The Illusion of Family Weekend

By  AARYAN PATEL ‘27 and KEVIN THANT ‘27

As the fall foliage returns to the Phillips Exeter campus, so do parents. Families of many students from all over the globe gather to have the “Exeter experience,” a time to immerse themselves into their students’ lives by attending classes, sports events, and other extracurriculars. But is it true immersion?

For students, family weekend is more of a performance than a day in the life. While most Exonains experience many struggles and stresses on a day-to-day basis throughout the term, they often hide them during family weekend, showing their families that they excel in such a competitive environment. Furthermore, family weekend often brings the most engaged and active classes of the term, where students once again put on display a more “perfect” image of themselves. There’s also greater stress for preparation for students who don’t always do their homework for specific classes; students who rarely do homework now annotate every page in great detail. For those on the quieter side in Harkness, this means taking a more active role.

Regarding class dynamics, some students, fearing judgment from their parents, may ask less questions. The student who once cracked a joke every ten minutes may restrict himself from humor. It’s almost an invasion of privacy having parents enter a space that used to be yours. Especially for boarders who see them rarely having parents around the Harkness table can cause personalities to change. 

But it’s not limited to students. While exhibiting the intellectual rigor of classes, teachers hide the more stressful assessments or assignments and instead do “interesting” activities that excite families. For instance, the teacher often does a lab rather than go over homework problems in a science class. There may be an influx of interactive activities that are usually never seen. 

Aside from this, one of the things many students associate with family weekends is the sudden jump in food quality at the dining hall. Students find themselves being treated to a plethora of desserts they have never eaten before. Elm now has elaborate red tablecloths that are used to host dessert salads rather than the usual bare, mundane salad bar. Administration chooses to portray the best of Exeter. 

The only thing to consider is whether this takes away from the experience of seeing “the real Exeter.” Many might say that Harkness classes have changed because students who don’t usually talk start talking and strive for a perfect image. But this doesn’t inherently take away from the Harkness class’s experience or authenticity. It raises the question of what the point of family weekend is intrinsically.

Is it an opportunity for parents to see Exeter through their children’s shoes the same way they experience it daily, or is it instead a showcase for Harkness and America’s best boarding school in action? If the answer is the former, family weekend fails to portray an authentic Exeter experience.

 It’s missing many things that Exeter students are so familiar with and deal with daily, like the dreaded Elm Street dinners or the 8 a.m. class where nobody wants to talk at all. We don’t see students falling asleep in class anymore or the awkward 30 minutes in a math class where nobody can figure out one problem. 

But even though families don’t see what many students know as “the real Exeter,” if you have visitors over at your house, it will naturally be spotless before they get there. The same applies to Exeter; administration doesn’t want parents to see terrible food and quiet Harkness tables when they are charged the equivalent of a college education in high school. They have to showcase the best of Exeter, the facilities, and sometimes the Harkness classes. That’s why some of the most elevated classes happen with the watchful eyes of parents in the room. 

The difference, however, is far from marginal enough to declare that we have strayed from the true Exeter. Instead, it represents one of those days when everything seemed right, a perfect day that rarely happens here. On a day when the average Exonian gets eight hours of sleep, their 8 a.m. class has a great discussion because everyone did their homework and was prepared. They then find that the Elm Street dining hall has General Tso’s for lunch. A day where nothing could go wrong is the day families see at Family Weekend.