<p>Brookie-
I’ll check it out, for sure. I believe that I liked Middlesex, but was discouraged from really focusing on it by a prep school counselor (said it wasn’t liberal. Would love to hear your opinion on that, though).
I appreciate that you think two books is good to have on an application. It boosts my confidence about applying to only two schools when I’ve seen people apply to like five or six usually.</p>
<p>@EOTS, alrite I would concede that it won’t be considered a “hook”. Since schools really dont recruit much other than for sports.</p>
<p>@Bookie101, But as I said it’s something that can really be important when applying to boarding schools, which is showing passion. And even though they most likely wont read the books, at least not entirely, you would still be able to prove to them that you are passionate about it</p>
<p>and now the “wasn’t liberal enough”…? part, with all due respect to your prep school counselor, you are looking at PREP schools, so idk how liberal you can go with New England prep schools. Every boarding school is gonna have its traditions and conservative sides. I can see maybe why you would see Concord Academy as a little more liberal, but Choate? But again, I do not mean to attack what your counselor have said, by all means its ur judgement, if u dont like a school, dont apply to it. Pretty simple :)</p>
<p>If you are talking about “liberal” as liberal arts education, there is plenty of that. Trust me.
For me what I can tell you about MX, there are few courses you can actually chose during your freshman and sophomore years (except foreign languages and arts), but by your junior year tons of options open up in science and history (there’s the usual economics, us history, government, but then there are a couple of very specific and interesting history electives each year) in addition to foreign language choices and arts (theater, fine arts, music etc.).</p>
<p>Admitted MX juniors are required to take the AP English course (and take the AP Literature and AP Language exams at the end of the year), there’s no way out of it. But by the time you are a senior, you are offered about 15 different english electives / semester. You would have around 25 english electives (shakespeare, romanticism and poetry, world war I literature, medieval works, etc. etc.) to chose from.</p>
<p>One thing that you might consider to be a more of a conservative side of MX would be that it only has around an 11-12% international student percentage which would compare to a maybe 18-25% in most other boarding schools.</p>
<p>Hope that helped.</p>
<p>Brookie-
I saw the guy once, and he told me to look at schools that were pretty out of my ideas for schools. I don’t think he was the best.
And liberal as in open minded to new ideas. Choate is actually pretty liberal, bringing in new ideas every year. Now that I think about it, I did really like Middlesex before I went to see the counselor. When I went to Boarding School Review to check it out, I found it had everything I wanted. The only problem is, the website isn’t loading. I would like to check out the courses available (though, from what you say, I think it should be alright!) I’ve tried the mxschool.edu on all the computers in my house. It keeps giving me errors.
Uhh, technology really stinks sometimes.</p>
<p>**Correction, just got onto the Middlesex website.
I have a question for you. For each year at MX, how many courses can you elect to take (how many courses does your schedule allow)? Of course, the number will be much higher in junior and senior years.
I’m just curious to see how many English courses I could squeeze in, that’s all.</p>
<p>Bookie & Brookie - thought you were the same person because if the usernames lol.</p>
<p>I can see where you’d make that mistake =P I’ve been called Brookie a few times on the CC. Understandable- perhaps I should have gone with a different user name.</p>
<p>@Bookie101
The Middlesex schedule allows up to a maximum of 7 full courses. However, I have not seen anyone done that it’s just way too much. Most students average at 5 courses per semester (Foreign Language, Science, History, Math, and English) in addition some would take one to two arts courses or ISP (Independent Study Project).</p>
<p>What’s good about this ISP thing is that you can create your own curriculum for a very specific subject as long as you have a planned out course material, and a teacher willing to be the mentor. For example, you can create your own curriculum for very specific things such as let’s say “the Renaissance impact on literature”, or something like “Science Fiction creative writing”.
So usually a student would take 5 courses with an arts course or an ISP</p>
<p>All the English classes here are very writing intensive, all incoming freshman and sophomores are required to take Writing Workshop classes each week to get your writing skills up to very advanced or even college levels.</p>
<p>If you are really into the English programs, in your senior year (possibly even junior), the academic office can adjust your schedule by, let’s say dropping your foreign language or history course for an extra English elective, or something along those lines.</p>
<p>I m not sure what exactly you meant when u say “bring in new ideas”. If you are talking about student government, it is true that there are times when the student council can be pretty useless, as the school’s administrative board would veto proposed ideas. But you have to understand that a lot of these proposals are along the lines like “Can we get jet skiis for student use on the lake?”</p>
<p>If you are talking about clubs and interests, then it is VERY easy to bring in ideas. You can easily start/create your own club at Middlesex, just present a profile for what your club would like to do, find a faculty supervisor, and you would be given a budget. Last year we had some interesting ones such as “Snow Shoeing Club” or like “Martial Arts Movie Association (MAMA)” which sound completely goofey, but just shows how easily you can start your own Club/introduce new things to the school, whether its serious things such as charity support, awareness, political clubs, or just for fun.</p>
<p>If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. :)</p>
<p>About the book thing, I agree that it is not a hook. But adding it to your application will show that you are passionate about it. And committed. There are many ways to pull for your writing skills: Add it to multimedia, show it in your interview, and some schools have essays about your passion-- you can write about writing.</p>