Academic Pressure At Andover vs Other Elite Prep Schools?

gungablue
Sat, 06 Jan 2018 20:53:13 +0000

It is not at all unusual to do 5 hours of homework nightly at Andover. Homework load depends on courses but since Andover allows more advanced courses for younger students – this can be quite intense even in 9th or 10th grade as there can be 9th and 10th graders in organic chem and MVC and fluid mechanics. Classes are supposed to have 45 minutes to an hour of homework per class per night, but more advanced classes state that they may have more – and they do.

Time management is necessary but also challenging, especially with a lot of ECs. So for example, say a kid is in classes during the day with one hour free at most (that hour can be work duty, or an extra lab, or an extra class and so sometimes not free), and then sports (if intense, like crew, this is 3 to 6 pm), and then orchestra meets 6-8 a few nights per week. So then at 8 pm, after an intense 12 hour day, the 15 yo then faces at least 5 hours of homework. Not much time to catch up on weekends if you are in sports, music/theater rehearsals, academic competitions off campus that you travel to, etc., not to mention the need to catch up on sleep. So yeah, there is a lot of work.

@sunnyschool – I agree that speed of the kid matters a lot and it isn’t surprising that anyone who takes 30 hours to do a paragraph struggles. But the Andover students I know are really, really fast and really, really smart and are just unable to manage the work load and get adequate sleep. One way to manage would be fewer ECs and easier classes, but for kids who wanted Andover for the challenge, those classes and sometimes ECs are the reasons they are there and not things they want to give up.