New Hampton School - Review #7

Talking to peers in college about our various high school experiences emphasized the fact that New Hampton School has a truly unique community feel to it. There are many ways the school achieves this, but the two most influential ways are through mandatory community service and meals in the dining hall. Community service takes place on every other Saturday in the fall and spring. While some boarding schools might take these Saturday mornings to cram more classroom hours into its students schedules, New Hampton uses them to educate its students in a different way, which I found much more valuable than an extra hour in chemistry class would have been. Community services helped students interact in a real life setting dealing with everyday problems, like how to recycle and clean up the Earth or how to interact with the elderly and impact their quality of life. These skills have proved to be immensely important through many life experiences. The second unique aspect of New Hampton is that everyone eats together in the dining hall-from the headmaster to the freshman. Even teacher's children join in! This was one of my favorite parts about New Hampton because not only did you see your teachers in the classroom and on the soccer field, but you saw them at dinner with their families so you really got to know everyone around you on a really personal level.

My senior year the women's lacrosse team was Lakes Region Champions. After missing my senior soccer season due to a knee injury, having such a great season was such a turn around. Our success came from working together as a team, which is a valuable still to learn how to use in many other aspects of life.

I would tell kids entering boarding school to not take the independence they are given for granted. Yes, the new amount of trust is fun, but it can be abused and that will not lead to success. The independence and responsibility I leaned take for myself made me the student I am in college.

Even in my second year of college, I wish I could go back to high school. There isn't one thing overall that made it so amazing, but the whole atmosphere of the place made it into an experience I will value and feel blessed I had for the rest of my life.

Go sit in the green Adirondack chairs on the front lawn. It so pleasant to read of just watch the people walk by. You friends will always come over to join you!

The best thing about the academics at New Hampton is each teachers dedication to helping every student. Small class sizes helped this happen, but even so, I had many occasions where a teacher would take time out of his or her evening or weekend to help me to better understand material. If a student makes the move to find help in something he or she doesn't understand, they will always be received with open arms and worked with until they have all their questions answered.

Athletics at New Hampton were competitive. The thrill of a good game was always a good feeling. Even more importantly, all the teams I was a member of were close knit groups, which made being competitive against other school easy because we loved working hard with each other and enjoyed the feeling of success. Coaches were just as much of a part of that competitive and fun spirit as any of the players.

I had the unique experience to be able to have a music block in my class schedule to practice my violin independently. I had played the violin since the second grade, but was worried I would have to stop because New Hampton didn't have an orchestra. Even though we never put more than a chamber group together, the music department let me continue to practice independently on whatever my private teacher form home gave me to play. My senior year I gave an individual recital, accompanied by my music teacher who had supervised my independent study. The adaptability of the arts programs is what made them unique for me.

New Hampton had many clubs to choose from, and students could start their own if they had things they were interested in. I know through my four years, different clubs emerged due to different peoples interests. Now there are competitive math clubs at New Hampton that did not exist my Freshman year. There are also cooking clubs, and many international organizations. The international students put together an international night every year where they cooked dinner for the school and put on a performance, emphasizing different aspects of their various cultures.

The dorm life helped foster even closer bonds between students and teachers than the classroom and the sports fields could not. Dorm heads made the transfer from home to a boarding school easy by always being there to look out for you and keeping their doors open so the dorm felt like home.

The caf was the hang out of New Hampton! It was my favorite place to just sit with my friends and socialize or do work between classes or in a free block. There was always food available and the actual meals were unbelievable. The salad bar was my favorite because if the hot food wasn't you're favorite, there were always tons of different options. Also, the desserts were high-end bakery quality!

The town of New Hampton isn't one of the schools strongest points, yet the school did make it possible for students to get to the biggest surrounding towns whenever they needed to.

New Hampton cultivated friendships I will have forever. The whole set up of the school fostered friendship through its community meals, small class sizes, open dining hall, and close sports teams. Through all the various interactions we had together, we were really able to get to know each other. The friendships I made at New Hampton are at the roots of all my good experiences there.