I went to Hill for a few months before transferring because I honestly didn’t like it. I know this is not everyone’s experience, but I’ll let you know what it was like for me.
It depends. Kids in general were pretty social, but it depends on the group. Some were really open and amazing, while some came off as fake or pretentious. That’s probably every boarding school with money though.
Both. Depends on the class, but I generally found humanities classes very collaborative while STEM was more competitive.
I had too much freedom. I think that’s all boarding schools. To me, it seemed like they only cared where you were when they thought you were up to no good. Generally, the faculty won’t keep a very close eye on you unless you give them a reason to. I’m going to be honest, that upset me a little. I felt like so many adults on campus saw me struggling mentally and socially. I did go to counseling and advocated for myself, but I feel like people still turned a blind eye……this is my experience, some may have different ones.
It’s not anything special really. The “tracks” are just guidelines of what classes precede/succeed others. I knew quite a few people in the engineering program, as it was a common elective. My friend was in it for a week before dropping it since it was “boring.” I’m a STEM girl myself, (going to major in physics) and I found it more valuable to take compsci/other math electives than engineering, since it was a standard elective and was less challenging than coding.