<p>i really don’t understand what makes exeter so special.
i go to a boarding school, and i think it’s just as good as exeter/andover</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think I need to explain this. Go on Wikipedia, there’s a myriad of info. about Exeter and what separates it from the herd.</p>
<p>Exeter has attained such universal respect for MANY reasons, each reason being unique to the individual - meaning, what makes it special to me, isn’t necessarily what makes it special to you. To me, there are many things that make a school special - be it % of colour, campus size, teaching methods, history, location, traditions, certain quirks - each school has something ‘special’ about it. </p>
<p>One of the MANY reasons Exeter has attained MY respect is because of Harkness (many schools use it, but the idea was first implemented at Exeter, in result of a $6 million dollar gift/donation by Edward Harkness to be used to bring an idea he had invisioned to fruition). I think that the Harkness is only the really ‘concrete’ aspect… they are the pioneers of Harkness. The rest is purely subjective.</p>
<p>Take all of this with a grain of salt, though, it’s just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>well, in my opinion, the endowment and the acceptance rate. also, because it’s one of the most prestigious schools out there, and usually people want to attend the best of the best</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t like Exeter for a boarding school experience; it’s more like a small, excellent liberal arts college (and better endowed than many). Exeter’s size gives it certain inarguable characteristics. First, there are too many kids who are brilliant academicians or great athletes or exceptional musicians or extraordinary painters, but far fewer who are well rounded. The School’s size allows and encourages stove-pipe excellence. That’s how the real world is anyway, so I suppose one could argue that it’s an ideal preparation. However, in my view, the single most important quality that should be nurtured in a child’s mid-teen years is well-roundedness. While the child’s gift (or gifts) should be given the greatest possible headroom to flourish, the rest of the child should also be grown. There should be risk-taking (in the best sense), there should be exposure to AND participation in areas outside those where the child is gifted. </p>
<p>Second, cliques are fearsome at Exeter, more so there than at many smaller schools. Again, this not necessarily a bad thing; life is full of cliques. But between ages 14-17, exposure to different people (and that doesn’t mean merely being in the same class with a boy from Korea and walking past an athlete from Iowa on the way to class) teaches kids how to be comfortable interacting with different people. Big schools, because they are big, are not constructed to achieve this outcome outside the classroom. Exeter falls into this category. Not its fault.</p>
<p>As far as the Harkness table style of teaching is concerned. This always amuses me. So many Exeter students and grads think themselves quite special and advantaged because they took their lessons around an oval table, as if it confers a unique, more fluid, more open and effective learning experience. The shape of the table improves eye contact and involvement, which is good for the poor teacher or the church-mouse student. But a great teacher could hold the class in an old-style setting, or outdoors, or anywhere you could imagine, and the class will be tremendous, electric, with total involvement. Harkness Tables help teachers who need something more than their teaching to elevate the experience.</p>
<p>Finally, atmosphere. Again, Exeter is like a small college. It’s too big to generate the kind of positive, inclusive atmosphere you typically have at smaller schools. More than likely, an Exeter student wears the “sink or swim” mantra like a badge of honor, mistakenly in my opinion.</p>
<p>Do I think Exeter is a great school? Absolutely. Have I met many students and faculty whom I admire? Absolutely. Have I seen a ton of kids slip through the cracks and not become half the people they might have at a different school? Yes. Would I send my own kid there knowing it as well as I do? No. </p>
<p>I want my child to be a better person after four years, not just a better student, or a better musician, or a better athlete. For me, the college admission does not tell me who I am, or who my child is. If that’s all I cared about, Exeter would be higher on my list.</p>
<p>^ I just want to commend parlabane for the point on cliques. schools with only 100 people per grade can be EXTREMELY cliquey (though it is VERY rare, usually something is “wrong”, or different, in a better sense, about the school’s students), so with 1000? That’s insane, in my opinion. I understand it’s like “oh, well it’s not as closed in” and yet, how many people will you ACTUALLY get to know in those 4 years? especially if you’re stuck in the same group of 10? at least, if you were in a smaller school, a group of 10 wouldn’t be so bad and you would still be able to recognize every single person in your school rather than mix up the new freshmen for juniors.</p>
<p>anyways. i once had an interview with someone who worked at choate (some people who interviewed at the same school may know who i’m talking about) who said that it was a LOVELY school, extraordinary (I never got that; extra ordinary. ugh.) even. but it was cliquey. so cliquey the admin had problems with getting people to actually integrate with each other. even for absolutely wonderful schools like deerfield and hotchkiss (which I’'m applying to, as well as choate), I’m skeptical of just how “unified” the students are just because of their sheer size.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that people comment on the size of Exeter. Two days ago I was having a conversation with a couple of friends of mine (at Andover, 1100 students) and we all agreed we couldn’t imagine going to a school with only 300 kids. We all felt as though it would limit the type of friends you could have and would make cliques much more exclusive. In a place where there really are dozens and dozens of “cliques,” it seems so limiting to be in a place that has such a finite number of options for identity and association. But that’s just us.</p>
<p>Quite frankly, I’m gonna have to second prettyckitty. And Parlabane, does your child attend Exeter? Where would you ascertain such a thing as being “fearsome” in the clique area? My good friend is a student there, and he has quite the opposite to say. I mean, if your kid is the type to adhere to a certain group of kids, than he or she will do so. If your kid is the type to ‘broaden their social horizons’ than she or he will do so - the size of school has a small role to play.</p>
<p>I think that being immersed in a large school more closely models the ‘real world’. A smaller school can almost be unrealistic and counter-productive to one’s social development (not literally per se, but I don’t think being a large school is a ‘fault’). I agree that a nurturing environment is important for some kids, but ulitmately, your teen years are a time of ‘self-discovery’ and being exposed to as many types of people is a healthy, desirable thing.</p>
<p>Everyone is different though. If you’re more outgoing and social, than maybe you’ll thrive on a big school… if you’re more shy/introverted, than maybe you’d find a big school a bit overwhelming socially and will find you’re happier at a tighter-knit, more intimate atmosphere.</p>
<p>Also, remember that this is HIGH SCHOOL, cliques are <em>unavoidable</em>! I always forget that fact, because of the prestigious, beautiful campuses - the overall age associated with such institutions as boarding schools.</p>
<p>(blech. i was meaning to get to this, i was GOING to edit BUT TIME JUST HAD TO PASS)</p>
<p>whatever I said up there is totally my opinion, well aside from when I discussed it with someone from another school that was what they said.
feel free to have yours :P</p>
<p>mmoynan…it’s all too easy to bend an Exeter student (worse yet an Exeter parent) out of shape when calling into question the universally accepted wonderfulness and number oneness that is Exeter…I stand behind my earlier comments and word choice.</p>
<p>Post #6: 300 is not a realistic number when comparing elite boarding schools as even Groton is closer to 400 & St. Paul’s School has 530 students. Any elite boarding schools (other than the two year United World College of the American West) with 300 students or less?</p>
<p>Re: Exeter The location, the students, the Harkness Table method of instruction, the prestige, & the seriousness of purpose are some of the special qualities. The negative is the concrete eyesore that serves as a gym.</p>
<p>The last paragraph of Post #4 is wonderful.</p>
<p>Parlabane - I don’t follow. What are you referring to?</p>
<p>parlabane, excellent post!</p>
<p>well, i went to exeter, but i’ll try to be unbiased…</p>
<p>exeter is a lot like a small liberal arts college. it is a great education. i am now at harvard, and i can say without doubt that my exeter education was better than the one i am receiving at harvard. however, exeter is ‘sink-or-swim.’ if someone is looking for a nurturing school, exeter probably isn’t it (although there is adequate support as long as one is in the upper tail of the maturity curve).</p>
<p>personally, the reason i thought it was ‘so special’ was the other students. it’s the same reason that i wanted to be at harvard rather than penn even though i know that i could get a great education at penn. i thrive in an environment with equal-caliber or better students around me. not everyone is like that. my younger brother isn’t, and exeter was a so-so experience for him. my younger sister is, and she had a phenomenal experience at exeter. ymmv…i can’t say whether i’d send my kid there because it would depend on his/her personal characteristics.</p>
<p>the classes were good because of the harkness table method (which is definitely better than sitting in rows as i’ve learned at harvard) but mostly because of the great teachers. i sometimes think the harkness method is half a marketing gimmick because it is played up so much in the school’s brochures, etc. the classes are indisputably good, though.</p>
<p>i found exeter less clique-y than the typical high school especially as i got older. the cliques were fairly porous. i hung out with a ton of different people over my four years. i wasn’t best friends with all of them, but it was a lot more than just passing them on the paths. exeter also has diversity that i think other schools are still trying to get. i met all sorts of interesting kids there. in terms of cliques, i think andover and exeter are better than st paul’s deerfield, or groton.</p>
<p>yeah, the gym is pretty ugly.</p>
<p>finally parlabane i have to take issue with your very last comment. how did you jump from exeter not having an “inclusive” atmosphere to exeter not fostering character? i left exeter with way more than just enhanced academic/athletic/musical skills. i developed a sense of social justice and also a much more nuanced understanding of the complexities of the world. could you explain how these other schools are fostering character much more ardently than exeter?</p>
<p>^ you are inhuman 
(very inspirational post though)</p>
<p>like. i understand the harkness method is allpowerful and all, but the actual idea was probably around for longer than when exeter introduced it. i commend exeter for producing an alumni willing to pay tons of money for the method to be taken into action.
not only that, exeter isn’t the only school with harkness now. a ton of schools (including mine, which is day, not even IN america) follow the harkness method at least to some degree, even though they never call it the harkness method.</p>
<p>hopefully people understood that (:</p>
<p>A lesson to all…if you give millions for a bunch of oval tables, people will forever connect your name to a teaching method used by the best teachers throughout history. </p>
<p>It’s not the table, it’s not the name, it’s the interaction of active minds and the willingness of those minds to engage. </p>
<p>“Educate” from the Latin, e-ducere - to pull out or lead forth.</p>
<p>That said, I would grow a bit weary every once in a while and would probably yearn for at least a few times a week when I could just sit down and have somebody tell me about something I don’t know. My father would never answer my questions. He’d respond with another question - trying to draw the answer out of me a la the Socratic method. I do the same to my kids and about 10% of the time, they say “MOM!! Just PLEASE tell me the answer!!!” So I can see how the whole Harkness thing might get kind of exhausting some times.</p>
<p>Many schools we visited claimed to use the Harkness Method. </p>
<p>The larger implication of the Harkness Method isn’t the shape of the table. It’s the implications for staffing. At any school, public or private, staff costs are the largest budget item, especially if you include benefits. Committing to the Harkness Method means capping the number of students teachers are required to teach. It means the school can’t average large classes with a handful of small language seminars, and arrive at a misleadingly small average class size.</p>
<p>St. Paul’s School, for example, uses the Harkness Method.</p>
<p>Post #14: Didn’t Exeter invent the round table? I thought that is how Exeter’s endowment got so large–from the patent royalties on round tables.</p>
<p>mazatl - As a Penn grad myself, I must say that I struggled with all those other dim bulbs who were not admitted to Harvard…
</p>
<p>My last paragraph is not meant to suggest that character cannot be fostered at Exeter. It’s to make the point that the larger the institution, the easier it is for the student to fall between the cracks relatively unnoticed, and the harder it is for the School to inculcate a sense of values consistently and intimately. A BS of 250 has a better chance of “messaging” effectively, and noticing when someone is missing the boat, than a School of 1000.</p>
<p>The differences in the quality of education at the top 20 boarding schools are relatively minor. The differences in the abilities of the students may be slightly greater, but again nothing to write home about. What really distinguishes one great boarding school from another is what happens at the personal level during those critical four years. Does the child learn to be modest, overcome the fear of failure, look out for others, be honorable (even when no one’s looking), tell the truth, take calibrated risks (social, athletic and academic) etc. </p>
<p>Boarding School is an elite experience in too many ways to count; many would argue it’s more elite and more influential than the college experience. Yet all too often it produces smarmy, entitled attitudes, sarcastic self-important kids whose years away served only to heighten their sense of privilege and superiority. </p>
<p>In my view, those few Schools among the top 20 that manage to graduate kids who appreciate the gifts they’ve been given, who are unfailingly kind and hardworking, who are self-effacing about their abilities and accomplishments, who let their actions speak louder than their words, who, in short, are a pleasure to be around, even in hard times, well…this is great character development, a well-rounded, much-to-be-admired outcome. </p>
<p>I have tremendous respect for Exeter, but I would prefer that my kid attend a top 10 school where the development of his character has less of a chance of falling through the cracks. It’s not college; it’s high school. It’s a different dynamic and should have different goals.</p>
<p>“Yet all too often it produces smarmy, entitled attitudes, sarcastic self-important kids whose years away served only to heighten their sense of privilege and superiority.”</p>
<p>(Don’t know how to quote!)</p>
<p>I agree with most of you said, but I disagree with the quote. I think that the stigma NE boarding schools carry isn’t due to what the actual school ‘does’ to the kids, but more about the demographic - mostly, those that attend are brought up in affluent, ‘priveleged’ houses that summer in Nantucket and drive 3 cars - usually producing said ‘smarmy, sarcastic, self-important, and entitled attitudes’.</p>
<p>It’s a case of cause and effect, the latter being smarmy and self-righteous, and the former often being mistaken for the boarding schools themselves, when in fact it’s the childs upbringing and parenting.</p>
<p>i’m retracting my statement about penn because i was being hasty in trying to find an analogy that would correspond to exeter versus a slightly less-renowned school…so, yeah, i apologize to penn people. i was wrong.</p>
<p>parlabane, i can understand your reasoning about students at a smaller school not slipping through the cracks as much although i don’t know if it bears out empirically. i’ve met people who’ve run the gamut from fell-through-the-cracks to all-around excellent from all sorts of boarding schools…haven’t noticed a trend toward certain schools…but anecdotal evidence is not particularly useful. </p>
<p>i guess it comes down to fit. i wouldn’t hesitate to send my child to a much less prestigious school if it was clearly a better fit. i think students ready to go to boarding school have an intuitive feeling about which school is best for them (which they can hopefully discern from the prestige ideology drilled into their heads). the worst thing you can do to a kid is make them go to a school they don’t want to go to. i encountered a couple people who didn’t want to be at exeter, and it was not a pleasant experience for them.</p>