarding school (not Mercersburg). Mix of blame, theirs and hers, and us for sending her I guess. But that lingering sense of getting absolutely burned by a school can result in a pretty ****ed off parent.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to detail your own family’s experience. It’s quite another to present opinion as fact or to apply what may have been one experience as the norm.</p>
<p>It sounds like PDad’s D had an absentee advisor. That is a fact. It is not a fact to then say that “There is very little supervision of students.” or that is very easy to skip meals without anyone noticing.</p>
<p>PDad’s D felt like she needed very expensive clothes to “fit in.” That may be a fact that she felt that way. It is not a fact, however, that the school is full of rich kids who will look down on kids who don’t wear Prada. I know this because my daughter, who is about as far from a fashionista as they come, is <em>gasp</em> actually friends with lots of different kids, some of whom are indeed, very wealthy. But, this is likely a personal thing. She has never been the type to try and change who she is for any else’s satisfaction. She’s very confident and comfortable in who she is and is equally accepting of others. So I guess if you’re easily intimidated by expensive clothing, prep school may not be the place for you.</p>
<p>“Lot’s of Drugs” is stated as a fact. All I can say is that in my daughter’s experience, if you’re not looking for them, you won’t know they’re there because she certainly hasn’t run across them yet. So whether this is indeed a fact or not, I can’t say at this point. Ask me in a year or so.</p>
<p>But it’s ok. When I hear a parent rail on a school, I realize that it’s similar to listening to someone describe their ex-wife after a nasty divorce. It could be my best friend he was talking about and I probably wouldn’t recognize the description.</p>
<p>Where P’Dad is concerned, I support Neato’s view.</p>
<p>P’Dad, I am sorry for calling you “weird”, which wasn’t meant to be hard on you but nonetheless came out harsh. Looking at your posting history, you deserve respect for not acting like a typical ■■■■■ who has one and only pre-meditated agenda or with the sole purpose of annoying, provoking and agitating. That said, when you open a post with “School full of drugs” about a legitimate school that has been around for many years, the rest of your post is hard to be taken seriously. But, I agree neato has had a much better take on your post. And to be fair, it seems when you talked about Thacher, you did just share <em>your</em> experience of the school tour instead of making sweeping generalizations although you had endless fun calling it Thatcher, which is another reason I called you “weird” (again sorry).</p>
<p>This is the last post I do in a thread for a school I have zero association with. I do know very little about it after all.</p>
<p>Benley,
It has been a rapid typo to leave out the t.</p>
<p>Neato. My d did not “need” the expensive cloths, but there were many of her friends that felt they needed to. Having visited many schools, it was much more preppy than most that I saw. But that is also why I like uniforms.</p>
<p>P did not use (to my knowledge) but drugs were easy to find. But they were at the PHS that son went to.</p>
<p>Well, my dad went to Mercersburg, and I’ve visited the campus while we go skiing. I do not know much about the academics or anything but I do know this. </p>
<p>The town of Mercersburg is TINY. There is a main street with a Elementary school, a couple restaurants and a store or two. Just letting you know you are in the middle of NOWHERE. I’m pretty sure there is a pizza place on campus called Al’s, and the Irish Pub on Main is really good. Other than that it’s a strip mall. The closest town is called Clearview (something like that) and again, it’s a small, sorta sketchy town mainly of houses. </p>
<p>But if you like to ski, Whitetail Ski Resort is a ten minute drive away. </p>
<p>The dorms are decent sized, everyone I met was nice, and the Art’s Center is amazing.</p>