<p>I’m willing to answer any of your questions about Taft, whether it be about academics, athletics, arts, or the community as a whole. I’m finishing off my 3rd year at Taft and figured I would share some knowledge with you guys. Have at it, ask me anything, no question is too personal.</p>
<p>Are you allowed to use laptops in the classrooms? Also, do they give you laptops or do you have to buy your own?</p>
<p>Sent from my MB511 using CC App</p>
<p>Most teachers will allow taking notes on laptops in the classroom. Some subjects (like math courses) aren’t conducive to taking notes on a laptop, thus the teacher will question whether you are actually taking notes or if you’re messing around on facebook. But generally, yes, laptops are allowed in the classroom.</p>
<p>You have to buy your own laptop before coming to Taft. Here are the minimum recommended specs:
2 GB memory
80 GB hard drive
Ethernet port
802.11b/g wireless card
Operating System: Windows (XP, Vista, 7) or Mac (10.4 Tiger or newer)</p>
<p>The IT department provides you with Microsoft Office and Antivirus software for free.
A hefty majority of students on campus use a Mac, but there’s nothing wrong with using Windows.</p>
<p>What grade did you start at Taft?</p>
<p>Thanks so much for offering to answer questions!
How many APs do students usually take?
Also, how much homework does a student usually get per night?
Not sure if you remember, but when does the information (placement tests, roommate surveys, etc) come for students who decide to attend Taft?</p>
<p>What’s the music like at Taft? Specifically, the choral program?
How’s Taft’s financial aid program?
What’s Cross Country like at Taft?</p>
<p>@thegreentea68: I started as a freshman (day student).</p>
<p>@teeli13: It really depends on how strong of a student you are. Students usually don’t take any AP courses until junior year, with the occassional sophomore who is very advanced in a language or math taking an AP. As a junior, I took 3 APs, Honors Preclac, and Chinese. Next year I’m planning on taking 5 APs.
As for homework, again, it really depends. I was a very strong student, so I breezed through freshman and half of sophomore year when it began to get challenging for me. All I can say is freshman year I took 4 Honors Classes and never had trouble managing time.
Sorry, I can’t recall when placement tests go out. I think sometime in July.</p>
<p>@ifax108: Music is one of Taft’s strengths, specifically choral music. New singers can take Chorus as a Pass/Fail art course. More experienced singers can try out for Collegium Musicum, the flagship music program at Taft. Collegium meets 3-4 times a week to practice and improve singing ability. They perform many times per year and usually have either summer or spring break trips (they have made trips to Italy and San Francisco before). You can also take private voice lessons if that’s your thing.
The financial aid program is need-based only, not merit-based. If you are accepted, they will try to meet your family’s need, but also need to stay within their financial aid budget. This past year over 1/3 of students received aid.
I don’t know much about XC because I’ve always been a soccer player, sorry!</p>
<p>Why is Taft inferior to Hotchkiss in every possible way?</p>
<p>Clearly not in terms of student graciousness. ;)</p>
<p>Oh you :)</p>
<p>We have you beat in mascots. What’s a bearcat?</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply 
Also, does band require an audition or can everyone join?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the instrumental music program, so I’ll just give you a couple links:
[Taft</a> Arts - Orchestra](<a href=“http://taftschool.org/arts/orchestra.aspx]Taft”>http://taftschool.org/arts/orchestra.aspx)
[Taft</a> Arts - Jazz Ensemble](<a href=“http://taftschool.org/arts/jazz.aspx]Taft”>http://taftschool.org/arts/jazz.aspx)</p>
<p>You can also arrange private lessons with various teachers that Taft brings in solely for that purpose.</p>
<p>Does your school offer a Post Graduate year? and are you considering taking one? Also as dumb as this might sound, would someone taking a PG year at the age of 19 or 20 be weird?</p>
<p>Yep, Taft does offer a PG year. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s mostly for athletic recruits. Some people may take a PG year if they don’t get into any colleges that they want to attend. If you go to Taft for high school and you want to take a PG, most likely you will take your PG year somewhere else (and it follows that most Taft PG’s never previously attended Taft). I personally am not considering a PG year, I don’t have any reason to not go straight to college.
Honestly, the PG’s fit right in with the senior class. Sometimes you could know someone for a long time and then find out they are a PG.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for offering to answer questions! I’m currently trying to decide whether to enroll in taft and I was just wondering what opinions you have on the school as I could not make it to revisit because I was at another revisit.</p>
<p>Is the Harkness method used in classes?</p>
<p>How would you describe the atmosphere at the school?</p>
<p>Are the students all in cliques? Or are the students atleast integrated with all other kinds of students? (students on financial aid, minorities, etc.)</p>
<p>Lastly, as shallow as I know this sounds, how well do you think Taft does at sending students to top schools?</p>
<p>Sorry for so many questions, but thank you in advance! :)</p>
<p>@putnamehere. Why did you apply to Taft if you didn’t already know those answers?</p>
<p>A lot of things are a lot harder to find out through a catalog as there is a certain amount of obscurity reading facts off paper. What a school officially publishes may not be exactly the same as what a student actually observes.</p>
<p>It’s mainly because due to financial constraints, I couldn’t tour each school before I applied. I did have a rushed tour of Taft but there was not much time for Q&A. A current students uncensored opinions seem more real to me anyways.</p>
<p>@putnamehere: Harkness is used in all classes except for math courses in my experience.
The atmosphere? It’s really a beautiful campus, by far the most beautiful out of all the schools I toured, nice and compact, you see almost everybody everyday due to the campus design, most everybody is friendly (there’s always a few jerks), LOTS of faculty families (which means lots of dogs on campus and lots of cute babies!). It has a strong community feel, even if our headmaster overplays it a little. By the way our headmaster is awesome, he’s not some old guy behind a desk, he is everywhere all the time, a couple times he laced up and jumped into our soccer practice just for fun.
There aren’t exclusive cliques at Taft. You may form friend groups around different activities, but you are never limited to one group of people. The only thing I noticed is that some of the more shy Asian students tend to stick together all the time.
You won’t get into a top school by going to one boarding school over another. You’ll go to top schools if you take the most challenging curriculum, constantly get good grades, and participate in events outside of classes. For what it’s worth, Taft has sent 14.3% of its students to Ivy League schools over the past 5 years.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your reply! It was so helpful. I do understand that it takes much more work to get in to a top college than just going to a certain school. Thanks again!</p>
<p>is there any downsides at Taft? I read reviews on boardingschoolreview and some people said they placed too much emphasis on athletes, is this true at all??
thank you :)</p>