Could someone explain how schools that have Saturday classes deal with games on Saturdays (Lawrenceville, SPS, Groton, Hotchkiss)? My understanding is that Saturday is a shorter day, but I’m still wondering how teams can get to games at a reasonable time. I’m assuming that there needs to be a similar amount of home vs. away games. Are Saturday games against closer schools? Do students have to miss class on Saturday mornings? Or are games scheduled in the late afternoon/evening?
Basically, classes end at noon. Games are at 2 or 3. Or even 4 pm, or occasionally even in the evening. Schools in the Northeast are close to each other. For instance, Hotchkiss has Millbrook, Berkshire, Trinity Pawling, Salisbury, Kent, South Kent and Canterbury within 30 minutes of its campus. Most of the other schools it plays are within an hour’s drive. Only a very few are farther.
Traditionally they had Saturday classes in part because of sports - or at least that is how it was at my prep school…Weds and Saturday were both short days (end at noon) so we could travel to games… Saturday classes allowed for short days on Weds!
Saturday morning classes also kept kids out of trouble on Friday:)
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Also, these are LONG days on Weds and Saturday…at least they were for me. I have to say, playing JV basketball and leaving at 12:30 on Weds and coming home after dinner at like 7:30 wasn’t all that unusual at my school. We sometimes had JV/Varsity back-to-back games and had to wait, etc. We’d stop to eat on the way home. No clue if it’s still standard at my school, I would assume sometimes? It is a long time..Some of the schools we played were 2 hours away in a car (longer in a bus), some only 30 minutes…probably an hour (in a bus) on average each way..
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Yes, the game days are frequently still long. My daughter is on JV lacrosse at a CT boarding school. They had a game yesterday at a school 1.5 hours away, after the Varsity game. Left her school at 2 for a 4pm start. Then there was a rain/thunder delay. By the time they finished the game, got Chipotle and got back to her school it was around 8pm.
Even as a student at a day school in the Boston area in the 90s, we had half days on Wednesdays for games and played schools like SPS frequently. That was always a long ride to NH, sometimes on Wednesdays. Or down to St Georges in RI. And then my house was another 45 minutes from my school! I would have rather been a boarder. We definitely had late nights and long trips.
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I would like to know people’s thoughts on Saturday classes. Originally, we were only looking at schools without them, but I have heard from people who actually like having Saturday classes/games to keep the school campus more active on the weekends.
Many schools that have traditionally had them now have them but not every week. They are great for keeping everyone on campus for the weekends and getting day students back on campus as well. There are other ways of doing this, but few are as all-inclusive.
If you are a day parent, making the drive as part of your workday, this might be less appealing. Or an athlete or musician with weekend obligations to an outside (elite team, youth orchestra) group. Or a local boarder who might want a little more down time away from campus. Or just a teenager who wants one more day to sleep in.
I think, as with many things, ymmv. I like anything that makes it easier for kids to connect, particularly during down time, and being on campus over the weekend is an obvious one. I’d look at campus culture, weekends, activities, etc to see how this happens on each campus. Saturday classes can be part of the equation. Remember that every week of classes will preclude some other fun weekend activities (trip to a city, skiing, etc) so your kid’s interests will play a part.
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A million years ago, I went to one of the schools that had Sat. classes every week. It sounds insane. You get used to it very fast, and don’t think anything of it, FAST. (Weds/Sat we got out at noon, so not full, full days). I honestly think very empty Sat AND Sun, especially at the beginning, would have been a lot of time to fill and may have been lonely. By senior year, another story, of course.. depends on the kid though.
When I got to college, it was luxurious for first 6 weeks, then I got used to that, too:)
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Don’t forget that boarding schools don’t want to have a lot of unstructured/downtime. What’s that cliche? "Idle hands are the devil’s playground "? I.e., kids can get up to mischief.
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I had a friend who went to Loomis when they had Saturday classes, and she said that she woke up in a panic every Saturday morning for the first semester at college because she thought she had missed class.
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My kids love it because it makes Wednesday a half day.
One of my kids even went so far as to wish for Sunday classes in exchange for another half day during the week.
Their school has a Sunday chapel requirement so it already feels like they’re obligated to school functions throughout the weekend.
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