NMH vs St. Marks

Periwinkle
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:00:21 +0000

2010 Hopeful, we’ve been discussing some of those points this week, as next year’s class choices are due soon. The normal course load is five courses. Students may petition to take six. Most courses run for the full year.

You are required to participate in sports, although some students participate in Drama productions in lieu of sports. There are Varsity, JV, and Thirds teams.

Full picture from kid: Default option is sports. If you are cast in a play, you may act in lieu of sports for either the fall or winter term. On rare occasions lower classmen are able to do two terms of a play (they have to petition to the deans, and get cast). The spring play (One-Acts) can be done on top of sports. There are various other recreational activities (non-ISL sports) that can be taken instead of sports, but most are only open to Juniors and Seniors. For instance, Yogaroebics is a very popular option. This Winter, Dance was offered to lower forms as an activity that met the sports requirement, but that is not the case every year. Another option for upper forms is an ACE. ACEs are a student created independent activity that they can do instead of the activities offered in the time usually devoted to sports. For instance, in this past Winter term, some sophomores teamed up to create a Physics ACE, in which they studied for an extremely difficult national test the entire term. Other past ACEs are Costume Design and Fencing. The deans must approve a student’s ACE petition.

Quoting from the Academic Program 2010-11,

St. Mark’s offers a special Classics Dipoloma to qualified students. To earn this diploma, a student must complete three years of one classical language and two years of the other. We accept credits in either language earned before a student’s entrance to St. Mark’s.

Thus, it is much easier if you enter St. Mark’s with language credits.

St. Mark’s offers classes in Studio Art, Music, and Drama. I’ve been impressed by the level of student work I’ve observed in each discipline. The school offers Advanced Placement Studio Art, Ceramics III AP, Advanced Placement Art History, Advanced Placement Music Theory, and a further course, Advanced Studies in Music. The spring One Acts are student-directed, and some are student-written.

I’ve started a new thread to discuss St. Mark’s, and I hope you’ll post questions there. As I was composing this response, smski beat me to the punch.

For the OP, if you can, attend revisit days. Boarding schools share many features, but every school has its own community and culture. It is difficult to compare a small boarding school to a medium-sized boarding school.