<p>A school being preppy does not bring down the overall quality, I believe, and I’d have to disagree on your opinion that Deerfield students are snobby and pretentious. The reason people choose a school over others is not because of the school’s preppiness, but their quality, which is in very high for a school like Deerfield</p>
<p>I chose Deerfield over others for how happy the students there were and its warm and tight-knit community, and I wouldn’t have done it if it was full of pretentious phonies.
Not to mention i’m not even near the top of the socio-economic pyramid. Your groundless assumption that its a socially elitist institution is also ludicrous, with the amount of FA they give out.</p>
<p>
Deerfield most certainly wasn’t my first choice among others, but it’s certainly among the best of schools.</p>
<p>Deerfield is absolutely the happiest, preppiest school. That is why the majority of the students have better things to do than post on this website.</p>
<p>hahaaha obviously we’ve not gone there yet :D</p>
<p>Lol or maybe they don’t like the school so they most don’t waste time helping others. Just another side to it :P</p>
<p>St. Paul’s is absolutely the happiest, preppiest school. I am a third sibling in my family to go to a boarding school. I have to say being the third was very helpful, as my parents and I have learned the way along this long path of BS life. I choose to look at only a few when I was applying. They would be Deerfield, Groton, Andover and St Paul’s. Andover was too big and I had friends that were a year ahead of me. I must say they did not seem “happy” to me. Deerfield was too far out and I didn’t like out tour guide. Groton was nice, I liked our tour guide, but the school seemed stiff and too small. St Paul’s was perfect. The tour guide was great and everyone we walked by said hi to us. Revisit was awesome! I have to say everyone was happy, the school is beautiful and the dorms were great. Everyone is looking for something different. I got into all of the schools that I applied to but knew that SPS was the school I REALLY WANTED. I set my alarm for 6AM and checked in on the web…My prayers were answered ! 
So happy!! So I too will be a very happy, preppy student at SPS!</p>
<p>St.Paul’s struck me as a happy school from the small encounters I’ve had with the school, didn’t seem that preppy though.</p>
<p>Preppy and Happy really have no correlation so it’s hard to say which schools is the preppiest, happiest school</p>
<p>Id say St. Pauls was a really laid back school far from the stereotypical quotation mark prep end quotation mark school. (sorry this keyboard does not have a quotation mark lol).</p>
<p>Son is a Senior at St. Paul’s. Says it was the best decision he ever made!</p>
<p>Glad to hear the kudos for SPS being Happy. Seriously, atmosphere matters.</p>
<p>I question whether these threads have any value. My daughter loved Andover. Winterset’s son is an SPS’er for life. Some people that don’t attend Deerfield think it’s pretentious while others that aren’t even there yet think it’s perfect. Since happy and, to some degree, preppy are subjective assessments, all these threads provide is a small sample of opinions from people with very limited or questionable data (e.g. people making comparisons with schools they’ve never seen much less attended) and a perspective that probably doesn’t match the original poster’s.</p>
<p>Res Ipsa Loquitur. Vivit solus.</p>
<p>Winterset - My son in the 7th grade takes Latin so I asked him to translate your last post. He says it translates to English, “The matter speaks for itself. He stands alone”. I’m not sure I understand the statement within the context of this thread. Could you please elaborate?</p>
<p>LOL. Sometimes I feel that the prep school forum is making some of the older regular posters getting weirder, and the younger ones crazier - just an example of statements (sorry not in latin) that don’t mean much of anything. LOL</p>
<p>It was simply an intentional idiosyncratic obfuscation of an epistemological observation which was probably better elucidated in Latin. Now it’s clearer, right?</p>
<p>Okay, all I wanted to say was that every person should feel free to post and their post’s all have value. I hope that, even posters with limited exposure to a range of schools, will not feel that even highly subjective observations are unwelcomed. </p>
<p>I was happy to see the positive posts on many schools (especially my alma mater St. Paul’s). There are happy people (and unhappy) people at all of these schools. While my brother went to Exeter, my nephew is at Andover, my father-in-law went to Andover, etc ad nauseum (whoops, sorry), I was pleased to see several people cite St. Paul’s. As an aside, there are some great postings by graduates (BordingschoolReview.com) on the atmospheres at their schools, but for several schools discussed they are somewhat negative, so I recommend you read them yourselves. Those comments played a significant role in my son’s decision to go to St. Paul’s.</p>
<p>Personally, I believe atmospheres do differ, can be detected and I encourage everyone to post their own feelings, even those based on limited personal observations. I typically prefer positive posts about a school rather than negative ones, but I may stand alone.</p>
<p>Better?</p>
<p>ok which school is the PREPPIEST not happiest but preppiest, WITHOUT a dress code…???</p>
<p>Do you mean “preppiest” as in “gets me the most prepped for college” or “there’s no dress code, but people willingly dress like they’re going to The Club every day”?</p>
<p>Because I don’t understand the appeal of the second one AT ALL. Your Education, were it personified, would not care how you dress.</p>
<p>
That’s so true.</p>
<p>Well if they want to go to a preppy school let them Who are you to pick at their wants, however shallow they seem to you? If that’s what appeals to them who are you to knock it down because “Your Education, were it personified, would not care how you dress.” Maybe they want a school that they like the atmosphere in?</p>