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This winter both the boys and girls swim teams posted impressive seasons. Classics teacher John Burke, who has served as the boys’ head coach for 12 years, elaborated; “This year has been extraordinary. I have never experienced anything like it. It was an unexpected, but pleasant surprise, and each time I look back on it, I am amazed again.” This season was unique as it was the first time the boys and girls have shared a coach. Previously they practiced together several days a week, but English teacher Sonja O’Donnell instructed the girls. With Ms. O’Donnell on sabbatical away from Deerfield this year, Dr. Burke was at the helm of both squads, ably supported by two new assistant coaches, Mark Spencer and Caroline Savage. According to Dr. Burke, “At first [the set-up] took some getting used to, but the Florida trip really sealed the team’s bond, providing a chance for us to train and socialize together outside of a school environment.” This Long Winter Weekend trip strengthened not only the team’s camaraderie, but also their skills, which they demonstrated throughout the season by accumulating numerous records and boasting great results. Both the boys and girls teams enjoyed remarkable results this season. The boys finished third and the girls fourth at the season-culminating New England Prep School Championship meet. Additionally, the teams performed well at Easterns, a large national meet in Philadelphia. Even among traditional powerhouse schools from the mid-Atlantic, including the Peddie School, Loyola Blakefield, and Germantown Academy, the boys placed seventh out of 28 teams, and the girls placed eighth out of 27 teams. At a sub-regional meet, Westerns, the boys earned second place out of 12 teams, and the girls placed fourth out of 12 teams. The team’s unprecedented performance was due in part to the efforts of several standout swimmers, who broke a total of nine New England and Deerfield records this season. Boys Captain Quinn Smith ’14, who received the Babcock Award at the New England Prep School Championships, set individual New England records in both the 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard individual medley and set a Deerfield record in the 100-yard breaststroke. Matt Hrabchak ’15 also set a New England record in the 200 freestyle, adding to one he earned last year in the 500 freestyle at the same meet. Miles Smachlo ’16 also claimed a new Deerfield record in the 100-yard butterfly. These three swimmers, along with teammate Alan Lam ’15, also broke the Deerfield record in the 400-yard freestyle relay, and with Doug Vallar, broke the New England 200-yard freestyle relay by one hundredth of a second. On the girls side, the 200 medley relay team, including Bryn Everson ’15, Claire Collins ’15, Rhyan Brode ’17 and Juliette Lee ’14, placed second at New Englands in the event and set a new Deerfield record. Additionally, Collins set a new Deerfield record in the 100 breaststroke. Along with the numerous records set at the season-ending New England Championship meet hosted by Hotchkiss, Deerfield swimmers were also able to set several short course meter records during a dual meet at Loomis Chaffee. These short course meter records are logged separately from those measured in yards, because they are slightly longer. The only schools in Deerfield’s division with short course meter pools are Choate and Loomis Chaffee, so Deerfield swimmers have few opportunities to break those records. Deerfield swimmers took advantage of the chance, breaking records in the 200-meter medley relay and 100-meter butterfly. Hrabchak also snatched another record during the 400-meter freestyle. Whether the team will continue to be co-ed next year still remains a mystery. However, it is certain that the team will benefit from a vital core of returning swimmers.

The Memorial Building renovation is progressing as scheduled and should be completed by mid-summer, in time for the 2014-15 school year. The opening of the renovated Memorial Building marks a new chapter for the arts at Deerfield. Indeed, “the Visual and Performing Arts Department is on the verge of an exciting new dawn,” said Jennifer Whitcomb, department chair. The new building will feature both renovated and new facilities including a reconstructed art gallery, a 180-seat chamber concert hall, a new dance studio, an architectural loft, several new art studios, a digital media-studio and a music production studio. The building will also contain the renovated Black Box Theater and the Large Auditorium, now with a three-sided balcony. In addition, construction for its state-of-the-art acting lab, numerous practice rooms and an abundance of new support facilities such as script libraries, dressing rooms, a resource room, a costume construction room, and a green room, is underway. “Fusing the traditional with a contemporary edge, the new arts building will be a vibrant hub where students can immerse themselves in creative and academic study,” added Ms. Whitcomb. Because the Memorial Building houses the dance studios, art studios, music practice rooms, and the Black Box, these had to be relocated and rethought due to construction. “Last year, dance classes were held in the dance studio of the Memorial Building, and this year classes are in the Stolzfus room, the Kravis and on the third floor of the Main School Building,” explained Maegen Killeen ’14, a dancer in the senior dance ensemble. This year’s dancers have also needed to adjust to the stage of the White Church on Main Street, where interim performances have been held. “It was a major adjustment,” admitted Killeen. “The [White Church] is a much smaller space, and the audience is literally four feet away.” “As a senior it is upsetting that our last year we didn’t get our dance studio, but I think it will be worth it for upcoming students, because the art building is going to be amazing,” she adds. Will Darling ’15, an active participant in the theater program and a member of the Mellow-Ds, has grown accustomed to the new art locations. “The Mods have been a pretty good space for Mellow-Ds practices, and the smaller rooms create a more intimate setting,” he said. “I look at this year as a transitional year,” added Darling. “You have to pay your dues before you get the nice new building. I am really excited for next year.” Chloe So ’14, currently in Post-AP Studio Art, is looking forward to continuing her art career at Deerfield in the new Mem. “With the arts in a centralized location next year, more students can enjoy some of the amazing works students have produced, and that will hopefully promote the arts at Deerfield,” she said.

For students who want to pursue independent projects, exemptions provide freedom and time. Art and music exemptions are popular among students who crave co-curricular time to further develop their artistic skills “Exemptions afford passionate musicians or artists time to practice and work on a project,” said Yong-Hun Kim ’15, who has a music exemption. “Without a specific time set for this, we’d only be able to practice twice a week outside of classes.” “I’m taking part in an exemption because I have the passion and want more time to explore my abilities in the arts,” said Lauren Stobierski ’14, who has an art exemption. “Some people get an art exemption because they want to skip an introductory course and go straight to the AP level,” said Shelton Rodgers ‘15, who also has an art exemption. Just like any other co- curricular, exemptions require daily attendance. Students must also have an advisor who keeps tabs on the their progress during the course of the term. “During co-curricular time, we mainly practice,” Kim said. “We’re required to be in the practice rooms for at least 90 minutes. Occasionally we have performances at Second Helpings.” For Rodgers, an art exemption has allowed her to balance her work load: “I spend my art exemption time working on my portfolio without it taking time away from homework for other subjects.” “We follow whatever passion for music we have, like playing the piano, composing, et cetera,” added Yuri Lee ’15. According to Kim, students with exemptions aren’t looking for an excuse not to play sports. “I don’t choose to do it to be exempted from a sport, but to be able to spend more time with music.” “I love music, and music is my top priority,” said Lee, “It’s an area that I’d like to indulge myself in.” These students are especially excited about the renovation of the Memorial Building, although it has come at a cost this year. “Because of the renovation of the Memorial building, the arts program has been moved to a remote location,” Stobierski said. “However, I know that the new building will have more student galleries than ever before.” As the opportunity remains to seek out exemptions, students will continue to take advantage of the chance to refine their artistic skills in exemptions.

The Deerfield Chamber Singers, a group of 13 students, left for New York City on March 28 to participate in the Heritage Performance Music Festival, a festival focused on enriching the lives of students through music and performance opportunities. Led by Director of Music Daniel Roihl, the chamber singers earned remarkable scores from the judges of the festival, finishing in second place in their division. During the four-day trip, the chamber singers performed twice, first at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine for the public, and later at Riverside Church for the judges of the festival, who scored and ranked their performance. Their set list included three of their best songs, which they had rehearsed and polished every day during their winter co-
curricular. Nhyira
Asante ’16
believed that
their hard work
really paid off:
“We’ve sung
these songs so
many times, and
I really don’t think we’ve ever sung them better than we did at the competition.” Their impressive performance earned them the Gold Award and qualification to perform at an elite festival in Carnegie Hall next year. When they were not performing, the chamber singers explored what the city had to offer, from touring Carnegie Hall, playing games in the Sony Tower, meeting the animator of , visiting the 9/11 Memorial, to seeing Broadway shows.
Juan Cabrera ’16 was visiting New York City for the first time. He described one of his favorite memories from the trip: “One day we were waiting for the subway and we saw somebody singing for money, and I had been talking about wanting to busk and how it was on my bucket list. I saw [a performer], ran up to him, gave him five dollars. We all started joining in and singing Motown songs with him, and we made that man so much money. It just felt so good afterwards.” Christie Jok ’16 described how the spirit and energy of the group made them stand out. “We were not like any other group,” she began— and Cabrera finished, “But we brought the fun!”
Overall, the Chamber Singers took away not only musical and performance experience from the festival, but also “a lesson in teamwork and working together,” according to Asante. She continued, “We were all just so excited to be there and we were able to really enjoy singing.”

This winter, Elena Jones ’14 and Daisy Fornengo ’14 received a co-curricular exemption in order to pursue their love of photography. Having taken both photography classes that Deerfield offers, the pair used their time this past term to work closely with visual arts teacher Tim Trelease to produce an extensive series of photographs. When Fornengo mentioned to Mr. Trelease that she wanted to focus on dramatic lighting and shadow play, Mr. Trelease immediately urged the pair toward film noir. The film noir genre hit the peak of its popularity in the 1940s and ’50s. Films from this genre have often been based on detective novels and are characterized by their distinct black-and-white visuals. Mr. Trelease suggested that Jones and Fornengo watch movies from Hollywood’s classical film noir period in order to look for inspiration, which they eventually found in various Orson Welles films. While exploring different ways to imitate still images from Welles’ films, and studying the archetypes of film noir, Jones and Fornengo were struck by the character traits of the femme fatale. The femme fatale is a complex female character, typically morally ambiguous and always mysterious, who often tries to achieve her hidden agenda by using feminine wiles such as seduction and charm. Drawing inspiration from this character while continuing to explore the film noir genre, Fornengo and Jones began weekly photo shoots at PVMA (Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association). In looking for models, the pair wanted classmates who would be confident enough to be able to get into character, because the film noir theme of their photos required a certain amount of acting. Jones explained, “The models were really receptive to our ideas and instructions, but all of them also had their own style, which made each shoot unique.” The pair set up these shoots themselves and staged scenarios using props one would typically associate with a femme fatale, like the gun, cigarette and martini glass. They had the models dress in black and created extreme contrast using bright lamps. “We would play music from the time period to put ourselves in the right mindset for the shoot,” said Fornengo. Although much of the duo’s work was done independently, Mr. Trelease was always there to help and critique when needed. “Because there is no post-AP class, having Mr. Trelease set aside time to help us continue with photo has been really awesome and a lot of fun,” said Fornengo. Both Jones and Fornengo plan to continue to pursue photography in college next year, and they agree that their classes at Deerfield were instrumental in instilling their love of the subject. The two really enjoyed working together and benefited from the collaborative experience. “It was nice to do this project together, because we understood each other’s artistic vision and [combined] our strengths to get the best possible result,” said Jones. Mr. Trelease is very excited about the work that the pair did: “Daisy and Elena worked really hard experimenting, revising their work, trying every variation they could and pulling from great films in the film noir genre.” The results of this hard work are now on display on the second floor of the library.

It has become customary for students to change their names on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media websites when they submit their applications to college, many utilizing wordplay with their names, either using rhymes or referencing TV shows and movies. Fear circul ates among applicants as they hear rumors of teens having their college acceptances revoked due to inappropriate or offensive language and photos found on their Facebook profiles. The fear heightened in 2011 when published an article online regarding college admissions offices and their relationship with Facebook, citing a “Harvard admissions officer—who posted on a Quora thread… that a student’s online presence ‘absolutely’ prejudices her.” So the question remains—do colleges really investigate applicants’ Facebook or other social media websites during the admissions process? The answer: depends on both the school and if concern or suspicion has been raised about the student. A graduate assistant in the admission office at Boston College stated, “Nothing that would revoke an acceptance would be caused from the checking of any social media sites, like Facebook or Twitter.” Yet she also mentioned that, though the admissions office does not seek out social media pages, if they are sent something that may have been posted on Facebook, they “will obviously consider it.” When asked if the admissions process included checking students’ Facebook pages, Trinity College’s Associate Director of Admissions Kalia Kellogg revealed that it is “not our policy to do so, but an individual admissions officer could choose to do so if they felt moved.” Because Facebook is a public website, anything anyone publishes could be seen by outsiders who are curious to further investigate that person. She also mentioned that though checking prospective students’ Facebook pages is rare due to the time- crunch of the admissions process, “If there is a red flag, I will go into the profile and see what I can see.” She also mentioned, however, that “we are going to see people holding up beer cans, and it’s not impressive and doesn’t make us feel great about the person, but it doesn’t cause an end to their admission.” Though students often resort to sifting through their photos and comments on Facebook prior to the application process, once something is on the Internet, it never goes away, and someone will always be able to access it. Dick Nesbitt, an admissions representative from Williams College, warned, “I would advise students not to post anything that they wouldn’t want their grandmother to read.” He also disclosed, “if you are wondering if we have ever withdrawn a student’s admission because of something he or she posted, the answer is ‘yes’.” Jamie Bucci, a new college advisor here at DA remarked, “There are employers who say, ‘in order to get this job, you have to let me friend you’.” She also noted that posting controversial photos or comments entailed “a lot of downside risk and very little upside gain.” As the percentage of college admissions as well as employers checking social media increases, prudence throughout Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites is expected to increase as well. Though it’s impossible to tell whether or not a student’s personal page will be checked or monitored, growing awareness of the permanence of online affairs will continue to push teens to think twice about clicking “upload.”

At the start of spring break, 13 Deerfield students and three faculty members traveled over 40 hours to Tanzania. They went to rural Kitongo to work at a school run by the Janada F. Batchelor Foundation for Children, also known as JBFC. According to Director of Global Studies David Miller, faculty trip leader, “The general purpose of the Tanzania trip was to focus on alleviating extreme rural poverty and to help students be a part of the mission of an organization that’s doing that, as well as having students learn about and think critically about what role they can play in solving global problems.” He added, “So it’s just as much about doing service as it was about learning how to serve.” The Deerfield students and teachers followed busy schedules throughout their time in Tanzania, with little time for leisure. “There was not a lot of free time at all,” commented Mr. Miller. Aside from an overnight safari into the Serengeti, the DA team spent most of their time on site at JBFC. Students taught classes, helped prepare food with the matrons, conducted a height-and-weight project for a study of malnutrition and worked out in the fields. “We worked alongside the girls and staff of JBFC to help start a ‘gray water’ irrigation system behind the school’s dining hall,” said student traveler Lucy Lytle ’15. “This system uses dirty dishwater to sustain trees and plants on their campus.” Nearly two years of planning were devoted to the trip’s activities. “There have been Deerfield students that have gone in the past on their own,” said Mr. Miller, who commented on the encouragement from Jack Paul ’14 and his family to build the partnership with JBFC. “We sent over a group of six faculty members last year,” he continued. “We scouted the program, started designing it and then worked carefully to plan a student program.” The teachers on the trip were called on to review whether this would be a safe place to bring students, whether there would be enough for them to do and how the two-week period would be structured. Sheryl Cabral, assistant academic dean and math teacher, who was one of the original six faculty members as well as a faculty leader on the latest spring trip, recalled her time in Tanzania: “We left that teacher training very impressed with the quality of teaching and learning at JBFC. They were great in working with us to develop a schedule that fit the needs and interests of our students.” JBFC’s mission has four pillars: refuge for abused and abandoned girls, education, sustainable agriculture and healthcare. “Students prepared ahead of time in each one of those areas,” said Ms. Cabral. “Before we even left, they had to present to the rest of the team about what they learned.” Mr. Miller continued, “I think there were a lot of different types of preparation that happened through the way that students are getting educated at Deerfield and the kinds of experiences they are having here. Students were making connections to a lot of different classes they had taken at Deerfield—whether it was William Ughetta ’17, the only freshman on the trip, thinking about applying what he was learning in an inquiry-based physics class to the way he was teaching science classes to the seventh grade at JBFC—or Lucy Lytle ‘15 and Nahla Achi ’15 working on thinking about evaluating JBFC as a non-profit from what they were learning in Global H2O.” “This was a group of students that I didn’t know very well and seeing them come together as a group and being lucky enough to be a part of that group was a real highlight for me,” remarked Ms. Cabral. Xavier Salvador ’14 commented, “On the trip, we all received a new perspective on how privileged we are here at Deerfield. Chris Gates, founder of JBFC, left us with an open-ended question about how we can turn our privilege into a responsibility to serve the world in need. For me, this was a major takeaway from the trip.” It is likely that another Deerfield team will make the long journey to Tanzania again next year, perhaps with a more focused agenda. Mr. Miller concluded, “We’re at a place where we are continuing to evaluate all of our global studies programs, but I think building off of the success of this program, it would be hard for me to imagine not going back. I think that students got a lot out of the experience, and I think that we have a lot of things that we’ve learned we can do better next year. But I’m pretty confident that we’ll be doing it again in the future.”

The LDR…. dun dun dun. Let’s state our concerns from the get-go. Although your relationship may have endured the test of time at Deerfield (i.e., two months), college is a whole new ball game. While your desperate attempts to guilt him into staying faithful with couples-Instagrams might be endearing, we can assure you that he’ll be having too much fun “enjoying the opportunities that college has to offer” to even throw it a “like.” We encourage you to express yourself with as many smiley emojis as possible, but let’s manage our expectations. Side-by-side comparison: biodegradable cup of ice vs. red Solo cup. Broomball vs. beer pong. Not enough? Picture this on a Thursday night: 10:06 p.m. You send Snapchat of you and your textbooks captioned “the Deerfield grind.” 11:11 p.m. He returns with selfie in darkly-lit room with questionable stain on his partially-buttoned shirt captioned “hgfFFkuFfdsuyfdk.” 11:12 p.m. You respond with another selfie asking what’s up. 12:00 p.m. He sends you a picture of him and girl in crop top. 12:01 p.m. You’re nervous, but you play it cool: “haha who is that?” No response . . . Are you picking up what we’re putting down? Your LDR was DOA. We aren’t saying some people can’t make it work, we’re just saying you aren’t one of those people. And please, don’t change your relationship status to “it’s complicated.” Because it’s pretty simple. Resign yourself to a life of SAT prep and Greer froyos, because most people can’t even make it work from Barton to JL. All the best, Margo, Rita and Curtis

“Witch-hunt.” “Screwed over.” “Three day.” “This is BS.” “Should have lied.” A common thread runs through the attitudes of students with a DC on their record: resentment. There exists a perception among DA students that the administration is “out to get us.” Although the deans try hard to strike a balance between educator and executioner, more often than not, administrative responses to student misconduct turn out to be purely punitive. Disciplinary Committee hearings, instead of healing and advising students, produce animosity toward the institution without accomplishing their goal to rehabilitate. The punishment doled out most often is the infamous three-day suspension. But in reality, the suspension lasts for more than three days. It follows you throughout your time at Deerfield. It is present in the judgmental glances of your peers, the disappointed frowns of your teachers and the red flag on your college application. Few students believe that the punishment of going home for three days is at its core a capital sentence. The impact of the punishment is achieved more by the public shunning and silent humiliation that occurs after the student returns. The student is expected within those three days to have an epiphany, reconstruct his or her decision-making process and return to school a smiling trophy of civility, all without any helpful input from the school besides a letter and a security guard to escort the banished off campus. In its mission statement, Deerfield claims to focus more on the ethical education of a student than on his or her academic success. In letter if not in deed, DA seeks to instill a sense of “citizenship,” “personal responsibility” and “strong moral character.” However, the current system of discipline chooses to exploit a student’s most vulnerable moments as opportunities to punish rather than to educate. Deerfield’s faculty and administration consist of countless inspiring role models who have more than enough wisdom to play the role of mentor. The school is missing its chance to help young people learn. Luckily, Deerfield’s administration is one unafraid of self-evaluation. After a re- examination of our justice system, the administration, along with the Ethics Committee, has drafted a plan that will attempt to reform the weaknesses of this purely punitive system. Under the new system, the DC will have a far more expansive “toolbox” of punishments that it may dole out so that the punitive and restorative response will best fit each individual case. The hope is that the DC experience will more closely resemble a learning process than a harsh punishment. Each case will be reviewed individually, and action will be tailored to the individual. No longer will we hear echos of “that’s what everyone gets.” Many students may look at this change as a relaxation of the rules or as an easy “get out of jail free” card. However, we as students must understand that this change does not mark a shift in severity but rather a shift in responsibility. The students must now take it upon themselves to understand that there no longer exists a “me vs. the administration” mentality to being disciplined. Rather, every individual should act in accordance with what he or she perceives as the right thing to do. Inspiration to do good can no longer come from fear of the savage wrath of authority. The inspiration to do good must come from our own innate desire to be good people. Inevitably, during our transition at Deerfield from child to citizen we will make mistakes. The newly revamped disciplinary system now may be considered a helpful source of support available to us during both the punitive and restorative process; but in the end, when the rigid columns of the main school building melt away, it is up to each of us as individuals to accept the weight of the ceiling or fold under the pressure of its consequence.

Does Deerfield train us to solely focus on the destination, rather than to immerse ourselves in all that the journey has to offer? When students receive bad test grades, rather than asking themselves what they can learn from their mistakes and how they can become better students, their train of thought turns to an unhealthy corner of self-pity, anger, and fear: “OH MY GOD. I got a 76 on my math test. I am never going to get above a 90 in the class, so I’ll never get into Harvard, and then I’ll never find a job, and I’ll turn into a coke-head hobo…” and so on and so forth. This mindset also shapes how we choose to use our time as students at Deerfield Academy. Rather than immersing ourselves in clubs or organizations that genuinely interest us on campus, many students focus on securing certain leadership positions, participating in advantageous co-curricular activities and maintaining a high GPA, the ultimate goal being an Ivy League School. I am guilty of this—everyone is guilty of this. We must remember, however, that though most of us come to Deerfield so that we have a good shot at the most exclusive colleges in our nation, DA can and should be so much more for us than just a stepping stone. It’s easy to point fingers at what the cause could be for this decline in commitment to character and citizenship. I’ve heard excuses such as technology, the increased competitiveness of our peers, lower acceptance rates at highly-ranked institutions and the overall Deerfield pace of life. But while just one of these is not enough to fully account for the flaw in our system, it is clear that in recent years, as the demands and pressure on our students have increased, participation in some clubs has decreased. “It is not surprising that the significant demands made of students require them to prioritize how they allocate their time,” remarked philosophy and religion teacher Neil Jacobs ’69, whose days at the Academy were focused on character-building and individualized education rather than checking off boxes on a To-Do-for-Success list. He added, “This may, in some instances, result in less than robust participation in certain school activities that often make a broader set of perspectives available to our students.” Needless to say, Deerfield has continued to be an esteemed academic institution in the last 20 years, furthering and maintaining its position as a feeder to some of the top universities in the country. But just in the last four years, I have seen the caliber of student character drop at our school. This year Ivy acceptances dropped in number as well, and although I don’t want to draw any conclusions as to why this may have happened, it might be because our school is failing to teach us how to be interesting and interested citizens of our world.

I would like to start this article with a disclaimer. The following op-ed is made up of the opinions of a 17-year-old boy in high school. In no way, shape or form was this written to offend anyone or anyone’s beliefs. These are merely my observations and opinions. You can ignore them or take them as they are. The choice is yours. First, I would like to start off by recognizing that there is a clear division between boy and girl culture at DA. This division is reflected in the different courses of action taken by boys and girls when a student gets in trouble. In my opinion, when a boy violates a major school rule (aside from bullying or hazing) for any number of reasons, no male witness would ever go to the administration. Generally speaking, boys will either ignore the violation or handle the issue themselves. Even if this boy were my mortal enemy, I would never, ever talk to the administration about his actions. In contrast, it seems to me that in most cases girls will immediately go to the administration and seek a harsh course of action against the offender. Yes, the boys at Deerfield definitely have a “pack mentality,” but to me, this seems a better alternative to the girls’ culture of passive aggression. No, this culture is not necessarily shared by all girls at Deerfield, but this behavior appears frequently enough between girls at DA for the community–including us of the opposite sex–to notice. If boys at Deerfield have a pack mentality, our girls, in contrast, have more of a clique mentality. Sometimes I see girls getting caught up in a “clique war” between friend groups that can only end in hurt feelings and a detriment to their self-esteem. Boys can definitely hurt each other’s feelings, but their interactions are much more confrontational than the way girls handle their disputes. Confusingly enough, I have noticed that even when girls are mad at each other, they still pretend to like each other, whereas guys will straight up tell one another if they have “beef.” Although pretending to like each other might make the dispute more socially acceptable, this avoidance of direct confrontation may result in hatred that is more long-term. Being confrontational, on the other hand, might involve some physicality, but will solve the problem then and there. As a student at Deerfield, I hope that the issues I have addressed can soon be fixed, but these differences in boy and girl culture are not exclusive to Deerfield. They are an aspect of teenage culture that may last in high-school America for a very long time. All in all, I feel that Deerfield is actually a very safe environment. In fact, we constantly make it even safer as we seem to have an exceptional talent for criticizing our own culture to constantly find new ways to improve it. Though I am guilty of criticizing our student body as well, I think Deerfield needs to develop a culture of self-congratulation as well as one of modesty and self-deprecation. We deserve it.

It’s true: compared to last year, fewer Deerfield seniors have gained admission to Ivy League universities. But the reason for this decline in acceptances is not because our seniors are less committed, involved, athletic or intelligent. As I understand it, the lower Ivy admission rate is due to today’s tough competition, thanks to a huge increase in national and international applicants. For Yale University alone, the number of applications has increased by five thousand in the past four years. Faced with tough competition, many applicants, Deerfield’s included, turn to other sources for support, for that extra boost: money and connections. Admit it—we at Deerfield all know someone who got into some Ivy or another because his/her parents called the school and generously donated a new pool or business building. Clearly, this scenario is not applicable to every Ivy League acceptance, but we can’t deny its existence. These accepted students, I’m sure, are well-qualified and well- educated (they go to this school, after all), but what sets them apart from the rest of the applicants is not their commitment to the Debate Club or Choral Society. It’s their family background and their connections. Subsequently, we might conclude: rejected students are not to blame at all, and neither is Deerfield. We attend a school that encourages its students to be proactive and responsible global citizens. I believe that, in this aspect, Deerfield is doing a fine job. The Academy provides us with numerous opportunities to be involved with many clubs and organizations on campus. Students are welcome to immerse themselves in these co-curricular activities. College admission is a crazy process, and a rejection from an Ivy definitely does not mean that a person is not involved or committed enough—it just shows that there are too many well-qualified applicants to accommodate everyone.