SELECT A PROGRAM

1. What kind of student most benefits from a school like yours?

Students who are looking for a challenge and who are hard workers. We want students to be stretched academically but we also want them to have the time to explore the many opportunities (listed below) we have to offer. The opportunities include a broad and strong selection of academic courses, an athletic program with 13 sports offerings, strong programs in the arts, and a wide variety of clubs. There are programs outside of school including the Students on the Forefront of Science (funded), endowed exchange programs to Africa, Hungary and Scotland, and trips during vacations.

Finally, the students who benefit are those who enjoy working with and developing relationships with adults.

2. What do you think draws most students to look at and consider your school?

I would say the small size of the student body (357). The size allows strong relationships to develop between the faculty and the students and enables everyone to feel they know everyone else. We are a school where students are happy and welcoming. Our location is a great asset as well. We are just 45 minutes north of Boston, but we’re on a beautiful bucolic campus of 250 lakeside acres.

Another part of Brooks that attracts students is the strength of the academic program. We offer 17 Advanced Placement courses in addition to project-based courses like Robotics, Engineering, Multivariate Calculus (taken as an independent study this year), and Anatomy and Physiology. The size of our classes averages 11 students. There are also our athletic programs and our inclusion in the Independent School League (ISL). We offer an arts program that features music and visual arts courses, individual lessons and group ensembles. We also have three major theater productions a year.

3. What prompts most of their parents to consider your school?

Brooks’s strong community spirit that presents the school as a good place where their children can grow. Parents like the relationships with adults that their children have at Brooks. They also like the structure of the academic environment: study halls, dress codes, Saturday classes, chapel, 2 seated dinners a week with assigned seats with a faculty member at each table. Parents also like the size of the school, the strength of the academic programs and the location.

4. What percentage of your students receives some sort of financial aid?

We’re at 21 percent, and we are working hard to increase it.

5. If I were an intellectually talented student with a strong academic record and my public high school offered an honors program and had a solid college placement track record, why should I still consider attending your school?

You would do so for the opportunity to live with and interact with a strong faculty who do many different things. For example, the Head of our Science Department, Brian Palm has taught biology to 11th grade students, physics to 9th grade students and the Advanced Placement environmental science course to strong 11th and 12th grade students. He is the head of the crew (rowing) program and the soccer coach as well. He started and runs the Students on the Forefront of Science program, which has a handful of students competing for top-notch, college-level internships at science labs at, among others, MIT and in Quebec.

Teachers will at times work with students on independent studies in order to offer a course. We have a young man doing a multivariate calculus course online with MIT while working with the Head of the Brooks Mathematics Department. Language teachers offer advanced courses in a language if there is an interest by a student to go beyond the Advanced Placement course level. Our teachers have designed advanced offerings like an engineering course that involves project-based learning and a numbers theory course to supplement our mathematics curriculum beyond AB and BC Calculus. And, there is a strong Ancient Greek Program. Our teachers have been willing to advise on a number of independent studies covering a variety of subjects like the Supreme Court as well as different periods of history. Much of these offerings beyond our normal curriculum come about because the teachers are willing to offer their time to those students when they see the need and interest.

6. If I were a student of above average academic ability earning mostly B’s in middle school, would I fit in at your school?

Yes, if you are someone who works hard and is willing to take advantage of meeting with teachers. Our teachers enjoy working with and mentoring students who are involved and who are engaged in their learning and in the other aspects of the school. Our teachers work to foster relationships with students not only in the classroom but also in our programs and in the residential life experience. Brooks works to develop the whole child. Students not only enjoy the small student-faculty ratio but also the many opportunities to try new things and to pursue their passions.

7. Are there any aspects of your school that you would assume most people don’t know, but should know, about your school?

People do not know how broad and strong our curriculum is, particularly for a school of 357 students. I think that the relationships between faculty and students are very strong and that there is a wonderful sense of community here. The campus is beautiful!

8. In looking back at their experiences at your school, what would most graduates be likely to say were the best parts?

They would talk first about the remarkable relationships that they had with faculty and how those affected their lives. They would talk about the friends that they made and how important those friends have been through their life. They would discuss how prepared they felt for college and for life after college.