I know that ranking prep schools is pretty imprecise and foolhardy at the top, but I am curious about something.
I have gotten the impression that Taft is considered in a different league than the other three in my discussion title. The placement person at our school didn’t even suggest Taft for our DC (but did suggest most of the Gladchems).
I figured we had enough schools to look at as it was, so I didn’t push it. But increasingly I hear of kids applying to Taft along with Gladchems schools, so I looked it up. I know the info. is imperfect, but based on average SSAT and acceptance rate, Taft and Hotchkiss and Choate and Lawrenceville look nearly identical. Is the student body as similar as those stats suggest? Would you consider them close matches, academically?
As a boarding school alum, Taft is definitely considered a rung lower than Lawrenceville/Choate/Hotchkiss in terms of academics (look at college placement, average SAT scores, etc). However, like stargirl3 said, that doesn’t mean you won’t be challenged and can’t flourish there.
in my senior yr at a prep school… i can tell you that Choate and Taft are great schools and strive academically… what makes them stand out from Hotchkiss and Lawrenceville are the sports… I mean yeah hotchkiss is good at the country club sports (soccer, squash, tennis). Hotchkisss is a great school but if you wanna go to a school that is backed up with school spirit and a great community… then Taft and Choate are better schools. Not saying hotchkiss is not a good school it is!! As long as you don’t mind watching them lose
I know @soxmom I thought the exact same thing! I have a soccer child and I can without a doubt say that it is not a country club sport. The college matriculation list at Hotchkiss was quite impressive though @Hero45 with at least a dozen seniors going to Yale (as listed in the yearbook). Are you saying the community at Hotchkiss is lacking? I understand the athletics “game” may not be as strong but community extends well beyond what happens on the field, court, or pool no?
I’m just speaking from the views of the boarding school world… A lot of times these days… Whether peope admit it or not … Prep school sucks at times… People are limited to campus, they spend a lot of time on campus. If the school doesn’t host events, or people don’t want to go to athletic events because the sports suck then it can make boarding school very boring… I have very good friends who go to Hotchkiss and he told me “Its (Hotchkiss) going to set me up for college… But it sucks sitting in my room studying and the only thing I look forward to on weekends is going home or going to a dance.” Yeah it’s great that Hotchkiss has great academics and what not… To put it in a college perspective… We choose schools for academics but we also choose it for sports, the traditions, the social events. I said this about two colleges I looked at GWU and Tulane…
Both great academics both great schools… I would choose Tulane because Tulane has amazing school spirit… They participate in community service, they have so many traditions that make them campus feel special and electric. At GWU I would feel like my entire time there would be competing against other students, I’ll dig my face in a text book and not have a social scene… Hotchkiss is a great school… All I’m saying is I know a lot of prep schools are just as rigorous as Hotchkiss and have a great community… I think people like the label more than the experience.
sorry for any spelling errors and what not… on my phone and just trying to voice a quick response
No hate for soccer… Just speaking in the world of prep school… The only sports that people watch and support are football hockey and lacrosse… Everything else is considered “irrelevant” or the “county club sports”
H45, For whatever it may be worth, the county clubbers at Hotchkiss crushed the real men from Taft last month 30-7 in football. (I know this fairly useless fact only because my son attended Hotchkiss Country Club a few years ago when its football team won the New England Prep School Championship and then played for, but lost, such Championship in the finals the following year.)
This conversation just goes to show that you really have to judge these things for yourself and not put too much emphasis on what you hear from any one person. I have no reason to doubt that @Hero45 is accurately reporting his friend’s perception of Hotchkiss. I have two kids there who have a very different perception, though. From their perspective, there’s a ton of community spirit and lots going on at the school on weekends. Just to give one example of school spirit, the first football game of the season was an away game at Salisbury on a Saturday night, and Hotchkiss kids filled 5 full-sized school buses to go watch the game. There were easily 3 or 4 times as many Hotchkiss kids at that game as there were Salisbury kids. And it’s not just football, hockey, and lacrosse that people go watch, as evidenced by the large crowd watching field hockey’s last game of the season, to go undefeated. But it’s all in the eye of the beholder, and what feels comfortable and welcoming to one person may not feel that way to another. So, go visit, go visit multiple times if you can, ask lots of questions, ask more questions, read between the lines, be an informed consumer.
I don’t want to add anymore and be taken the wrong way… Wasn’t trying to insult anyone. Alot of what I’m saying is the raw truth that sometimes kids are too afraid to admit. I’ll just end with saying that when you look at schools talk to the students and ask for their personal opinions… Ask about weekend activities… School spirit etc… People always talk about how prep school is bad and it is mostly Bc they get bored on campus… Find a school that is active… The last thing you wanna do is go to a school where u can get bored easily bc it can truly ruin the expirence… Buy in that’s all I gotta say.