School life, between the linesBy Admissions Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
School life · Los Angeles
In June 2020 Harvard-Westlake graduated 281 seniors by drive-through. A middle school dean took two one-hour shifts and could not find a moment to leave.
Traditions & rivalries · Connecticut
Taft Day 2019 ended 6-6 in Lakeville. The deciding points were earned in another state by a JV cross-country team finishing fourth.
Traditions & rivalries · Massachusetts
For years Groton's teams were the Zebras with no official zebra. In 2018 a committee code-named Operation Zebra fixed that, one eye at a time.
School portraits · Seattle
Lakeside School's Senior Pet Day came back in 2022 after two pandemic years off. The weather, and one dog, had other plans.
School portraits · Boston
Every March, Roxbury Latin boys recite Greek and Latin from memory in a competition that has run for more than 130 years. In 2023 one recitation got company.
School portraits · New York City
A Manhattan girls' school choir spent spring break 2026 singing in Italy. The concert programs were impressive. The encore after the encore was Radiohead.
School stories · California · Utah
In 2009 a Webb Schools fossil expedition in Utah crossed ground the professionals had already searched. A teenager looked under a rock anyway.
Rivalries & rituals · New York City · Boston
In 1984 a Manhattan boys' school moved its founding date back a decade, past Harvard's. The oldest-school argument has no referee, and everybody knows it.
School portraits · Los Angeles
Student prefects in Los Angeles set out to bring food trucks to campus once a month. They had fifty minutes and several hundred hungry customers.
School portraits · New York City
Each fall the older girls go north to a state park. The Lower School gets its own excursions, and they shrink, one grade at a time.
Rivalries & rituals · New England
In November 2025 the student papers at two rival New England boarding schools published a joint issue. The editors' letters explain what it cost them.
The admissions files · Beyond New York
In the winter of 2015, boarding-school parents on a forum argued about first-choice letters. One family had two children to get through it, and one school.
