Kent School - Review #12

Two things that I thought made Kent unique were the Harkness teaching style and the jobs program. Kent had harkness tables in a lot of rooms and if there wasn't a harkness table in the room, the desks were arranged in a U-shape. I think that harkness style of teaching made learning seem more one-on-one to the students. The jobs program was also very important to the students. Every student had a student job (tour guiding, cleaning white boards, cleaning dining hall tables, etc.) and it made us feel more empowered and kept us busy so home-sickness didn't seem as big of a deal.

I think the best thing that happened to me while I was at Kent was being inducted into the Tri-M honor society. Tri-M is a music honor society and being inducted into it made me feel like all my hard work playing instruments had payed off.

I went in very worried that I wasn't going to make friends and I think that (at first) that actually kept me from making good friends because I was too worried that they wouldn't like me. I would have been myself right from the start and then I would have found my close friends a lot earlier.

I liked that Kent pushed us academically, athletically, and artistically. Kent made sure we had the best education possible while still pushing us to play sports and do something artistic whether it was art, music, or theater.

My final words of wisdom are to just be yourself and everything will fall into place. My favorite snack at the snack bar was curly fries! A great place to visit on campus is the chapel; it is very beautiful and calming. Hoerle Hall is definitely the nicest dorm (it's also the newest).

I liked how many different classes were available and that they were available at all levels. We had regular classes, honors classes, and accelerated classes as well as APs. We also had a variety of classes such as Latin, Ancient Civilizations, as well as the more popular courses like Biology and Algebra.

I liked that there were also different levels of sports at Kent (Varsity, JV, thirds, club. Each level of the sport had a different commitment level so you were free to choose how much commitment you wanted for sports.

I absolutely loved the music program. There were so many options for classes (AP Music Theory, Music Technology, etc.) during the day as well as many performing groups after school (Jazz Band, Percussion Ensemble, Concert Band, Orchestra, etc.). I also loved that there was a recording studio in the music department. Throughout my time at Kent I went from only being able to play the flute to being able to play the flute and trombone as well as some percussion instruments.

My favorite club at Kent was something called REACH (Remember Every Action Can Help). REACH was a club for volunteers and the adult who oversaw the club set up a lot of different opportunities for us students. I was able to volunteer at two different nursing homes, Hour Children in NYC, a local soup kitchen, and an early learning center among others.

I was actually a day student at Kent, but I did have experience with dorm life because all day students also had a room in the dorm. I really liked that all students were included in dorm life and that we could set up the furniture however we wanted.

I liked how Kent had so many options available to its students. I also liked how we had Formal Dinner every week. Formal Dinner was a chance for us to sit with our advisors and the other advisees in their group and to catch up on each others' weeks. Formal Dinner was the only assigned seating we had in the dining hall.

Kent is a very small town but it did have everything we need like clothing stores, restaurants, and a grocery store. I really liked that the town was within walking distance from the school.

The social like at Kent was really great! You pretty much knew the name of everybody and you could sit anywhere you wanted in the dining hall so you could make new friends.