School life, between the linesBy Admissions Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
School portraits · New York City
Chess Life visited a Manhattan school's Monday beginners' group in 2025. The coach taught a pin, and then the villain's laugh to go with it.
School stories · Seattle & the Yukon
Seattle Academy sends its seniors to camp on a frozen Yukon lake before graduation. The groups are assigned. The FAQ has heard every argument already.
Parent life · Parent life · Australia
In 2009 an Australian father brought home his daughter's Grade 1 bear for the weekend, opened its scrapbook, and saw what the other families had done.
School stories · Academy of the New Church
When the Academy of the New Church closed in 2020, thirteen students rebuilt it, block by block. They knew every hallway. They had never been in one room.
School portraits · Seattle
An entrepreneurship class in Seattle hands out two dollars and asks students to grow its value. The results range from gum to a record to a rumor.
School portraits · Atlanta
Eight Atlanta students learned swing dance during their January term and planned to spring it on the lunchroom. A flash mob depends on surprise, and on audio.
School portraits · Brooklyn
A Brooklyn school runs scavenger hunts for new teachers and for eighth graders. One of them went to a baseball game instead.
Rivalries & rituals · Boston
For years, senior prank day at a Boston girls' school had been, by the student paper's account, short on pranks. In 2018 the seniors skipped the permission slip.
Rivalries & rituals · Houston
A Houston rivalry that dates to 1951 gets a week of costumes every October. The costumes have a supply problem.
School portraits · Houston
In February 2017, two St. John's School students in Houston kept an hour-by-hour diary of tech week for the musical Curtains. At 5 p.m. one of them had her hair done by her algebra teacher, and seized the moment.
School portraits · Chicago
At the 2024 Illinois state math contest, two Latin School of Chicago students made a small mistake and assumed they'd lost. By third place they weren't listening. They had won.
School portraits · Brooklyn
Two Poly Prep seniors wanted a bigger turnout for their February food packing day in Brooklyn, so they recruited the football team using its points system. The bags got packed. The second half of the plan needed work.
