Survey Unravels the Exeter Reality

A survey last week taken by over 60 percent of Exonians aimed to explore the question of the real Exeter, the one behind the assumptions we make daily.

The 5th Exonian Online Board put this survey together, and the data it has published has made waves in the Exeter community. “We had almost 300 shares on Facebook on the first day and 10% of the school was looking at the survey at one time, so the responses have been very positive,” upper Brandon Wang, head of Web Board and creator of the survey, said. 

The data, on topics such as race, sexuality, mental health, women’s issues and Exeter’s competitive climate, were shocking to many students.

The survey showed that over 20 percent of Exonians felt negatively impacted by their race, with over 30 percent of Asian students and over 40 percent of black students responding to the survey stating that they felt negatively impacted.

Lower Tierra McClain, a member of ALES described the issues faced by some minority students at the Academy. “Many minority students could tell you that their race brings them challenges here--whether it's at the Harkness table discussing readings on slavery and African American history, where some students have even freely used black racial slurs in the comfort of the subject of the discussion, or being averted on the path due to their appearance--one ALES member shared about a time a group of students switched to a different path after seeing him when he happened to be wearing his do-rag...”

However, many students did not feel that they were negatively impacted, and said that racial and cultural organizations on campus in fact helped them to feel more racial pride. “Personally I don't feel as though my race has impacted me negatively,” Jordan Bolden, the head of ALES. “In fact, ALES has helped me to appreciate my race and take pride in myself and my race as a whole.”

Another statistic that gained tractions was the fact that nearly a third of the lower and lower middle class students felt negatively impacted by their socioeconomic identity. 

Lower Alex Farley said that he did not feel that socioeconomic identity was a major disadvantage for students on campus, though he described the prevalence of dorm stereotypes. “One of the biggest reasons I came to Exeter was because it seemed like people weren’t judged for their family’s or money but for what kind of people they are. I think certain dorms are stereotyped to be the richer dorms, and for kids with lower income families it might make them feel uncomfortable, but aside from that I don’t see anyone really being disadvantaged or looked down upon because of their economic background.”

The statistic that hooked many Exonians is that 73% of females felt as if females were disadvantaged compared to men, but only 12% of men felt that way. Yet slightly more women than men described themselves as a leader on campus. 

Upper Emily Lemmerman, who previously served as StuCo vice president, explained her point of view on the disadvantages of being female at Exeter. “I would say it's probably because the world in general also operates on the principle that males are more powerful than females. Boys are socialized to believe that they can do anything no matter what and I would say that i definitely feel that I have a lower standard of acting, as say a leader, because I am not a boy,” she said.

Another hot topic recently has been the hook-up culture at Exeter. 80% of students agreed that there is a hook-up culture at Exeter, and from those people, nearly 25% responded that they feel pressured to participate or makes them feel uncomfortable. Attitudes towards the “hook-up” culture varied among different groups at Exeter.

Lower Meena Jagadeesan said, “I don't think that there is sexual pressure at Exeter, I personally do not participate in the hook-up culture but do not feel pressured to do so either. If you're hanging out with people who do participate, I can imagine that you might feel pressured.”

Others felt completely indifferent. Lower Tom Appleton said, “I'd say that I'm indifferent to this idea of a hook-up culture, mainly because I think that every high school has a similar one, and I wouldn't say that Exeter's so called "hook-up" culture is any different from ones you might find at other private boarding schools. I don't believe that there is sexual pressure here at Exeter. I think that most people are pretty understanding of other people.”

Senior Nick DuPont said that there was sexual pressure, but did not see it as a huge issue. “There is obviously sexual pressure at Exeter, as there is at every high school, as there is at every extended gathering of 14-18 year old. Personally, I do not think it is a problem at Exeter.”

The statistics that have shocked teachers the most, according to Wang, is that many students feel that there is a negative culture of competition and cheating at Exeter. The survey shows that 40% of student feel as if the culture of competition is damaging and over one third of the survey-takers responded that they have cheated on an assignment. 

Senior Audrey Zheng said, “I distinctly remember having a tough time answering this question, because I've felt at times that it is both damaging and inspiring. I think ultimately I put down inspiring because I know that I would not have been able to do my best work without everyone else around me similarly striving to do their best,” she said.

She said, however, that college admissions competition could be very damaging for students. At times the culture of competition has been overwhelming. I think especially during the college admissions process, things become damaging. There are those who will disagree with me, but I subscribe to the mentality of ‘what doesn't kill you makes you stronger,’ so that's Exeter in a nutshell.” 

Senior Matt Daiter said that whether there was a culture of competition or not was dependent on perspective. “I think the competition can be damaging. If people remember why they're going through these actions, and—instead of looking at Exeter as a tunnel with light at the end, but rather as a light-filled tunnel with dark spot—then the competition can be inspiring.”

Even though faculty is shocked by how many students responded that they have cheated on an assignment, students weren’t as surprised. 

“It sounds about right,” upper Ted Hart said, “I don't have a problem with students cheating on small assignments and quizzes, but if they cheat on tests it's unfair for the student to be rewarded with the same grade as someone who actually put the work in. However, I think heavy workload forces students to sometimes seek out shortcuts on assignments and tests.”

While working on the survey, Wang sought to prevent joke responses from skewing the final data. 

“We decided that if we tried to make it so that people could only participate once, it would limit the amount of people who could participate, because there were probably people who would prefer to be completely anonymous and do it on their friends computer. We wanted them to be able to do that. We logged an anonymous identifier that correlated every computer with a specific survey result and we took ones from specific computers and looked at whether or not the responses were the same. If they were, we took out duplicates, and if they weren't, we kept them. it was also really helpful because we had a few pranksters who took the survey five or six times so we just took them out.”

They had had to take out around 5-6% of the responses, around 40, to ensure the statistics were as accurate as possible. 

A member of Andover’s senior class posted on the class’s Facebook page that as a senior prank, they should “mess with Exeter’s survey results.” Wang presumes that the 150-200 people took the survey and responded that they were homosexual pacific islanders were a part of such a prank. This data was not included, however, because the Andover students responded after the results were published.