I know each school is different, but I’m going to ask anyway. Do prefects have and special privileges?
At my kids’ school, not many. They had the ability to pull a roommate into the dorm or get a single and often got the nicer rooms in the dorm, but not always. They also had the privilege of getting to have a fridge in the room which wasn’t allowed for other students unless they had a medical reason. That’s all I can remember.
Same.
But the “privileges” are more softer, intangible ones: the development of leadership skills, the sense of accomplishment in mentoring a little brother/sister, etc.
In my son’s school every 6th form student is a prefect in some capacity.
At my kids’ BS, a large number of seniors end up being prefects. It is something they can use on college apps to show their leadership. They get to come to campus early, move in and attend some seminars. My 2 students had no interest in being prefects and living with the younger students. Both lived in senior dorms. I’ve heard those who prefect feel somewhat isolated from their classmates, but enjoy the prestige. In my view, it has not had a large effect on college acceptances to elite colleges.
My daughter was an RA at her BS and it is actually no small task to keep a group of very chatty and loud teens under control and productive, squelch social issues in the pack, interact with the dorm parents effectively etc all while meeting multiple other leadership responsibilities. She had real responsibilities including a role in deciding what happened when rules were broken.
How times change - when I was in BS the big benefit was the prefects got a phone in their room. Back when we all had calling cards and used the dorm pay phones to call home. Well if we called home. Guess some things don’t change with the times.
Daughter who is a prefect this year has a much bigger double room than she had last year. There are responsibilities throughout the year however, and while she got to move in a few days early, there are various training sessions she has to attend in the days before the rest of the school arrives.
As others have said, almost half of the sixth form is a prefect in my kids’ school so the uniquness and accolade and development of “leadership” skills is somewhat diluted. If half the class is a leader, is the other half of the class following? Not necessarily. At any rate, because there are so many it didn’t serve students well on their college apps, since almost everyone had this, kind of like National Honor Society.
The conversations I hear between the boy and his room mate the past week or so (since they found out they are in fact prefects) include – are you bringing the fridge? I’ve got a monitor, can you bring a game system? What kind of K-cups do you want for the kuering…
Well, we all have our priorities. 
The depressing part of that conversation @gusmom2000 is that when I redact it for 1976, when I went to boarding school, it would read: "The conversations I hear between the boy and his room mate the past week or so (since they found out they are in fact prefects) include – are you bringing the fridge? I’ve got a xxxxxxx, can you bring a xxxxxxxx? What kind of xxxxxxx do you want for the xxxxxx… The words didn’t exist yet. SMH!
I’m surprised they are only finding out recently that they are prefects! I thought this was something decided back in May, at least in schools I’m familiar with.
What doschicos said…7D2 knew she was chosen last May, and the rising prefects had some events IIRC.
Not to be pedantic @ThacherParent , Pong came out in 1975. So the discussion may have included words like that and Hi-Fi, but I’m guessing that similar conversations still happened.
We used words like turntable, albums, 45s, hot pot, and reefer. We might have had a fern in a macrame pot holder hanging from a hook in a ceiling corner or maybe a candle dripping wax down an empty Mateus bottle on the windowsill, but that was about it, and no one coordinated anything with anyone. Those were the days,
Sorry. I have nothing to add about prefects. Carry on.
I had to look up the meanings of at least 2 of those words.
Hot pot!! And that instant soup…
Sorry, got diverted by that one.
The hot pot was also used for those packets of Swiss Miss, @gardenstategal.
No more hot pots but why bother with dorm microwaves when you can just rip the hot cocoa packet open like a werewolf at a throat and chug the dry powder down - apparently? There were discarded packets everywhere in the dorm room, every single time we visited. Even found a dried up husk of one in the dryer at home after doing some school laundry at the start of summer break. Also, I can’t be the only one on here able to conjure up solid scent recall of assorted hotpot sodium-soup varieties from the days of yore…
and to get back on topic… a responsible prefect should be all over unauthorized hot pot use these days as well as discarded cocoa packets left lying around. So, um, there ya go.