Andover or Exter or St. Pauls

[Anonymous]

That's a pretty scary story about Milton, I guess we can cross that one off the list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's a pretty scary story about Milton, I guess we can cross that one off the list

I'm actually pretty impressed that the school handled the matter as firmly as it did. This kind of thing happens sometimes, and a school needs to draw bright lines between right and wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's a pretty scary story about Milton, I guess we can cross that one off the list

I think it could happen at any school.

[Anonymous]

The plot thickens. This is no ordinary school we are talking about. two journalists wrote a book called Restless Virgins about the hostile environment that exists for girls at Milton. Parents be warned--this is not just something that can happen at any school. It was allowed to fester and simmer until it boiled over with the gang rape of a 15 year old girl, leading to the indictment and conviction of two students for sexual assault. Not normal at all.

"Notes on a scandal" 8/20/2007 Boston Globe

There are startling scenes in "Restless Virgins" that are bound to -- and meant to -- shock readers. Three hockey players in a girl's bedroom. Clothes come off. Two of the guys hook up with the girl while the third watches and gives instructions.

Another scene: a girl performing oral sex on a guy in a campus chapel.

And another: "The three of them went at it for 15 minutes. . . . On the way home, Brady let Quinn take a turn with Emma in the back seat, then pulled over so the boys could switch places again." To the hockey players, "group sex acts were just like showering together after practice."

The teenagers were students at prestigious Milton Academy, alma mater to Kennedys and Rockefellers, T.S. Eliot and Governor Deval Patrick. The book, filled with such steamy scenarios, leaves the impression that many students at the highly selective prep school spend much of their time either engaging in casual sex or trying to.

It will no doubt create a stir on a campus that in the past two years has weathered a sex scandal, a controversial attempt to close its lower school, and the abrupt resignation of its head of school. Due out next week, the book takes seven pseudonymous seniors from the Class of 2005 and delves into the most personal corners of their lives.

But at least two of the seven subjects profiled have raised questions about the methods used by the authors and about the results. The two girls, who are now halfway through college, say they feel misled and betrayed. Though they did talk about sex with the authors, they say they also talked at length of teachers, classes, sports, college applications -- all of which play a minor role in the book.

The authors, who obtained signed releases from the participants, stand by their work. "We were direct, clear, and open about the subject of 'Restless Virgins,' " authors Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley said in an e-mail. They say their intent was to write "a compassionate and concerned examination of what it's like to be a girl and a guy in high school today."

In another era, "Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School" would be a kiss-and-tell book. But that era has gone the way of lava lamps and Farrah Fawcett posters. In fact, there's little meaningful kissing in the book, but plenty of oral sex, which, in the words of one of the authors, "is treated like handshakes."

There are girls kissing girls in front of boys, to turn them on. Girls servicing boys. Anal sex. Teens engaging in acrobatic threesomes. Much of the extreme sex involves younger girls with older boys. This isn't your parents' campus guide. It's soft porn and soap opera, a cross between "The O.C." and "Sex and the City." But the authors, who are Milton Academy alumnae, say they hope that parents will read it and begin a serious conversation with their children about sex.


Private lives, public places
Jones, who graduated in 1999, and Miley, who graduated in 1998, decided to probe the private lives of Milton students after the scandal two years ago in which a 15-year-old girl engaged in oral sex with five hockey players in the campus locker room.

"We were in shock," says Jones, 26, who lives in Boston. "We both sat there saying, 'Do you remember this? I don't remember this.' This was different, and that was the impetus for the book."

How was it different? "Oral sex and sex aren't new," says Jones, who majored in English at Dartmouth and earned a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. "But it's the extreme nature regarding hookups: how far they go, and with how many people, that is new."

Jones and Miley, who both interned at The Atlantic magazine, say they've devoted more than two years to the book. They interviewed 28 of the 181 members of the Class of 2005 and decided to focus on four girls and three boys. Names and details were changed to protect identities, but the authors, who tape-recorded their interviews, say the stories are true.

They acknowledge that the highly sexualized nature of the book does not represent the entire campus, but that the main issue -- casual and sometimes hardcore teen sex -- is a nationwide phenomenon. "For parents, it's a window into this world. If your child isn't engaging in this behavior, their friends are, or their classmates are," says Jones. "We asked questions parents don't ask."

"Restless Virgins" takes the reader into the locker room, dorms, parked cars, basement parties, hotel rooms, bars, and on spring break. The boys' demands and the girls' deference is a common theme; of the 28 interviewees, only one girl was in a healthy relationship, the authors say. They write in a highly personal, omniscient "we-were-there" style, reconstructing racy scenes -- and interior thoughts -- that they said they pieced together from multiple interviews and sources.


A national issue
Milton Academy spokeswoman Cathy Everett says the school cannot do much about what happens off-campus, though if the administration learns about a home party, it contacts parents to make sure it is supervised. But if incidents occur on campus, the school can act "in loco parentis," or in place of parents, Everett says. On the rare occasion a couple is caught, "counseling and connection with parents" is the first step, and then the school decides what disciplinary action to take. Milton offers elective and required classes on health, sexuality, values and ethics, she says.

Everett said it is important to remember that the authors interviewed "a fraction of Milton students" and that many of the incidents described in "Restless Virgins" happened off campus. (Some of the sex scenes in the book, though, occur in the dorm, the library, bathrooms, campus fields, and even the chapel.)

"Stories like this about teenagers all over this country, in all kinds of neighborhoods and schools, have been written in detail and at length," Everett said in a written statement, after being asked to respond to questions about the book. "We would be naive and out of touch if we thought that some Milton students were not involved in the same behaviors as teenagers everywhere. Our culture -- what we read, see, buy, listen to, and watch -- promotes this behavior, so why would a subset of Milton students be any different than a subset of students at any other school?"

The authors agree that casual sex among teenagers is a national phenomenon that can be blamed in part on the hypersexualized culture. "You've had Abercrombie [& Fitch] selling thongs to 10-year-olds, and TV sex scenes doubled from 1998 to 2002," says Miley, who majored in English and economics at the University of Pennsylvania and now lives in New York. That, coupled with websites such as Facebook and MySpace, have created a universe where little is considered out-of-bounds.

Jones calls it "generational exhibitionism."

"These kids are putting their lives on display," she says. "People didn't used to have sex in front of others. This is the first generation of kids coming of age in the Internet, and there's a breaking down of privacy."

The authors say they were most alarmed by the entitled attitude toward sex by a group of boys, and the willingness of younger girls in particular to go along with extreme and casual encounters. Why would such bright achievers succumb to performances on command?

Miley calls it the reality of post-feminist sex. "The girls feel so empowered that they can do anything they want including having sex like guys can," she says. "But they're still playing in a guy's world, and it's not an even playing field."


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/08/21/notes_on_a_scandal/

[Anonymous]

PP wrote:Parents be warned--this is not just something that can happen at any school.

But the book's authors seem to be saying exactly that : "The authors agree that casual sex among teenagers is a national phenomenon that can be blamed in part on the hypersexualized culture."

It sort of reminds me of the teenage syphilis episode in Georgia several years ago: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/outbreak/details.html. If you want an eye-opening experience, click on the "Network Visualization," and remember that even that event was 15 years ago in part of the Bible Belt with "small town values" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conyers,_Georgia).

[Anonymous]

Clearly, adolescent boys and girls don't engage in pre-marital sexual activity at the "Big or Little 3"...or maybe they weren't caught and the focus of the press. I suppose if the boys here are eunuchs that's probably true. Was the Duke lacrosse team populated by any boys from here?

[Anonymous]

What does this have to do with Andover or Exeter? I thought someone said that OP already crossed Milton off her list because of all this stuff. Pretty crazy. The Big Three are not perfect, nor are their students angels and saints by any means, but Im glad they are not students at Milton. That is just totally nuts.

[Anonymous]

We are interested in Exeter, Andover, and St. Paul's for our son. We have already visited and interviewed at all three. We were very concerned about substance abuse. However, from everything we've read and heard, this is much, much less of an issue today at these schools than it was in the 80's and 90's - probably because the earlier problems there were highly publicized. Based on anonymous surveys among the student bodies, it seems that the substance use/abuse rate is less than 5%, which is enormously lower than the 30-40% rate at the excellent public high school in our small affluent town. Therefore, we feel that any of these 3 boarding schools will be a "safe" choice for our son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
(2) Phillips Exeter Academy formed by Governor John Phillips, Colonel Samuel Phillips' younger brother. The undisputed academic powerhouse of boarding schools. If you want your kids to be academic machines, this is the place for you. A first class library designed by Louis Kahn. Ugly campus--a little too modernist and Stalinist, including the library (looks like a brick square). Awesome Harkness classroom discussion philosophy--all takes place around circular oak tables, symbolizing the equality and infinite capacity of the academic classroom. Very profound and intellectual students. Politically and socially conservative.

(3) St Pauls or Groton--the runner up schools. St Pauls has the most stunningly beautiful campus you will ever see, combined with a gentility and dignity that is unsurpassed. Groton claims FDR as one of their esteemed alumni. First class academics as well at both places. Most all of the students were candidates rejected by Andover and Exeter. Well groomed and charming students. Politically and socially conservative.

Characterizing Exeter and St. Paul's as socially/politically conservative is a dead giveaway that the poster knows next to nothing about either school. He/she clearly writes just to be able to read their own words in a public forum. My sympathy goes out to you.

[Anonymous]

To the PP, I respectfully disagree. Exeter and St Pauls are conservative compared to Andover. These are the facts that suggest I am correct:

Parietal Policy: Andover allows boys and girls to visit one another in each other's rooms. Exeter has a rule saying that this is only allowed with "three feet on the floor, 90 degree open door." Same at St. Pauls.

Chapel: Andover requires no religious observation and is completely secular with chaplains from multiple faiths, including a gay chaplain and a Jewish rabbi. St Pauls is a christian school with powerful church roots and a required daily chapel.

Dress Code: No dress code at Andover. Exeter and St Pauls both require jackets and ties for boys. Something that is a hot topic of debate because it makes class distinctions obnoxiously evident.

Lights Out: No lights out policy at Andover. Lights out policies on the books and enforced at Exeter and SPS.

Academic Requirements: At Andover, requirements are completed by senior year and senior year is reserved for electives. SPS and Exeter have requirements through senior year.

Sit Down Formal Dinners: None at Andover. Regular sit down formal meals at SPS and Exeter.

For these reasons, I believe I am correct. Respectfully stated












St. Pauls is a christian school with powerful church roots and a required chapel policy. While fairly independent, their rules are largely influenced by a christian philosophy and moral code.

[Anonymous]

Your post is rife with errors. A few examples...

St.Paul's is historically connected to New Hampshire's Episcopal Church, an institution that virtually no one today would characterize as conservative. Do you read the news at all?

The entire school community does meet 4-5 times per week in the chapel, but not for religious services. They meet for community-building and begin the day with a talk, a song, announcements, and occasionally some non-denominational meditation.

I could go on but I hope you start to get the point: you were wrong.

Also, there must have been some technical error when you tried to post because whatever you wrote to defend your "politically conservative" characterization was somehow omitted. Please re-post that part. I'm sure it will be "interesting" too.

[Anonymous]

I went to Andover and I agree with the position that SPS is more conservative. In addition to all the dress codes, visitation rules, lights out policies, etc etc, you cant deny SPS's religious roots. I checked their web site and they only have christian chaplains. Jews and Buddhists merely have "advisers." Chapel--which is required-- meets four times per week and the site clearly says that it opens with "prayer," which is lead by one of the christian chaplains, and includes the singing of Anglican hymns.

The school even has a school prayer--"Grant, O lord, that in all the joys of life we may never forget . . . through Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen." What if you are Jewish? Hindu? Buddhist? and dont agree.

The school has a school hymn as well-- which again emphasizes its christian roots.

Im not saying that there is anything wrong with this, as I am Christian as well, but you cant deny the fact that this school has religious roots and undertones compared to Andover and Exeter, which are purely secular.

[Anonymous]

St Paul's is a church school much like Groton and unlike Exeter and Andover.

[Anonymous]

Andover and Exeter both have religious roots as well. The "chapel" four mornings per week at St. Paul's is not a religious service. It is a community-building function. To the extent that it may have any religious content, it is at least as likely to have Hebrew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other non-Christian content as it is to have Christian content. A large number of non-Christian students attend St. Paul's, and they are not proselytized at all. Politically, St. Paul's also seems at least as non-conservative as Andover and Exeter but all points of view are treated respectfully.

[Anonymous]

Incidentally, St. Paul's announced today that this Spring they will begin construction on a new $50M Science & Mathematics building, planned to be completed by September 2011. It looks spectacular, and I'm sure it will be too!