The Truth Behind Prep Schools, from an Exeter '17 Grad

Prep School Admissions
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As boarding school application deadlines quickly approach, I’d like to share observations of my prep school experience with prospective applicants and/or their parents. I’m hoping to get a few things off my chest and to paint an accurate picture of life at a prep school. I’m only drawing on my years at Exeter, though I do think that my story is similar to those at other schools.

To give a little bit of background, I am a male, international student who graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in the spring of 2017. I’m going to be somewhat vague, as I’d rather not share too much information about myself, but my brief resume consisted of being the co-captain of a sports team, the head of a major club on campus (think Model UN, Newspaper, etc.), the co-head of a smaller club on campus, the winner of a “prestigious” Spring term award (I was nominated for it by my peers & the principal), a multi-year participant in a music ensemble, and a member of a couple more clubs/organizations. My GPA was slightly under 10 out of 11 with a small downward trend in my junior year (I acknowledge that this was the dagger in my college applications), while my test scores included a 35 superscored ACT, an 800 subject test and another subject test in the low 700s. I ended up not being admitted to any Ivies, Stanford, top universities like UChicago and LACs.

If there are two points you take away from this post, they should be:

  1. Exeter (and similar schools like Andover, St. Paul's, etc.) are academically hard. Know what you're getting into.
  2. The notion that you'll have an easier time being admitted into an Ivy from a prep school is misleading.

Exeter is known to be the most difficult prep school. As a four year student myself, I witnessed firsthand the amount of stress students went through. It was common for students, even the 9th graders, to go to bed past midnight, and many of my friends had to pull multiple all nighters each year. I understand that I signed up for the academic rigors of the institution, but eventually, you have to wonder whether it’s all necessary. Is it really necessary to have 5-6 hours of homework a night, as high schoolers? Is it really necessary to have a 15 page history paper (the infamous 333) due the same week as a math test and science lab? Exeter prides itself on being more challenging than university, but the question remains: is it really necessary? I know for a fact that my sport suffered since I couldn’t focus on it at Exeter. Evidently, the toll on students was overwhelming at times - I’d guess that around 10-15 students every term were on medical leave, most likely because of the inability to cope with Exeter’s workload (meanwhile, the obstinate administration did not bother to attempt to address this issue, and has in recent news poorly dealt with Exeter’s sexual assault cases, but those topics are for a different thread). I went from top of grade at my old school (a highly ranked private one in my country) to a student achieving B’s in History and scraping by with A’s & A-'s in Math. I’m not going to sugarcoat it - Exeter is tough. You really need to be prepared and have a great work ethic to survive here.

In addition, I’d like to debunk a myth I’ve heard floating around - that by attending Andover, Exeter, etc., you’ll have a much higher chance of being admitted to a top university. This is simply not true. Sure, the Ivies take quite a high number of kids from Exeter (around 8-10 kids alone in my class got admitted to Harvard), but what are their qualifications? One’s a nationally recognized artist. Another’s a math and physics whiz who’s competed at the international level. One of my best friends is basically a polyglot, who also was <.1 off from early cum laude (in our year, this was ~10.65/11). And one guy was a recruited football player. Everyone has a well-defined, strong hook.

You need to realize that the quality of kids at boarding schools is SO much higher than that of your average high school. Imagine yourself being top of grade at your high school, and being thrown into a pit with 250 other top of grade’s. That’s the college admissions battle at a place like Exeter. To give you some perspective, the only internationals who are attending Ivies or similar calibre schools are those that were early cum laude. That’s it.

Lastly, I found the college counseling services to be, frankly, overrated. I did have occasional 1 on 1 talks with my counselor, but he never offered helpful and/or significant edits on any of my essays. There was a disparate level of expertise noticeable between college counselors, too. All the top kids in my grade got paired with the best college counselor, while the less-desired applicants were paired with the remaining college counselors. Does that sound like it’s worth thousands of tuition dollars to you? It doesn’t to me.

At the end of the day, the purpose of this post is not to bash Exeter. I know tons of students who have flourished at Exeter. If you’re a math aficionado, Exeter provides unlimited opportunities for you to chase your dreams. If you’re passionate about exploring various fields of academia, Exeter is your mini LAC - it’s essentially college four years early. I formed such tight bonds with friends here, and the alumni network, at least for a high school, is unparalleled. However, upon reflection, Exeter was not the right place for me, nor was it the right place for lots of students I got to know. It may or may not be the place for you. You must assess what you’re after - a world-class high school education, or the high school that will provide the best odds for you to gain admission into an Ivy/top college. The two may not go together.

I will be attending a great college known for its STEM programs, so I am relatively satisfied with how my college admissions process turned out. But, do I regret choosing to go to Exeter? I’d say I probably do. I learned so much at Exeter and really enjoyed the boarding aspect, but attending Exeter caused unnecessary worry and hampered my goal of attending a top university, something that I had always prioritized in my life and that could have been accomplished by staying at my high school back home.

I wish I had known all of what I have written above five years ago, while I was considering enrolling at Exeter. If you’re on the fence about applying to or ultimately attending a prep school, please do think long and hard about it. It’s a huge life decision, and I’d hate for you to be disappointed with college results down the road, due to being ignorant of elite prep school college admissions competition.

If anyone has questions, I’m open to answering them to the best of my abilities. Good luck with your decisions and your prep school applications! Exeter (and I’m sure prep schools in general) is a special place, but for the right student. Keep that in mind.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I am leaving this thread up and open because it is a well written post which makes some very good points, some of which I agree with from my own experiences at another boarding school, and others that I do not agree with. Also the word “truth” in the header is the OP’s opinion.

However, the OP will be unavailable to answer questions, since he created a second account to post this, which violates the rules. But there are some other PEA parents/students/alum who may have a different experience that they may want to share.

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@PrepSchoolGrad17 Hello Sir/Madam, I’m an international student and I’m applying to Exeter. Now, What’s your point? Should I apply there? Or not? What do you say? I’m from Asia. In here, my school is my country’s best. I’m happy here! But, I heard that Going to Exeter will give me a more happy life! Exeter will help to fulfill my dream. I also want to read at MIT. I heard that Exeter will able to help me with it. But, after reading ou thoughts, I’m really scared! I already gave my SSAT, I already gave my Interview! What should I do now? Leaving everything up? I’m confused !

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@skieurope just pointed out that the OP will be unable to answer questions.

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Kids! You don’t choose a high school for college results. You choose a high school for the education it will give you (same as you should do for college). Life is not about the college you attend. It sounds to me like the OP did fine in the college game as he says he will be attending a great college, so his Exeter education did not fail him. If your goal is to attend a specific college or (small) set of colleges, you’re on the wrong track. A college will not determine your happiness or success in life — YOU will do that from wherever you graduate.

@khanshabeb: There are MANY, MANY colleges in the United States that will serve you well if you are interested in engineering or some type of technology. MIT does not have a lock on that. Attending a U.S. prep school with the goal of a attending a narrow set of colleges is likely to end in disappointment because the pool is so competitive and the college slots are so few for each of these high schools. I encourage you to examine why you want to attend a U.S. prep school. Most of the students attending our best universities did NOT attend prep schools.

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You heard wrong. As I have said many many times on this forum, do not go to boarding school if your only purpose is to use it as a stepping stone to a top college; that reasoning is just folly. A boarding school may give a student the tools with which to develop him/herself into a viable candidate, but others schools may as well. Colleges admit students, not boarding schools. While the professionals at the schools are ready and willing to assist in the process, they will not, and should not, do the work for you. Good luck.

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Thank you @PrepSchoolGrad17 . I think you described the Exeter experience as perfectly as anyone thus far. The only think I would add is that college matriculations to top schools are overwhelmingly legacies, athletes and minorities as well as the other one off stand-outs you described. The school faculty lectures students who care about grades with the “this is not why your here” schtick (ironically mimicking the Trinity Head letter referenced in another thread @SatchelSF ). These schools are seeing their matriculations to the best schools slowly erode (still tremendous but nothing comparable to years past) as well as numbers of merit scholars diminish due to the overall dumbing down of standards. And, @Golfgr8, I don’t believe that the school wants well-rounded kids. It is near impossible to be well-rounded while you are there so why be well rounded coming in? Well rounded kids generally aren’t really good enough at any one thing to truly be a stand-out.

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Thanks @Center for confirming again why my kid is not applying to certain schools! I do SO enjoy reading the posts from students and parents who believe PEA and PA are tickets to Nirvana (not the rock group). I encourage you to apply - PLEASE apply ONLY to PEA, PA, and other “alphabet” schools!!

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Plenty of well-rounded kids found desirable by and attending boarding schools. Plenty.

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As Popeye - the sailor man- says, “I yam what I yam” :ar!

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The high school experience should be enjoyable in itself, not just means to an end (admission to top university), which may or may not happen. Ivies are taking fewer kids from elite schools, and more kids from lower income schools.

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As a longtime PEA parent I see lots of truth in what the OP describes and some gaps. I totally agree that if the only goal of attending a top BS is to gain admission to an Ivy League college- you will be disappointed.

The PEA experience is not for everyone. But for 3 of mine, they wouldn’t trade their time there for anything. The people they met, things they learned, places they have gone and experiences they have had are priceless. I debated listing some highlights and then decided I wouldn’t do them justice. They would not be the people they are today without their time at PEA. Yes, there is a TON of work and stesss, but it was totally worth it for mine (and not because they ended up at an IVY).
For our one who Exeter was not a fit for, her traditional high school experience was no walk in the park. There was plenty of stress in her daily life. Unlike at PEA, her stress came from social pressures and bullying. I don’t think anyone has the fairytale high school experience anymore. For the right kid, PEA can be an amazing place overall. You have to take the bad with the good.

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Thanks to @PrepSchoolGrad17 for posting such a well written and honest reflection on his experience at PEA. I wish it would get “Pinned” somehow, because a lot of kids and parents who visit the Prep School forums need to read these kind of genuine student experiences before they insist on only applying to “the best boarding schools”.

@ChoatieMom also has amazing insights, thank you for your ongoing contributions.

This post really resonated with both my spouse and I, as we are following and guiding our son’s application process to boarding schools. We have never been so impressed with a campus, staff and students as we were at Exeter on our recent visit. It was also abundantly clear to us that it was not the place for our son. Yes, he has the test scores, grades, athletic prowess and “hook” to have a strong chance for admission (we are not saying he would get in), but it just did not seem to be the place for him, and we are utterly afraid of the consequences of “PEA stress” that he would feel at such a young age. People I have worked and studied with have told me how much pressure they felt at Exeter. They attended 20-25 years ago, and perhaps it’s less intense now.

Our son is somewhat independent, but not entirely so; he loves math and science, but isn’t yet dreaming of finding a cure for cancer; he likes to do independent research, but doesn’t love all-nighters or 6 hour homework nights. He’s a kid, starting to mature, struggling with when to study and when to hang out with friends and play pick up football. It seems at PEA the average kid is more mature, more motivated, more in a rush to explore and succeed. It is a cerebral place, and highly impressive, but quite different from some of the other elite boarding schools. While our son is applying to some of the GLADCHEMMS schools, PEA is no longer one of them as we don’t feel he is ready for a preternaturally elite college experience at the age of 15, and from everything we can gather that’s exactly what PEA is. (Although we so love that campus, and town, and that incredible library).

This mad rush for kids to get into HYPSM/Ivies - I know it’s never going to end, but when will parents get a grip and stop putting so much pressure on their children? At least recognize that if winding up there is the be all and end all, there’s always graduate school. I went to a crummy public high school, truly a dumpster fire kind of place. Merely a decent university, because that’s what we could afford. But I went to HYPSM for grad school, enjoyed my time there, and made a career. My career wasn’t defined nor destined by my grad school. If I had to do it over again I would have gone to boarding school on financial aid, made a bunch of great friends, explored more, learned more, laughed more, been challenged more. As many wise contributors have posted on this Forum over the years, please, forget about college matriculation stats and make a collaborative decision with your child about what kind of high school experience they want and let the college admissions process unfold without undue pressure.

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I’m also an Exeter ’17 grad, but I’d like to note that mine is a “truth” that differs wildly from OP’s; I find myself disagreeing with many of his points, and hope to provide a little more perspective to those prospective applicants now apprehensive after reading his post.

It’s true; Exeter is indeed the most academically challenging prep school there is. Upon mention, its name draws both looks of admiration and those of pity from fellow college students and professors alike. That being said, the institution is as much work as you put into it. I’m not going to lie—all of us struggled in ninth grade. But what Exeter gave us the support we needed and ample resources to help us improve. We learned to learn. And by the way, plenty of students go to sleep before midnight and do just fine.

OP tries to “debunk a myth” about Exeter’s increasing students chances of getting into a top university by citing perhaps the most anomalous case of all: Harvard admissions. He invokes a truism: that only people with “well-defined, strong hooks” end up bleeding crimson. That’s not at all an Exeter-specific observation. Any secondary school student from anywhere in the world hoping to go to Harvard has to push themselves in unimaginable ways, and even then, there’s no guarantee. And the idea that you would have a better chance of getting in if you went to your local high school compared to Exeter is just false. There are plenty of high school valedictorians who don’t get into Ivies. If you want to get in, you have to put in the hard work regardless.

What is a more meaningful statement is that the Academy sends boatloads of its graduates to amazing schools—think UMichigan, UC Berkeley, UChicago, NYU—in much, much larger proportions than any other high school in the country. There are two reasons, I think, to this:

(1): Our College Counseling Office is absolutely stellar. Each Exeter counselor only has about thirty students. Thirty. That’s pretty much more than ten times lower (mind you, this is an extreme example) than what you might get at a public school. And each of these counselors, many of whom have ample experience and have worked in the admissions offices of top universities around the globe, write a lengthy, personalized recommendation for each and every student. And they remain in constant contact with admissions officers throughout the process. And they prepare memos and worksheets and material to make sure you know what to do and when to do it. Nowhere else will you get that much hand-holding. OP doesn’t seem to recognize that. My friends from back home saw their counselors maybe once, and their meetings certainly weren’t 1-on-1. Sure, as OP says, some of them weren’t great at editing essays or helping us narrow down our college lists. But he’s certainly wrong when he claims that “all the top kids in my grade got paired with the best college counselor, while the less-desired applicants were paired with the remaining college counselors.” In the end, those pairings didn’t even matter. Students did well in every group. And if they ever needed help with their college essays, they used the wealth of other resources at their disposal at Exeter: the writing center, for which you could schedule an infinite number of 1-on-1 sessions with highly-qualified teachers; their equally gifted and driven peers; their advisers. OP either failed to recognize that he could or refused to do so.

(2): Colleges recognize the quality of applicants coming from a school like Exeter. I can say, unequivocally, that Exeter has thoroughly prepared me and all of my peers for college. We’re used to living away from home and we’ve formed useful study habits. Most of us are getting 4.0’s. Getting into a top college and then being at the bottom of the pack won’t do you any good. Getting a good foundation, a truly excellent education, will do you good.

All this being said, I’d like to say that it’s crucial to recognize, as many other posters have pointed out, that the main point of going to a prep school like Exeter is NOT to get into a so-called “elite” college (even though the vast majority of students still end up at absolutely amazing institutions). It’s to develop as a person, to live the most formative years of your life among peers and passionate faculty members, to achieve your potential in an environment in which it’s possible to get to know pretty much everyone on campus. Exeter is not simply “college four years early.” And if your entire life is based on getting into an Ivy, like OP’s apparently is, rethink your goals. Most of the people you mention, OP, got into Ivies not because their end goal was to do so, but because they did what they loved.

I’m also a huge proponent of Harkness. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the best pedagogy out there (that would be a tad presumptuous), but it’s pretty amazing. I learned how to advocate for my own ideas and how to actually engage with my peers. Harkness gives students a certain level of responsibility; it makes you responsible for your own education. In a typical high school class, you have the potential to learn what the teacher is saying. In Harkness, you have the potential to get the answers to whatever questions you bring to the table. Exeter itself is what you bring to it.

Yes, Exeter can be stressful, but if you look at the trends, high school itself is becoming more and more stressful for teenagers. The stress comes not from Exeter, but what you define as your own success and how you set your own goals. There are plenty of Exonians who don’t feel the need to get into an “elite” college and they go through Exeter without the extra stress that comes with pitting themselves against the best of college applicants. Exeter gives you the opportunity to define yourself. Don’t blame Exeter for the consequences that come with your own definitions.

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suspect post: “Most of us are getting 4.0’s”

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What’s the mean GPA at PEA? I have heard they grade tough there. It’s all relative. But the truth should be available.

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The reference to 4.0s is in the context of being prepared for and doing well at college.

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“Most of us are getting 4.0’s”

In context, I believe the poster is referring to PEA grads who are now in college, not to GPAs while at PEA. I believe it, for the most part. It’s never been easier to get As in college anyway. This website has some very interesting information, including links to research papers and college-specific data: http://www.gradeinflation.com/

As anyone who has been at one of the elite HPYMS+ schools will tell you (if he is honest), the toughest part has always been getting in.

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I get that–its the phrase–how does the OP know they all have 4.0s? He/she has been in college for half a year and has talked to all former 2017 graduates that had the best grades at PEA to confirm that they are all getting 4.0s their first 5 months in college?

I find it awfully suspicious that after 1 single post poster comes on with his/her true story of PEA which matches virtually everything that everyone reads about re workload and stress etc, some other 1 thread poster comes on with a if you weren’t a great student to make it to the Ivies out of PEA its because you did’t work hard enough, didn’t appreciate it and why are you complaining anyway.

Sounds like a PEA administrator or faculty member wrote this. (In fact the more I re-read it the more I am convinced of this: “Our college counseling office…”)

I happen to know a few current students who have received college decisions already. The results very much align with the other poster’s post and the Gladwell article.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE:

I have no dog in this fight and I’m usually one of the most suspicious when it comes to users with one post, however I am confirming that a PEA Administrator/Faculty Member did not write this and that it was written by a current college student. You can certainly take the comments at face value or dismiss them, but let’s stop debating the identity/veracity of the poster. Thank you.