<p>If your sport doesn’t work out, maybe you could pull a Caroline Lind! She waited for softball to start as a new Lower at Andover only to get injured and wasn’t allowed to play anything that risked getting smacked by a ball. A friend suggested she try crew, and she now has two Olympic gold medals in rowing. </p>
<p>You never know. </p>
<p>Size is important in schools, depending on if you have ivy aspirations. I don’t know the size of Hill but kids have a hard time from Choate because so many kids apply to the Ivy’s. They have something called a school group issue which basically means too many from 1 school won’t be admitted. Sometimes a non New England school gives better results when applying to the Ivy leaque</p>
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<p>Our son is an athlete at Choate and absolutely loves the school. He has also found the school to be very supportive academically. Do not worry about not getting enough help. Your teachers will be watching your progress very carefully, especially in the lower forms, and you should feel comfortable seeking any additional help you need. There is absolutely no stigma attached to seeking academic help. Those who ask for it when they need it, either from teachers or fellow students, are the students who do best. Please do no have any fear there. Choate is highly committed to its athletes and provides a strong support net. Because you are a recruit, use that status to ask the coaches at each school to address your concerns firsthand. Don’t rely on the random responses from strangers here to make such an important decision.</p>
<p>As for “too big,” I would suggest that, at any school of any size, your intimate circle of friends will not exceed a handful . You are not looking to be best friends with everyone in the school. At Choate, your class size will be no more than twelve (our son has been in classes as small as seven) and, by the end of freshman year, you will know everyone on campus by sight if not by name. You may also find that a larger school provides more possibilities for friendships and, if you are a kid who likes a bit of privacy or anonymity, you may appreciate the larger pond.</p>
<p>At any boarding school, your experience there will be what you make of it. Get your concerns answered by each school, then go with your gut. Good luck (and Go Choate!). ;)</p>
<p>If you look up Hill on google, it says its elite, highly selective preparatory boarding school. While for choate it says, its just highly selective. I’m not sure if you care if one is elite, but I would go to the “elite” school. </p>
<p>That is SUCH a lame way to judge. </p>
<p>@ReallyTired: SERIOUSLY?!?!?! I thought you were better than that!
Your post above is nonsense. If anything, Choate is the more prestigious school.
If you’re going to post something like that, don’t post it. </p>
<p>You’ve got to work on your judging skills, ReallyTired.</p>
<p>Just saying, but that was a terrible way to compare two schools.
You should know better than that!! 
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<p>Wait is this according to Wikipedia? Everything on Wikipedia is always true <em>he says sarcastically</em></p>
<p>No, it’s according to Google. There’s an information box at the side that has a summary when you google a school.
ReallyTired is basing everything about the school in that little box that might even contain false info. :(</p>
<p>As people would say in the medieval times: Defend yourself, good sir! (Or madam) </p>
<p>That information box is the beginning of the Wikipedia page for the school @mathman1201 and @ReallyTired. Read the entire excerpt and right next to it is a link to the Wikipedia page which reads the exact same thing.</p>
<p>Ok.
This shows how Wikipedia is not accurate at times. @ReallyTired</p>
<p>No bickering necessary, they are both GREAT institutions who’s alumnus reads as a Who’s Who of influential Americans.</p>
<p>Both are considered Elite Schools as both were named part of the elite 16 (for what it’s worth dept.) according to Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell.</p>
<p>“In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite’s private school and elite prep school educational system:
“E. Digby Baltzell identified 16 boarding schools that <code>serve the sociological function of differentiating the upper classes from the rest of the population…’ Indeed, the 16 schools [Phillips Acdemy, Phillips Exeter Academy, Episcopal High School, Hill School, St. Paul’s School, St. Mark’s School, Lawrenceville School, Groton School, Woodbury Forest School, Taft School, Hotchkiss School, Choate School, St. George’s School, Middlesex School, Deerfield Academy, Kent School] strike one as predominantly</code>old, eastern, patrician, aristocratic and English.’ These are core schools of the elite tradition, and they play an important role in socializing their students for power. We refer to these schools as the select 16…”</p>
<p>As mentioned earlier, both schools have different personalities and many similarities, no mater where you choose to go, you will get a damn great education if you apply yourself. </p>
<p>BTW, Pottstown is really not that bad, besides you will be spending most of your time on campus at either school so little things like that should not be of concern…</p>
<p>If you are still having a difficult time deciding, which is the most economical (parents concern) and convenient to get to.</p>
<p>Congratulations on having such great choices to decide on… </p>
<p>^^^ ootah has struck the jackpot.
base your knowledge on books and facts, instead of Wikipedia. :)</p>
<p>The basis of the bickering is the implication that Hill is somehow better than Choate. Which is completely inaccurate. </p>
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<p>I just need to point out that the book was published in 1985, and E. Digby Baltzell’s comments were published in 1958. Boarding schools have changed dramatically since then. Not that the Hill and Choate aren’t both great schools; they are. Not that Baltzell wasn’t an esteemed sociologist; he was. However, the notion that there is an “Elite 16” in boarding schools is as harebrained as the concept of HADES and GLADCHEMMS.</p>