School life, between the linesBy Admissions Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
School portraits · Farmington, Connecticut
The Connecticut girls' school has its own words for every stage: New Girl, Old Girl, Ancient. The graduation program explains the daisies, and the trowel.
School portraits · Mount Hermon, Massachusetts
Every student at the Massachusetts boarding school works three hours a week, and passing workjob is required to graduate. One alumna's favorite memory involves the toilets.
School portraits · Windsor, Connecticut
Students rub the nose on a 1937 memorial plaque before tests. Does it work? A senior gave the honest answer: sometimes.
School life · Boston and California
Model United Nations hands teenagers a country, a placard and a rulebook. The rulebook covers everything, including leaving the room.
School life · Iowa and California
In 2015 a middle school team flew from Shenzhen to compete in Iowa City. The robot did not arrive. The teams they had come to beat did.
Parent life · United States and England
At big scholastic chess tournaments, the children play and the parents are shown the door. The governing body's reasons are a masterpiece of politeness.
School portraits · Tarrytown, New York
A new history teacher in 1998 planned his first class harder than any lesson since. Nothing in the plan prepared him for the end of it.
School portraits · Cambridge, Massachusetts
BB&N starts ninth grade with eleven days in the New Hampshire woods. One new student's account of it turns on a bar of soap.
School portraits · Washington, DC
Every newcomer at a Washington girls' school is assigned Purple or Gold. One Friday a year, the two sides meet on opposite sidewalks and try to outshout each other.
Parent life · Across the United States
Forty-seven years after Mead tested its binder in Wichita, schools still cannot agree whether it belongs in class. I have had a position since 1986.
The admissions files · Pennsylvania and New York
A Pennsylvania seminary pupil in 1838 and the future founder of the Girl Scouts in 1874 both wrote home from school. Their parents wanted news and got requests.
School lore · Chester County, Pennsylvania
In 1804 a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania cracked down on girls embroidering pictures of the building. A decade later they were embroidering the Earth.
