25 Great Reasons To Attend Choate
Just the right size. We are a boarding and day school of approximately 840 students and 160 teachers. The average class size is 12. Our student /faculty ratio is 6:1.
A rich curriculum. We offer 240 courses with honors sections; we have advanced placement in 25 areas.
Talented faculty. Three-quarters of our faculty hold advanced degrees; 90 percent live on campus. Faculty get to know you not just in the classroom but on the playing fields and through the many club activities they advise.
Centers of learning. Our 450-acre campus has separate centers of learning for the humanities, sciences, languages, mathematics, and the arts.
Opportunities to get involved. Our students care. Each term, more than one-third of our students do community service from Big Brothers/Big Sisters to Adaptive Swim Program to tutoring in local elementary schools.
See the world. Approximately a third of our students study abroad in France, Spain, Italy, or China at some time during their years at Choate.
Become fluent in a language. Choate offers in-depth study in four foreign languages: Chinese, French, Latin, and Spanish. We also offer courses in Intensive Introductory Arabic and Italian. Steele Hall, our languages building, has a 32-station digital language laboratory featuring the Virtuoso System by Sony. Last year we had 16 medalists in the annual COLT Foreign Language Poetry Recitation Contest.
The Right Stuff. A traditional powerhouse, Choate’s Fed Challenge economics team has won the New England District Championship in nine of the last 10 years.
Shining Stars. The Class of 2007 had 11 National Merit Finalists and 46 Commended Students. One hundred fifty-one students were cited for special recognition by the College Board for their achievement on the college-level AP Examinations. Two members of the Class of 2006 had perfect scores (2400) on the new SATs.
Finding the perfect match. We have five full-time college counselors who work with our students to help shape the best possible college match. The most popular colleges from 2003 to 2007: Georgetown, 48; Yale, 32; Brown, 31; NYU, 29; Cornell, 29; Tufts, 26; Boston University, 26; UPenn, 24; Harvard, 24; Columbia University, 22; George Washington University, 21; Johns Hopkins, 20; Middlebury College, 20.
Capstone program. Finish your Choate career with a Capstone project. Seniors may create an individualized program, which typically includes two related courses in both the fall and winter terms and an independent project (the “capstone”) in the spring term. Some capstones include the human figure, international economics, historical trends in American foreign policy, China/U.S. Relations and creative writing.
State-of-the-art Fitness Center. The Johnson Athletic Center has been renovated and expanded to include a new fitness center, an aerobics/dance studio, new athletic training and rehabilitation facilities, additional international squash courts, and more.
Try a new sport. Including football, soccer, and ice hockey, we offer 80 interscholastic teams and opportunities to play at every level. Most have varsity, JV, and thirds teams; sports choices include crew (rowing), lacrosse, squash, archery, water polo, and more.
Golden Opportunities. Three Choate graduates, Julie Chu ’01, Angela Ruggiero ’98, and Kim Insalaco ’99 were members of the 2006 US National Ice Hockey Team. Ruggiero was the only high school student on the famous 1998 Team that brought home the Gold Medal from the Nagano Olympics.
We’re wired, wireless, and online. Choate is the first independent school in Connecticut to have Internet2 high speed access. All buildings on campus are connected to that network and all academic buildings have wireless access. The Choate Information Place (CHIP) is an easy, one-stop electronic information resource for the entire community.
Good food and conversation. Hill House Dining Hall with its round oak tables is more than a place to eat our great food; it’s where students and faculty gather to discuss the day’s events and life in general.
Learn about journalism. Besides The News (published continuously since 1907), we have weekly student publications ranging from The Press, a twice-weekly summary of team results, to Horizons, an academic review of student essays. Our graduates have gone on to write for: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker.
Highbrow, lowbrow. We have a 91-year-old literary magazine called, what else, The Lit. But if DJ-ing is more your thing, our FCC-licensed, student-operated radio station, WWEB, has been on the air since 1969.
Bruce Springsteen sang at the PMAC. Our I.M. Pei-designed Paul Mellon Arts Center has an 850-seat theater with proscenium stage, an experimental theater, a recital hall, music practice and production studios, art studios and art gallery, and dance and film studios. You can study digital video, playwriting, directing, and technical theater as well as acting.
If music’s your thing . . . We have a Festival Chorus, Gospel Choir, male and female a cappella groups, ensembles, chamber chorus and chamber orchestra, and jazz band. You’ll find them all among our many arts extracurriculars. Just in the past two years, our chorus and orchestra have toured throughout Europe and China and have performed at New York’s Lincoln Center.
Students Help Students. The Student Council, Judicial Committee, Peer Educators, and Prefects are opportunities for student government and leadership. We even have a club called Students Helping Students, which raises money for financial aid.
Speaking of which, the school awarded more than $6.8 million in need-based financial aid for 2007-08. About 30 percent of our students receive financial assistance with the average grant covering 65 percent of tuition.
Great location. We are located in Wallingford, Connecticut, just two hours from Boston and New York. New Haven, only 12 miles away, is a major stop for AMTRAK (including the new high-speed Acela train) on the New York- Washington, DC-Boston run. A major airport is just 45 minutes away. New Haven and Hartford also offer concerts, theaters, museums, and restaurants.
Feel at home. Our students come from 42 states and 26 countries; 37 percent identify themselves as students of color. Our student body represents the great religious traditions of the world. Our Campus Ministry includes Protestant, Jewish and Catholic chaplains as well as student worship groups, Buddhist Meditation, Christian Fellowship, and Hillel.
Deerfield Day. The Wild Boars get to strut their stuff against rival Deerfield Academy. It is one of our great traditions. We have many more!
Hear from some of our students on why they decided to...Go Choate!