Perhaps @ChoatieMom has some info to add.
Iâve read this thread and agree with @skieuropeâs comments:
I donât post frequently here anymore as our 2011-2015 experience is pre-Covid and stale. Our Choatie is 27 and married. Time to move on.
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Hotchkissâ endowment per student is around $1 million/student.
Out of snow day boredom, I did some quick math on the back of my envelope using publicly available information, and arrived at the following numbers:
Exeter at $1.48 million per student
Deerfield at $1.42M
Andover and St. Paulâs at $1.4M
Groton at $1.25M
Andover at $1.22M
Hotchkiss at $1M
Mercersburg at nearly $900K, similar to Peddie
Middlesex at about $750K
There is a certain correlation between these numbers and the diversity in the student body. The higher the number, the more likely it is for schools to offer FA packages to high-achieving students who may not otherwise be able to afford these schools.
Among the tippy top schools, Choate and Lâville numbers are much lower than the their peersâ. Lâvilleâs number is surprisingly low, despite a sizable donation famous Taiwanese alum Joe Tsai. Lâville board is very aware of this and has just brought in a new head of advancement to turn things up and around. Choate did something similar in 2022, poaching a fundraiser from Yale. It will be interesting to watch the development (pun intended) at both schools.
Loomis and Mercersburg have done a tremendous job advancing themselves in the last decade. Not long ago, Loomis was able to secure a $100M gift from long-time supporter Henry Kravis, so kudos to the board. Mercersburg was not very visible to most families but the leadership has been doing amazing things lately. Definitely a school worth watching for upcoming applicants.
Among top boarding schools, Taft has a rather bizarre situation: it has a $327 million endowment but does not come with a swimming facility. Many students and families have complained over the years, but the school simply chose to ignore them.
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The Board probably had good reasons. Swimming facilities are REALLY expensive to build, often have maintenance problems, and are very expensive in terms of insurance (i.e. a schoolâs liability insurance goes up because the risk of something bad happening goes up).
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@CarnegieDad â if you havenât listened to Malcolm Gladwellâs podcast episode called âFood Fightâ", my hunch is that you would find it interesting. Itâs about decisions on how to spend institutional funds and highlights Bowdoin and Vassar. The high level, over-simplified summary is that one part of the decision matrix is âspend $ on FAâ vs âspend $ to attract FP studentsâ, and what benefits the school most.
(Food Fight | Revisionist History)
There are 3 episodes about education in this series, all quite interesting. Older but still relevant.
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And having no swimming alums, means few (if any) big donors care about swimmingâŠeasier to raise $ for new hockey rink or tennis courts with lots of hockey and tennis team alums.
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Endowment per student is an interesting figure, but if youâre looking at financial aid available to attract non-traditional students, then you can look directly at each schoolâs reported financial aid budget relative to student enrollment.
On that basis, even though Exeterâs per student endowment is much larger than, say, that of Hotchkiss, the Hotchkiss per student financial aid figure is $23k versus $22k for Exeter, i.e., roughly equal despite Hotchkissâs much smaller endowment.
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I will add, as a board or admin view (in addition to the above), I am not sure how much it hurts academic or social life of a school to not have swimming. They should be looking at mission alignment.
A school will obviously lose some applicants over lack of pool, but is there actual harm done? Not like they donât have plenty of good applicants and plenty of athletes. 
I am not sure the specific mission and goals of Taft (assuming similar to other prep schools) and I am not sure adding a sport advances that in any sort of cost-effective way.
Anyway, this is very off track at this point but interesting thought experiment:)
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Hi @gardenstategal I am a big fan of Gladwellâs. Every institution has its own priorities, which often evolve over time. Thanks again for sharing!
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Since Taft wasnât on the OPâs list of schools, letâs please get back to the OP or start a new thread. Thank you!
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