Anyone at Santa Catalina? We are seriously considering this school for 2016 admission. Any advise/information would be greatly appreciated.
The student is academically very strong and talented in art. And she strongly prefers a regular all-girls boarding school, because she wants to explore others areas than arts, and teenage boys are often immature.
So far we narrowed down our list to 4 schools - Santa Catalina, Emma Willard, Westover, and Chatham Hall. There are plenty information on the other three schools in CC, but not much about Santa Catalina.
We visited Santa Catalina recently and loved it so much. Everything was great even though its ranking was lower than the other schools.
@jwalche, I am not familiar with Santa Catalina but if you all got a good vibe when you visited, I suggest asking the admissions staff for a list of parents you could call to help answer your questions/chat about their kids’ experience.
And if you have any Westover questions, feel free to ask me! My daughter is finishing up her sophomore year there and we couldn’t be happier with the school.
Don’t pay attention to arbitrary school “rankings”. What is important is that whatever school your family chooses be the right fit for your daughter. I’m sure you have looked at the college matriculation list for Santa Catalina; there are lots of excellent and very selective colleges on that list! CC might not have a lot of info on the school, but you can bet that colleges are familiar with it. Best of luck with the admission process!
@CaliMex, No, I ended up not applying either of them, but visited Santa Catalina three times. Once for just visit, second time for formal interview, and third time to take SSAT there. (We were close)
The strongest impression we got from Santa Catalina was that they care very much on each applicant’s emotional well being (more so than average boarding schools). The campus was beautiful, but not like Emma Willard’s grand castle. It’s close to Monterey bay and they have signature 2 years spanning marine science program. Their own new marine science aquarium is what college marine departments would drool about. Kids can program to change the temperature over time and record pH level changes, etc etc.
What I didn’t like was that the school uniform is a traditional skirt. I didn’t like that mine would have to ware skirt during the school hours. And it felt too close to home to truly feel far away home thing and a different culture within the U.S. And I also foolishly focused too much on the top 10 schools. We don’t know much about Chatham.