Maine Central Institute - Review #3

MCI is a town academy, which means it has a blend of boarding students and local students from the town taking classes together, participating in clubs and sports together, and so much more. Additionally, it is situated in a beautiful quaint little Maine town: Pittsfield. The community is incredibly welcoming and most amenities (groceries, convenience store, ice cream shop, etc.) are within easy walking distance of campus. MCI also has student-to-teacher relationships like nothing I've ever heard about anywhere else. Just about every student on campus has an adult that they feel they can go to whenever they need anything, from advice about friends to what classes to take. Teachers make themselves available above and beyond what is required to offer academic help to students so that they have every opportunity to do well in their classes.

One achievement that I am very proud of is winning the Manson Essay Speaking Contest. All the juniors (11th grade) have to write an in-depth research paper on a topic of their choosing, and then give a speech on it to their class. The best 10-14 speeches are chosen to compete at Manson Night, and the speeches are given again, judged, and someone is declared the Manson Essayist. I wrote about a topic that I care very much for, and I learned a lot, and I feel that I grew quite a bit both as a writer/speaker and as a person.

I honestly wouldn't change anything about my experience at MCI. My advice, though, would be to, no matter where you go, throw yourself into it. If you're scared, reach out to someone. If you need help, ask. But really, the most important factor to your enjoyment of your experience will be whether or not you choose to engage and participate. If you do, you will have friends and you will have fun.

I liked most about MCI its unquenchable good spirit. It is peopled by funny, committed, interesting, smart, lovely people who all know and care about each other, and that I think is its best feature.

Have fun! You'll especially like Homecoming and Winter Carnival, which are basically all-school festivals at different times in the year where different grades compete against each other in everything from relays to sow sculptures. :)

The academics at MCI are quite good, in my opinion. There are many options for AP classes, while also college preparatory level and general level to serve all of our students. The atmosphere in class is not as much competitive as it is collaborative. Group and partner work is quite common, with full-class discussions supplementing lectures. The most important thing for a student to do well academically is to engage with the class and participate. If they are putting their best effort forward with a good attitude, teachers will absolutely bend over backwards to make sure they understand the content and are getting as much out of the class as possible. I think the workload is quite reasonable, particularly if students manage their time wisely. One unique feature of the MCI curriculum is our Humanities classes. They are set up in a manner more like university-style, with an English seminar and a History seminar, supplemented by a diverse set of Humanities elective-like classes, from Psychology to Death & Dying to the Culture of Food. We also have many classes offered in the Arts, from Stage & TV Makeup and Intro to Costume Design in the Theatre Department to Digital Music Production and Modern Band in the Music Department.

The athletics program at MCI is deeply ingrained in our culture, from featuring during our Homecoming parade to having a Sports Awards Night after every season. It's very common for students to engage with sports in some way, with the vast majority being very friendly to newcomers and people that have never played sports before, and to people that are primarily interested in staying in shape (many dorm students do cross-country and track & field for this very reason). There are many different sports offered in each season and while I can't speak for all of the coaching staff because I don't know all of them, the ones I do know are very kind and are committed to their athletes success, while understanding that academics must always come before sports. Something that I think is very special is that our athletic director (for whom I personally have an enormous amount of respect) provides anonymous surveys after every season to the athletes to hold the coaches accountable for how they did coaching during the season. This means that athletes can meaningfully make a difference in who they have for coaches if necessary, or simply tell the athletic director that the coach is doing a great job.

I feel that our Visual & Performing Arts Department is truly amazing and definitely one of the best in the state. Our directors are very committed to the arts, and to the students that participate. I can't speak much for the visual arts program as I wasn't really part of it, but the art they put out and displayed around the VPA building and around campus was quite lovely. There are a plethora of different classes available in the VPA, as mentioned above, with both acting and technical theatre classes and traditional (like Concert Band) and modern (like Digital Music and Guitar) options in music. The Festival Theatre Ensemble travels to competition every year with a one-act play, and the Jazz Band and Jazz Choir also compete at their respective festivals. While these were of course paused for the COVID-19 pandemic, every year that we went to competition in all of these, we brought home award plaques of some kind, with mostly silver awards in Jazz and either Runner-Up or Champion awards in Drama. These opportunities are vehemently supported by the school community and administration, and there is frequent communication and collaboration between departments. Additionally, we host a pro-professional ballet company that a number of our students participate in. They perform the Nutcracker every winter (with new choreography of course) and the director choreographs a new show every spring.

The extracurriculars at MCI are diverse and lots of fun! I was very involved during my time there and my list of activities above is a pretty good list, but we also have things like a Cultural Diversity Club, ATV & Snowmobile Club, RC Car Club, Tabletop Gaming Club (they play a lot of Magic and D&D), Knitting & Crocheting Club, and so much more! It's also not very difficult to start a new club if there's interest and a teacher willing to advise it.

I was not a dorm student at MCI, but I had many friends who did live in the dorms, so I know some of how it works. There are TVs in all the common rooms as well as kitchen/laundry areas, and some have pool and table tennis. There's also a Game Room in the Dining Hall. There are trips every weekend, traveling to shopping malls, Bar Harbor, taking hiking trips around the state, going to the movies, and more! They have dorm meetings every Sunday evening, and the dorm community is by all accounts a loving family committed to the happiness and safety of its students. The rooms are generally doubles, with a wardrobe and a desk for each student in addition to their beds. There is a Market open in the dining hall to buy snacks until about 9 every night. When assigning rooms, the dorm parents try to make sure that roommates don't have the same native language so that they have the opportunity to practice their English as much as possible. I think the dining arrangements at MCI are pretty good. I was able to eat breakfast and dinner there because my mother is a teacher there. There are no assigned seats, except for at Sit-Down Dinners, which happen around once a month or so to celebrate holidays like Halloween and Lunar New Year or just for fun, like a Beach theme in winter. Dinner is generally an hour and a half, and they usually have ice cream on Friday nights. :) The breakfast is solid, with eggs, meat, veggie sausage, potatoes, and various pastries in addition to the option for cereal. The lunch is varied, but always has plenty of options for everyone, and the same for dinner.

I think the dining arrangements at MCI are pretty good. I was able to eat breakfast and dinner there because my mother is a teacher there. There are no assigned seats, except for at Sit-Down Dinners, which happen around once a month or so to celebrate holidays like Halloween and Lunar New Year or just for fun, like a Beach theme in winter. Dinner is generally an hour and a half, and they usually have ice cream on Friday nights. :) The breakfast is solid, with eggs, meat, veggie sausage, potatoes, and various pastries in addition to the option for cereal. The lunch is varied, but always has plenty of options for everyone, and the same for dinner.

I absolutely love the town of Pittsfield. It has a beautiful large park very close to the school, with a river running beside it. Around the school is all residential area, and it is quite safe for walking. Many students walk to the part of town that has the grocery store, Reny's, and Dunkin'. Parents allow their kids to range around the town by themselves, and I frequently run by myself through town because I don't fear for my safety at all and it's a pretty run. I also often see people I know (or don't know) and wave to them whether I know them or not. :P

I think the social life at MCI could best be described as chill and friendly. There aren't very tight cliques, and most people have overlapping friend groups, which is helped by the fact that so many students do a variety of extracurriculars.