School life, between the linesBy Admissions Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
School portraits · Washington, DC
Lunch at the Washington boys' school is family-style, with a teacher at every table. One of the table games asks for the worst poem you can write. Doing well has consequences.
School portraits · Wallingford, Connecticut
For Deerfield Day 2025, Choate students rode north in boar onesies and tinsel. Behind the costumes was a sign-up system, a chaperone on every bus and a head count.
School portraits · Groton, Massachusetts
In 2016 a Groton student lost her favorite pencil case and emailed her whole grade. The next day, at the headmaster's house, someone remembered to ask. It was in her backpack.
School traditions · Ohio & Utah
Schools have discovered the most effective fundraising incentive in America: put an administrator somewhere uncomfortable. The price list is surprisingly consistent.
Parent life · New York and Pennsylvania
A Pennsylvania PTA has a fundraiser in March, a $1,500 forecast and a volunteer vacancy nobody has trained for.
School traditions · Eton, England
The St Andrew's Day match is played against a wall built in 1717, with a door and a tree for goals. The college archives explain the rules, and a schoolboy's diary from 1866 explains the shins.
School portraits · New York City
The cafeteria at the United Nations International School got a facelift. The student paper polled students, teachers and the woman at the register, and the register won.
School portraits · New York City
A Manhattan school runs a student record label, 566 Records, with its own studio and a Beatles covers project. Parents of teenagers in headphones have lost an argument.
School portraits · New York City
On a 2019 overnight farm trip, LREI fourth graders posted short reflections on the class blog. One of them, about a cow, was two sentences long and perfect.
School life · School gyms, with competing soundtracks
A Minnesota elementary school gave every student a headset with three channels of music. The students all picked the same one and sang.
School life · Connecticut and New Jersey
In Connecticut, New Jersey and Bermuda, an elementary-school egg drop graduated from the roof to a fire truck. The crowd's request is always the same.
Parent life · Kitchen tables across America
The disguise-a-turkey project asks a child to save a bird from Thanksgiving. The first adult to find the instruction sheet becomes the getaway driver.
