I’m going to answer this in parts, partly because it’s easier to organize, and partly because I think it’ll help clarify information/compare two schools. As @lilyesh said, I strongly urge you to come to revisit days if possible.
The main thing you may want to look at is the format of the organization, the leagues, and the competitions themselves. I looked on the Hill website and I personally found some large distinctions between the school’s programs.
- Format of organization
Hill has debate listed as a co-curricular for both fall and winter terms. Meaning it’s essentially a sport for those two terms, having daily practices, etc. But does not mention any information as to whether they meet in the spring.
Loomis has debate as a co curricular only for winter term, meaning in fall/spring it’s a club. LC debate really doesn’t have team practices until winter, and that meets every tues/thurs/fri or wed/thurs. So meeting time is less (but I think depending on person it could be better to catch up on work, etc.) - Leagues
I think the biggest thing to mention here is the DANEIS debate program (debate program of new england independent schools), schools like Exeter, Andover, Hotchkiss, etc. are all under this league with Loomis, but Hill is not. which means it’s likely they don’t run into HADES debaters at tournaments.
Loomis also debates in CDA (Connecticut debate association) but Hill, obviously, does not.
There was no info on what leagues hill associated with but I’m assuming majority PA independent school debates which would include schools like Peddie, Westtown, etc. - competitions
Hill mentions they do primarily LD and PF debates
Loomis does British Parli and CX
Loomis has a better writing program and the center for self
Yes, that is true. IMO Loomis’s Norton center is one-of-a-kind and the amount of programming they do is amazing. As both someone who hosts/goes to these events they truly put effort into building community in those activities
Writing is also amazing, we have several publications that are regularly published on campus. I encourage you to check out https://lchourglass.com, https://thelclog.org, and https://www.loomischaffeeloom.com, (the LC log has not updated their archives but I have PDFs of this year’s papers if you also want to take a look)
LC also has a lot more writing initiatives, we have school, state, and nationwide/intl competitions for writing we participate in
this depends on who you are, I think for me I’m currently taking challenging classes (I have a thread on my page called “sophomore chance me” that provides specifics), and with time management it is achievable to have a full courseload and have extracurriculars. The rigor also is high here at LC, but it does vary. I know teachers who don’t assign work, but I also know teachers who assign 20 pages of textbook reading a night, but overall I would say it’s pretty rigorous.
I think then LC would be better, as Lily mentioned Hill is STEM focused, which was what turned me off when I compared it with loomis. I urge you to look into the junior year humanities paper if you need a clearer answer on how much effort loomis puts into humanities. It’s a term-long research project that culminates in a 15-page research paper on a history topic of your choosing
Loomis also offers this, it’s the ISP program. I know I want to do one at some point for food lol