Spring Visits Attract Prospective Students How Choate's Program Compares to Peer Schools
By Kristen Raddatz ’09
News Staff Reporter
Another successful period of spring visits has come and gone, leaving behind a lingering sense of accomplishment across campus.
Choate has hosted prospective visiting families for fourteen years, but the formal program was put into place only ten years ago. This influential decision was enacted because of the large numbers of families that enjoyed visiting campus. Everyone wanted a chance to come back for a second look at Choate. Since then, the spring visits program has grown vastly in proportion. After the very first invitations were sent out, the program grew rapidly for five years. Since then it has been relatively consistent
Now in its tenth year, the program is packed with ample activities for visiting families. From the second they arrive on campus to the time they depart, each moment is planned. After 8:30 registration, prospective students and their families make their way to the newly instated “Special Interest Fair”, and then directly to the Student Life Program in the Paul Mellon Arts Center. From there, students and parents go their separate ways. Students meet up with their assigned hosts and tour the campus, while their parents attend various informational sessions. Students are then reunited with their parents at 1:50, before ending the day with the final touch—Headmaster Shanahan’s “Reflections on the Choate Experience”.
But these restless four days aren’t limited to sole participation of visitors. During each day, a multitude of campus leaders—teachers, student organizations, admissions personnel, directors---are directly involved in the program. During the “Special Interest Fair”, for instance, teachers from all course areas answer questions and discuss classes with visitors, club presidents explain the details of their organizations or groups, house advisors give insight on dorm life, and sport’s coaches describe athletic opportunities. This informational session is only one example of the important role that the Choate population as an entirety plays during the period of spring visits. It is a time when the whole community gets involved.
All of these activities require a huge amount of organizational work. Mr. Diffley, Director of Admissions and the overseer of these busy two weeks, works along with Ms. Mitchell, the Campus Visit Coordinator, and Ms. Khach, the Associate Director of Admission, to make sure that everything runs smoothly. He humorously explained, “Those two basically went through planning a wedding—but four times in a row. It is actually even more difficult than that, because unlike a wedding, they have to make sure everyone has a date”. By this, Diffley is referring to the essential pairing of each visitor with a student host. Along with that tricky task, Mitchell and Khach work together on the majority of the organizational needs. They do everything from deciding on the food to securing areas for parking. The more minute details are then covered by the rest of the admissions staff.
While the program was formerly referred to as “second visits”, the name has been altered to “spring visits.” This change in terminology was recently made because many prospective students haven’t necessarily visited Choate before. Since the visits take place during the spring season, the new label was a logical replacement.
The purpose of Choate’s spring visits is multi-faceted. Officially, the idea is to allow prospective students to make an enrollment decision with as much knowledge of the school as possible. This is the primary objective of many families that come to campus. However, many have already decided to enroll at Choate, and are simply looking for an opportunity to become more comfortable here.
An additional function of spring visits, Diffley explains, is also to utilize a prime chance to “tell more of who we are and what we do; to give them a sense of our personality. And to be honest, it’s also a chance to have our students shine.” With this ‘show off what we got’ ideology, spring visits have become a way for Choate to spread the word about what’s happening on campus.
Since beginning of the spring visit tradition ten years ago, the program has significantly evolved. The major change has been the nature of these visit days. When they had begun, the programs revolved around information sessions—simply supplying the “facts and figures” of Choate. Now, however, more families have already researched the school beforehand and know all of those things. “Instead,” Diffley said, “They are now truly coming back to see a layer deeper—what Choate really is, how we are different from other top prep schools, how the experience is better. And, I think, above all what they want to know is—what are the kids like?”
The personalization of the spring visits is another quality that has developed over the years. The admissions department now actually studies the students admitted in order to know them as well as possible. The Admissions office then shares that information with the faculty, so that when a family visits the faculty are more familiar with the potential student. In this way they can be more detailed about answering questions. With this type of connection, visiting families appreciate the fact that Choate already knows them—it supplies them with a certain level of comfort.
More recent changes have been the new activities added to this year’s schedule. The “Fair” period in the Hill House Dining Hall was a wild success. Though the huge and crowded room intimidated a few at first, the end result was a positive one. Kyle, a prospective student from New Canaan, described his initial reaction having just walked in the door: “Everyone seems friendly, but it’s big and a little confusing”. By the end of the forty-minute fair, the atmosphere was comfortable to all. Kat, a prospective boarder from Greenwich, declared, “I got to talk to everyone I wanted to! The first time you visit you get general questions out of the way, but this gave me a chance to ask specific questions and see exactly what I want to do next year.”
Another addition to the schedule was the “How We Teach” seminar for parents. Admissions created this with the understanding that although parents want to get a glimpse into class life, they don’t necessarily enjoy sitting in a fifty-minute period. Mr. David Quarfoot and Ms. Emily Brenner were the principle players in this endeavor, offering up their valuable perspective on teaching. Diffley said, “They gave their philosophies and process by which they prepare for and deliver a class. What parents really want to know is how we approach teaching. So far, it is the number one rated event in the whole day”.
More recent changes, as well as those from the past, are usually made in response to visiting families and their feedback. Ideally, Choate would like to adapt to what visiting families are looking for each year. During every spring visit season, prospective students and their families are encouraged to take a survey. The Admissions office uses this to obtain visiting families overall opinion of Choate’s spring visits program. The survey asked if they think Choate’s was better, as good as, or worse than other schools they’ve visited. From the 150-200 people that visited this year, zero people have said that other schools have better programs. In fact, the majority of the people responded that Choate’s was the best.
Prospective students generally say that Choate’s most distinguishing feature is how friendly and open everybody on campus is. Also, a large plus that Choate seems to hold over other schools is how interesting and engaging the lifestyle here is. A prospective fourth former from San Francisco commented, “When I visited at Deerfield, I almost fell asleep”.
Nick, traveling all the way from London, stated, “I like Choate’s day more than Taft’s. At Taft, there was no gathering—it was just students talking about their lives and going to classes. I really like the meet-and-greet here.”
Marco, visiting from Las Vegas, compared the performances that different schools put on. “At Exeter, they had a ton of stomping. Their step squad performed this long routine. It was good, but I enjoyed all of the singing that I’ve seen here at Choate. It was much better in comparison.”
Others prefer the Choate’s visiting schedule. Laura, a potential freshman from McCullen, Texas, explained, “I like that there’s people taking us around, and it’s not just sitting down the whole day listening to someone.” Her mother chimed in, “And we love that this started at 8:30. We visited Andover yesterday, and we had to be there at 7:00—and it was snowing! So far, there has been no rush here, and we even had time for hot chocolate”.
With the tremendous efforts of all the students, faculty, and admissions staff, another spring visit season has passed. As Mr. Diffley pronounced, “We all win when great individuals enroll at Choate. Our students have good peers, the faculty has interesting students in dorms and classrooms, and the school’s reputation stands to benefit.”
Headmaster Shanahan showing his affection for the Wild Boar PHOTO/Contributed Photo
Prospective students and families stream out of the Seymour Saint John Chapel PHOTO/Michael Tsai '10
