After the first year at Choate, there is also the option, if a student doesn’t want to do two seasons of a sweat sport, to join the Arts Concentration program, which has competitive admissions and allows students to focus on practicing their arts discipline (dance, theater, music, or visual arts) in the afternoon instead of doing a physical activity for two of the three seasons. The student would then only do a sweat sport for one season.
In addition to non-competitive sport options like farming, theater/theater tech, and hiking, there is also the ARC (Advanced Robotics Concentration), as an option to replace the winter season sport. Like the Arts Con program, a student applies to ARC during freshman year or later, and uses the afternoon sports time for robotics team practice instead of physical activity. The robotics team is open to non-ARC members for Sunday afternoon practices during the fall and spring, but only ARC members do the intense every-afternoon preparation for the FIRST Robotics competition over the winter, and then attend the competitions.
Both the Arts Con program and ARC, like Choate’s other signature programs (https://www.choate.edu/academics/signature-programs) have an academic component (required classes) also. Choate is a great place for well-rounded kids who want to do it all, as well as serious athletes and serious non-athletes. There is so much to offer both academically and outside the classroom that the challenge is to try to find the right balance and not stress yourself out trying to do too much.