So, starting with the weekend question. There are lots of things to do on campus on the weekend, and in our experience, most of the day students end up back on campus for some part of the weekend rather than there being an exodus off of it. I think from a kid’s POV, it’s great to have a place to hang with your friends and to have some activities to do with them – indeed preferable to going to someone’s house and trying to figure out how to dodge the parents and find something to do. While there are often sporting events or theater productions on a weekend, there are also activities. The options for each weekend so far this year are on the website – go to the bottom of the home page and click Student, Campus Life, Weekend Activities. You’ll see that in the fall, this was everything from full day trips into Philadelphia to a Harvest weekend, late afternoon/evening trips into nearby New Hope, scavenger hunts, etc. Live music weekend in the winter is always a big event. With that said, DS used to just go play pick up sports with friends.
As for the slant in the classroom, it’s an education, not an indoctrination. I actually think that the curriculum is more “traditional” than progressive and is very much about having a solid foundation. If there is a “slant”, it really is about being tuned into the human experience. Literature classes might include works by Shakespeare, Bao Ninh, Fitzgerald, and Achebe. In other words, plenty of western classics, but not only those. Students are encouraged (expected) to think for themselves, so there really isn’t a particular view that’s promoted – I don’t think that there’s a good/bad dichotomy on anything – but there’s a big emphasis on critical thinking. (This is consistent with the IB and Theory of Knowledge, which btw, is also very popular with non-IB kids). As the former head used to say “There are many truths”. George does a good job of teaching kids how to hear those and hold several simultaneously which is something that I appreciated – we don’t live is a world where there are a lot of absolutes, so it’s good to be able to have opinions without dismissing everyone else’s. (DS is very diplomatic with me, for example!) . Remember too that many of the kids are taking AP and IB exams so are expected to have mastered certain topics (and not in a revolutionary way!) Because there is an emphasis on having a global world view, all freshmen take AP Human Geography-- not radical. It sounds like your own views wouldn’t be at odds – btw, IB Econ is very popular.
There are adults who live in the dorms, but i honestly don’t know what the supervision looks like (i.e., doors open, etc.) My sense was that the kids felt like they had a lot of freedom but that there were quite a few eyes on them. @SevenDad may be able to shed more light on dorm life (and has other schools to compare it to.)