<p>I can only apply to two of the three. Has anyone visited these schools and what kind of general vibe did you get? I know Blair is said to have a srong sense of community, which I like, but I'm not too about the others. What are the facilities, people, and education like at each one. I do plan on visiting later but this is to just get an idea.
Thanks so much</p>
<p>No matter how you slice it, you will find many more similarities among these three schools than you will find differences, and all three are academically excellent, supportive and friendly places. You are correct that ultimately it will come down to your own impressions after visiting and what, specifically, you decide is important to you. All three have formal style dinners two or three times a week, all have good cell phone policies to encourage face to face interaction and community building, and all have great academics and nice extracurricular and athletic programs. The details vary, so which school jumps out at you in these areas depends on your interests. I would say Taft places the heaviest emphasis on sports (although by no means to the detriment of anything else there, and not to suggest that the other two do not have great sports). All have nice art galleries, theaters, common spaces, classrooms and the like. I think you would find very little light between the 3 schools in terms of admissions, academics and college matriculation statistics. Taft would probably edge the other two in terms of absolute numbers here, but not in any meaningful way. My recollection is that the dorms were nicer at Blair and Westminster than at Taft. A big thing that comes to mind as a noticeable difference is that Westminster has a more formal overall dress code.</p>
<p>Westminster is the smallest in terms of students and campus size, although not a whole lot smaller than Taft. Also, the number of boarders (both overall and as a percentage) is much lower than the other two. This does make a difference, although how important is up to you. Taft has an edge of the other two in terms of racial diversity - 30% students of color at Taft compared with 15% at Westminster and 18% at Blair. This also makes a difference. Blair has a beautiful and open campus, very much in the traditional boarding school sense with open lawns between buildings. Taft does too to a lesser extent, but feels more closed in as more is within interconnected buildings. The campus is also very nice, but you will be outside less during the class day. This is a big plus in winter of course. Westminster also has more of an open campus feeling, although I recall there being more roads running through the center of campus. Blair used to have this problem but recently moved the roads more to the periphery to make the center of campus pedestrian only. To me, Blair has the most rural feeling and Taft the most suburban.</p>
<p>For my family, Blair led the pack from day one of our visit. Forced to choose, I would put Taft as closer overall to Blair. Westminster fell off our list a lot earlier in the process, although I know my child would have been engaged, challenged and happy there.</p>
<p>Blair does have a strong sense of community, and their supportive, welcoming faculty and student body is often the first thing you will hear mentioned. This is not to say the others do not have this, for they do, very much so. However, I think there are legitimate reasons Blair has come by this reputation. Primarily, the school makes a very deliberate effort to strengthen itself in this area and identify both what is essential and what works to a) proactively facilitate the students engaging with both the on campus and the broader communities and b) allow the faculty to best know and support the students across the board. I will not drone on about the details, but take a look at this page for a start: <a href=“http://www.blair.edu/about-blair/seven-principles/index.aspx”>http://www.blair.edu/about-blair/seven-principles/index.aspx</a> . If you are a bit more interested, watch this year’s convocation on the newsfeed page of their website, particularly the headmaster’s speech starting at about minute 18:15 of the video: <a href=“http://www.blair.edu/news/item/index.aspx?LinkId=5323&ModuleId=74”>http://www.blair.edu/news/item/index.aspx?LinkId=5323&ModuleId=74</a> . Although the recently retired headmaster was wonderful, the students, parents, faculty and trustees are all very excited about the direction this dynamic new headmaster is going to help the school continue moving in. </p>
<p>I am of course not as familiar with the day to day dynamics of the other two schools. I am sure students and parents from those schools can post better information. I do know they have news feeds and videos posted as well. I think browsing the news pages and videos of school functions helps flesh out a feel of a school both prior to and after visiting. Going beyond those on the admissions page, I mean. Once our list was narrowed down we did this a lot. I found Taft’s convocation from this year at <a href=“Convocation on Vimeo”>http://vimeo.com/105591177</a> although I have not watched the whole thing.</p>
<p>Thanks so much @BlairParent. For the reasons you have as well as others, Westminster is falling lower and lower on my list. Thanks for the info about Blair, its great to hear first hand impressions from students and parents. On a different note, I am not the artsiest person so hopefully the schools don’t mind too much that I am more into athletics, academics, and community service</p>
<p>You are welcome.</p>
<p>None of these schools will have a problem with your artsy quotient as they are looking for a healthy mix of interests. They are looking for all types of students, and while they have expectations that you will at least dabble in something artistic the minimum requirements are pretty low key and flexible.</p>
<p>All school have plenty of community service opportunities and will highly value that. Taft, though, does have a pretty robust service program which has always seemed really well organized to me. [Non</a> ut sibi ministretur sed ut ministret](<a href=“http://www.taftschool.org/non/default.aspx]Non”>http://www.taftschool.org/non/default.aspx) and all that gets taken pretty seriously there.</p>
<p>We didn’t experience Blair or Taft but liked Westminster a lot. Westminster had a stronger than usual art vibe with a fabulous-looking performing arts theater. Westminster felt akin to St. George’s and St. Andrew’s. Mentioning since I’ve heard that Blair & St. Andrew’s both have an exceptionally strong sense of community.</p>
<p>Thanks @jjs123 Where did you/your son or daughter end up going?</p>
<p>St. Andrew’s</p>
<p>@jjs123 I haven’t researched much about it. Just wondering, why did you choose St. Andrew’s? Not that I need any more options I already have so many that I can’t narrow down hence the OP lol</p>
<p>Why St. Andrew’s of Delaware? Exceptional sense of community, warmth, kindness – a place that strives at being other-centered – while also a rigorous school academically. You might like the emphasis on community service. Overall I wouldn’t describe SAS as a sports powerhouse, but they do have particular sports where they are quite strong. My daughter was also attracted to the strong music – she’s voice – and dance programs. SAS is small enough that you can try new things and will be encouraged to expand into new areas where you might find a new sport or art you really enjoy.</p>
<p>Of all the schools, we found St. Andrew’s headmaster Tad Roach to be the most interesting leader. Here he is speaking on Opening Day recently:
<a href=“2014 Opening of School Remarks — Tad Roach - YouTube”>2014 Opening of School Remarks — Tad Roach - YouTube;