Would love to hear people’s thoughts on the Hill School ( PA ) and Episcopal ( VA ).
-Your experiences in general
or my two specific concern areas:
-Quality of student monitoring / advisory / system for guardrails for students to make sure they do what they are doing. Are all the advisories just groups, or is there mandatory one on one time? are the dorm parents actually involved or just showpieces?
-Exmissions to colleges. Episcopal has a much bigger southern focus than northeast focus. For a student who will likely apply to all northeast colleges is that a plus in terms of less competition from your peers, or a negative in that colleges don’t know episcopal as well or that the college counselor’s time/connections with top 15 northeast schools aren’t as good.
Thank you!
Is that VES in Lynchburg VA?
At a guess they may mean Episcopal High School in Alexandria.
1 Like
My kid is a current Hill student, and I have been blown away by the adult supervision at the school. Each student has an advisor. There are six kids in an advisory group. Advisory groups meet weekly in a classroom. Some weeks there are group discussions; other weeks, there are one-on-one discussions. There is also an advisory lunch each week where advisories sit together in the dining hall. (Lunches at Hill are formal, sit-down meals.) My daughter’s advisor has been incredible. He has really gotten to know her and us, and he has been a real resource in navigating the school. Beyond the advisor, my daughter also relies on her dorm parent for support. Every Tuesday night is family night in the dorm. There is some sort of programming about building community, working through common challenges for students, etc. + lots of snacks. Dorm parents also oversee evening study hall (7:30-9:30), and my daughter’s dorm parent is happy to talk with her about assignments. The school also just has a lot of eyes on kids–teachers, coaches, administrators, etc. My daughter was struggling a bit with homesickness during first term, and adults at the school picked it up pretty quickly and reached out to us. I have been really impressed with how professional and supportive the adults at Hill are.
We haven’t been through the college admissions process yet, so I cannot speak to that. And, we did not look at Episcopal.
2 Likes
Thank you so much for your perspective, and great to hear your daughter is enjoying it there!
In terms of the advisor - would you know if the one-on-one meetings are mandatory and must happen, or is it up to the student or the advisor to request one. that is my biggest fear that everything is a group advisory, and that my daughter won’t bring stuff up in a group, whereas she might if it was one on one and prescheduled (rather than her having to be proactive about it)
TY!
Yes, I mean Episcopal in Alexandria , thanks
By the way, my daughter is considering Episcopal, and since you aren’t getting a lot of better-informed answers yet, I will give you my two cents on the college thing.
It is pretty obvious looking at college admissions/enrollment lists there are indeed a higher percentage of Southern schools represented at Episcopal than you might expect at a Northeast (or Midwest or West Coast) boarding school. However, there are obviously still plenty of kids ending up at Northeast, Midwest, or West Coast colleges.
So good news, I really doubt highly selective college admissions officers anywhere somehow don’t know about Episcopal, don’t trust its transcripts, don’t trust its recommendations, or so on.
Bad news, I also really doubt they are somehow going to be more forgiving in what they are looking for, because I think they can have their normal high standards and still find applicants from Episcopal meeting those standards.
In other words, I think the apparent differences in admissions/enrollment patterns are really just a matter of self-selection. And if your focus is a non-South region, I don’t think you will be either advantaged or disadvantaged relative to comparable applicants from comparable boarding schools in other regions.
1 Like
Yes, there are mandatory one-on-ones with the advisor each term (fall, winter, spring). The one-on-ones happen after mid-term reports are released to troubleshoot/strategize for the remainder of the term. There was an additional one-on-one discussion about course selection for next year. But, my kid talks to her advisor one-on-one informally all the time. Her advisor is her first stop for navigating any tricky situations or getting insight on how things work at Hill.
2 Likes