Graphic by Yujin Kim ’23
When carefully considering all the options I had for high school back in eighth grade, I made an extensive pros-and-cons list of each school and its academic programs. In retrospect, applying to private boarding schools was a choice of immense privilege that I did not recognize at the time. On the one hand, my local public high school, which is academically rigorous and provides many opportunities to its students, would have given me a variety of tools to succeed.
However, I realized that the resources provided by my local high school and Choate were far from even, especially in the department of college counseling. Had I attended my local high school, I would’ve had 900 peers in my grade, which meant that each of the six guidance counselors would have to juggle some 600 students across all four grades. I have to admit that this is one aspect of Choate that attracted me as an applicant. Every student would have their own counselor who would only deal with a handful of other students.
Of course, Choate offers a million other advantages. Taking a glance at Choate’s 2021-2022 course catalog, the number of college-level classes, beyond the typical advanced classes one might find at other schools, is astounding. Choate offers Inorganic Chemistry, Monetary Theory, and Cognitive Neuroscience, among other high-level courses. We are given opportunities to play on varsity level teams, start new clubs, write for publications, hold significant leadership positions, and try activities most of us wouldn’t have the option to try elsewhere.
However, as seniors begin to receive their college decisions, and juniors are taking the first steps in their admissions process, tensions are understandably high. Highly ranked colleges that already have extremely low acceptance rates dwindling each year are willing to accept only so many Choate students. It can feel like college decisions come down to a coin toss. The majority of Choate students are already immensely qualified, so the decisions lie in what type of person each college is seeking. While this process is consuming and stressful for any high school senior, its tensions are particularly high here — Naviance, College Confidential threads, and acceptance threads are invariably open on senior laptops.
This concern is understandable, yet these days I am trying to keep my perspective. The reality is that all of us are awfully fortunate to have access to Choate’s resources, and many of us, myself included, wouldn’t have been dealt the same cards if we had stayed at a public school. Choate students have a clear advantage in the college process, a fact sometimes forgotten in the everyday rush.
Choate’s college matriculation rate and high college placement year after year should allow us to acknowledge the opportunities we gain at Choate and how that plays into the college admissions process. According to College Transitions, Choate has had 53 students matriculate at Yale and 41 at Columbia within the past five years. Choate is also called a “prep school” for a reason — seniors leave with a greater sense of independence and an ability to support themselves in all types of college situations, allowing them to find success beyond high school. I sometimes think of the five years I spent living in Colombia, where most students aren’t even aware of boarding schools, let alone the resources available if they were able to attend one.
I hope that I and my fellow students will remain conscious of the tensions and stress that the senior class may be feeling, especially because each person deals with the process differently. At the same time, I hope that we remember how lucky we are to have the privilege to be given advice and guidance throughout this process, and how many students dream of being in our shoes.
