Find Your Seat
As Exonians, we like to think there’s an algorithm or equation that describes everything. I noticed this in my first week here. My friends shared their stories about how they ended up at Exeter, and it usually followed the same narrative: their parents wanted them to apply to prep school, they applied to their top 10 or so, studied for the required standardized tests and after touring and revisits, decided on Exeter. My journey to PEA was a bit different.
In the fall of 2011, admissions officer Jay Tilton made a stop in Whitefish, Mont. on his way through the Rocky Mountain region. Through a small connection with my former classmate, Connor Bloom, I found out about this presentation and decided on a whim to see what this “prep school” business was all about. Three students went to his presentation in a local hotel conference room, but only I applied. Jay and his wife, Darcy, were warm and welcoming, and I thought to myself, “If this is what everyone at Exeter is like, then I have a wonderful four years ahead of me.”
In my first term at Exeter, I struggled a lot. I walked into class perplexed by this round Harkness table, unsure whether to sit right next to the teacher or far away. School was not such a breeze anymore, and even though I was talking to kids in my dorm and going to events on campus, I felt thousands of miles away from where my true home was. During that time, I got asked many times why I was here. “So you’re just here because you’re from Montana?” My 4.0s through middle school and high school pre-Exeter, my hours spent on extracurriculars, the effort I put into my essays so that I could have a chance at attending my dream school: None of it mattered to them.
Everyone had simply been assigned a label to logically deduce why they were there at the Academy. The legacy kid. The sports recruit. The trust fund baby. The diversity kid. It sounds ridiculous that I, a white male, was only there for “diversity purposes.”
Of course, it wasn’t true. These students lied to me and others by putting them in a box and failing to understand the intricacies of their backgrounds leading up to Exeter or their complex personalities and interests. I’ve come to learn that no student at PEA is simply here for one reason and one reason only. People come to Exeter and naturally become involved, being surrounded by such motivating faculty and successful classmates. They learn, even more so than before, to strive for greatness.
Everyone doubts themselves, but funny enough, I’ve never seen more self-doubt and self-hatred than I have in my fellow Exonians. Perhaps it is because this motivates them to push themselves beyond what is expected; even so, this attitude is not healthy and not okay. The fact of the matter is, everyone at Exeter deserves to be here. The admissions office knows what they’re doing. Each one of us deserves our seat at the Harkness table, our voice to be heard, our stories to be told. Who would’ve thought that the “Montana kid” would become Supreme Leader of Exeter? That the “fac brat” would make a game-winning goal in overtime? That the “diversity kid” would be the one explaining complex integrals to his classmates?
Exeter is an incredible place filled with students and teachers who have a drive unparalleled by other institutions. That’s why I’m happy to be able to call this place home for the rest of my life.