Westminster School - Review #2

You mostly have all of your classes besides arts and theatres in one building. The Armour Academic Center is a four-floor building that will host most if not all of your classes. It's home to the library, lecture hall and school store.

The best thing at Westy for me was the friends that I made. It taught me patience, inclusion and how to interact with people from all over the world.

I would have branched out my first year and my best advice is to buy in, be yourself and the rest will take care of itself.

I like the family-like atmosphere the most. As I said before the school is pretty small so you get to know everyone to some extent.

Be Yourself, buy-in and most importantly try new things.

Academics at Westy are great. You pretty much get all the subjects you need and all offered at different levels. There are a ton of AP/ Advanced classes in most subjects, so students can challenge themselves. Teachers are always an email/ phone number away so you can always get extra help. When you first arrive, you are assigned an advisor, so you have a faculty member that can help and guide you through your academics. You can also change your advisor to a faculty member you like so you're not stuck with a teacher you don't like. You're required minimum to take five classes but can take more if you want. Overall, the academics are great and have a variety.

You are only required to paly two sports. You can manage or take an exemption for our third sport, so you're not forced to play three sports. They recently cut football and added water polo, which I was not a big fan of, but it fit our school more, as we have a pretty nice pool and were small. There are different levels for all different sports, so no one feels left out and overall sports are pretty competitive. We are in the founders league so we play bigger schools, which makes it ultra-competitive. Overall, sports are fun and competitive

I was not really involved in the arts at Westy, but from watching the plays and performances, they are really fun and well put productions. Students put a lot of pride and hard work in their craft, and I enjoyed watching the plays, musicals, and music performances.

There are a ton of extracurricular activities. In the first month of school, we have a club fair where students can sign up for different clubs. So everyone has the same time to sign up and everyone has the chance to learn about different clubs. I liked the uniqueness of some clubs. For example, I was in the grilling and chilling club where we would just cook burgers and chill.

The dorms are pretty solid. Some dorms are new and others are older, so it depends on where you live. Overall, they are pretty space no matter where you live and you can choose where you live and your roommate after your freshmen year. I liked the setups and the different varieties you can choose from.

The dining hall was built in 2018, so it's pretty new. The food is pretty solid, as it could be better, but there are a ton of options. There is a salad bar, ice cream station, panini bar, and P&B station. We only have one sit down meal a day which is lunch and they rotate every week.

The town of Simsbury is only about a 5-7 minute walk from campus. You can get a haircut, grab some food, or just hang out. You just need to get permission from your form dean and sign your name out.

The social life is a family like. By the spring term, you recognize names and faces because you've seen people all over. With only about four hundred kids, you get to know names pretty quickly and everyone is pretty nice. Overall, social life is pretty easy, as you will fit right in.