School life, between the linesBy Admissions Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
School portraits · The Bronx, New York
To get to the stars at the Bronx High School of Science, take stairway D to the third floor and follow the signs. In 2023, a senior held the title of planetarium director.
School portraits · Brooklyn, New York
On the seventh and eighth floors of Brooklyn Technical High School is a two-story metal-casting room, with a hundred-foot skylight and a furnace. It is used for storage.
School portraits · Boston, Massachusetts
Certamen is a buzzer quiz about the ancient world. Before a 2024 tournament at Yale, Boston Latin's advanced team trained for five weeks, with conditioning.
School life · Missouri, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
In February 2024 a Massachusetts class handed out superlatives in a packed auditorium. Most Likely to Succeed was on the list. So was Best Sneeze.
Parent life · Massachusetts, Illinois and North Carolina
At one North Carolina high school, an assistant principal waited at lunch with a clipboard for a week. Over 500 lockers, about 670 students, 7 or 8 takers.
School life · Illinois, Virginia and Massachusetts
A ramen-for-a-T-shirt exchange in Illinois, a snack cart with 30 investors in Virginia, and a locker candy empire in Cambridge that the dean shut down.
School portraits · New York City
The Lycée Français de New York's student film festival has a speed category with strange required ingredients. In 2023 they were a firefighter and a mop.
School portraits · New York City
A Riverdale Jewish day school was designed in the 1970s around open space. Its alumni remember the design, the stairs and the one wall that took a hit.
School portraits · New York City
In May 2025 the student paper at a Manhattan high school covered the most divisive event of the spring: a racing game patch. The same issue asked which element would win a fight.
The admissions files · Louisville and Washington, D.C.
In 1925 an eleven-year-old from Louisville won the first national spelling bee, a bag of gold coins and a bicycle. Eighty-three years later he ranked the prizes.
The admissions files · Providence and New York City
The open-air school movement put children outdoors, or nearly, for their health. The equipment list included a sack to sit in and a hot stone.
The admissions files · Northern Ontario
From 1926 to 1967, northern Ontario ran schools on railcars. The teacher's family lived in the back, and the homework stayed behind for a month.
