The Hotchkiss School is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational, college preparatory boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut, founded in 1891. The school offers a classical education with grades 9â€"12 and a postgraduate (PG) option, attracting students across the United States and 34 foreign countries.
Hotchkiss is a member of the Eight Schools Association, Ten Schools Admissions Organization, G20 Schools group, Founders League, New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC), New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), National Association of Independent Schools, Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG), Round Square, Cum Laude Society, and Green Schools Alliance.
Hotchkiss has a highly competitive 18% admit rate (2013), and one of the largest private school endowments in the country (ranked fifth largest in 2008 by New York Times).
History
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In 1891, Maria Harrison Bissell Hotchkiss, with guidance from Yale President Timothy Dwight V, founded the school to prepare young men for Yale University. In 1892, Hotchkiss opened its doors to 50 male boarding students for $600. Hotchkiss's endowment also precipitated scholarship aid to deserving students. In 1974, the school became coeducational.
Number-one rule
George Van Santvoord (g. 1908, Yale 1912), a headmaster hailed as the Duke with an honorary dorm, claimed there was only one school rule: "Be a gentleman." In 1954, TIME recognized in Education: The Duke Steps Down, that "of all U.S. prep schools, few, if any, can beat the standards Hotchkiss has set."
International relations and diversity
Maria Hotchkiss was uninterested in establishing "a school for the pampered sons of rich gentlemen." The school has enrolled international students since 1896. In 1928, the school joined the English-Speaking Union and established the International Schoolboy Exchange. Established by the Class of 1948, the Fund for Global Understanding enables student participation in summer service projects across the world. In 1953, Hotchkiss alumnus Eugene Van Voorhis (g. 1951, Yale '55, Yale Law ‘58) incorporated the Ulysses S. Grant Foundation program to assist minority New Haven students with boarding school admission, with Hotchkiss School formally participating in addition to other recruitment initiatives from the 1960s onward, such as A Better Chance (ABC), Greater Opportunity (GO) summer program for inner-city students, and Prep for Prep to foster minority leaders.
The school has a 43% diverse student body (21% international students), offers a School Year Abroad program, and is a member of the Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG), Round Square, and Confucius Institute International Division (Hanban). In 2010, Hotchkiss partnered with Peking University High School to establish its study abroad, international division called Dalton Academy.
Academics
Operating on a semester schedule, the Hotchkiss School offers a classical education, 224 courses, 7 foreign languages (Chinese, French, German, Greek, Latin, Russian and Spanish), and study abroad programs. In 1991, the New York Times recognized Hotchkiss' summer program as, "Summer School for the Very Ambitious" and in 2011, as a private school leader in the farm-to-table movement, by incorporating agriculture into the curriculum since 2008. The year prior, the Deerfield Scroll featured that "many consider the Hotchkiss School to be the leader in environmental awareness among the top prep schools in the country."
The school has a 100% college matriculation rate, and among the Classes of 2011-14, 33 enrolled at Yale, 19 at Harvard, and 16 at Princeton. In 2007, the Wall Street Journal listed Hotchkiss as among the schools with a higher success rate (than Choate and Deerfield) in matriculation at Harvard, Princeton and six others (excluding Yale).
Extracurriculars
Athletics
Hotchkiss fields 19 interscholastic sports teams that compete in the Founders League, Eight Schools Athletic Council, New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC), and Interscholastic Sailing Association's New England Schools Sailing Association (NESSA) district. Its colors are Yale Blue and white, with the mascot being the bearcat.
In 1933, Samuel Gottscho photographed the Hotchkiss baseball team, which appears in the Library of Congress' Gottscho-Schleisner Collection.
Hotchkissâ€"Taft rivalry
Despite Kent School's location in the same county, the Hotchkiss School and Taft School have a long-standing rivalry, where on the final Saturday of the fall sport season, called Taft Day at Hotchkiss and Hotchkiss Day at Taft, the two schools compete against each other in every sport. Similar boarding school traditions include the Andoverâ€"Exeter rivalry and Choateâ€"Deerfield rivalry.
Clubs
Hotchkiss offer over 65 clubs, including The Record, a biweekly, student-run newspaper circulated on campus and among alumni, The Mischianza yearbook, the Hotchkiss Chorus music ensemble, and extensive service organizations. Other notable organizations include Callioupe, the all-girls acapella group, and the Hotchkiss Debate Team. The school also hosts an annual student-run film festival, The Hotchkiss Film Festival, that attracts student filmmakers from all over the world to compete for prizes and a scholarship.
Campus
The school overlooks the Berkshires (named among the 200 Last Great Places by The Nature Conservancy) on a rural, 827 acres (3Â km2) campus featuring 13 single-sex dorms (Baechle-Ayres, Buehler, Coy, Dana, Edelman, Flinn, Garland, Larsen House, Memorial, Tinker, Van Santvoord, Watson, Wieler and Redlich, opened in 2016), 2 lakes, and 1 forest. The Main Building serves as the academic and social center, featuring 30 SmartBoard classrooms, the Edsel Ford Memorial Library with 87,000-volumes occupying 25,000 square feet, and dining halls.
An EPA Green Power Partner and Green Schools Ally, Hotchkiss requires all campus buildings to acquire LEED certification and was renovated to achieve the second highest, LEED Gold certification in 2008 and use 34% green power (ranked eighth largest, green Kâ€"12 school in 2009 by EPA), while upholding the Georgian architecture tradition from Bruce Price, Cass Gilbert, and Delano and Aldrich. The school renovation project earned Robert A.M. Stern Architects the 2010 Palladio Award, with Paul Rudolph and Butler Rogers Basket contributing elements of modern architecture.
Fairfield Farm at Hotchkiss
Beyond its increasingly visible role providing organically grown food for the School Dining Hall, the 270-acre Hotchkiss Farm is also where art classes can practice plein air painting, poetry classes can find inspiration, environmental science classes can explore terrain that includes rare grassland bird habitats, and American history classes can reflect on the fact that this was once part of a land grant from King George III. When completed, farm trails will add an estimated three to five miles to the six or more that already traverse the Hotchkiss Woods.
Art facilities
In 2005, Hotchkiss opened the 715-seat Esther Eastman Music Center, equipped with a handmade Fazioli F308 piano, 12 Steinway pianos, 12 practice rooms, 3 ensemble practice rooms, a WKIS radio station and Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) lab. Hotchkiss also has a 615-seat proscenium theater called Walker Auditorium.
Athletic facilities
In 2002, Hotchkiss opened the Forrest E. Mars Jr. Athletic Center, a 212,000 square-foot athletic center with multi-purpose playing surfaces, elevated indoor exercise track, the Andrew K. Dwyer and Martin Dwyer III Olympic Rink and Thomas Schmidt NHL Rink, natatorium with 10-lane pool and separate diving well, William C. Fowle Gymnasium (hardwood basketball court), Edward R. Davis Wrestling Room, Joseph Cullman Squash Courts featuring eight international squash courts, Ford Indoor Tennis Courts, John R. Chandler, Jr. Fitness Center, locker rooms, and shower facilities.
Hotchkiss Golf Course is a nine-hole golf course of just over 3,000 yards, designed by Seth Raynor in 1924 and rated by Golf Digest as one of the 25 best nine-hole courses in America. Hotchkiss also has the Baker Complex, including synthetic Sprole Field and all-weather Hemmingway track; fifteen outdoor tennis courts; Joseph Cullman Paddle Tennis Courts; Centennial, Hoyt, Taylor, Downing, and Class of '49 Fields; Malkin Climbing Walls; Lake Wononscopomuc and a boathouse for sailing; three ponds; and extensive hiking trails.
Notable alumni
Alumni with universally notable affiliations include:
- Jonathan Bush and William H. T. Bush (g. 1956) â€" George H. W. Bush's brothers
- Roy D. Chapin, Jr. (g. 1933) â€" Roy D. Chapin, Sr.'s son and American Motors CEO
- Granger K. Costikyan (g. 1925) â€" Armenian-American banker
- Eli Whitney Debevoise (g. 1917) â€" Eli Whitney descendant and Debevoise & Plimpton founder
- Tom Dolby (g. 1994) â€" Ray Dolby’s son and author
- Charles Edison (g. 1909) â€" Thomas Edison's son and 42nd Governor of New Jersey
- Frederick Vanderbilt Field (g. 1923) â€" Cornelius Vanderbilt's great-great-grandson, Samuel Osgood and Cyrus Field's descendant, and political activist
- Henry Ford II (g. 1936), Edsel Ford, William Clay Ford, Sr. (g. 1943) and Jr. (g. 1975) â€" Henry Ford's descendants and Ford Motor Company executives
- Alfred Whitney Griswold (g. 1925) â€" Eli Whitney descendant and Yale President
- Briton Hadden (g. 1916) and Henry Luce (g. 1916) â€" Time co-founders
- Allison Brooks Janney (g. 1977) â€" Academy Award-winning actress
- Robert Lehman (g. 1908) â€" Philip Lehman's son and Lehman Brothers executive
- Jon B. Lovelace, Jr. (g. 1944) â€" Jonathan Bell Lovelace's son and The Capital Group Companies executive
- Forrest Mars, Jr. (g. 1949) and John Mars (g. 1953) â€" Franklin Clarence Mars' descendants and Mars, Inc. executives. In 2013, New York Times printed that Forrest Mars, Jr. financed and accompanied 90 Hotchkiss students on a cruise trip that encountered a 30-foot wave.
- Mark Mays (g. 1981) â€" Lowry Mays' son and Clear Channel Communications executive
- Philip W. Pillsbury (g. 1920) â€" Charles Alfred Pillsbury's grandson and Pillsbury Company executive
- Henry Luce (g. 1916) and Briton Hadden (g. 1916) â€" TIME founders
- Harold Stanley (g. 1904) â€" Morgan Stanley founder
- Lily Rabe (g. 2000) â€" American Actress
Notable faculty
- Ray Keck, Romance languages (1970-1978)
In popular culture
- F. Scott Fitzgerald's book, This Side of Paradise (1920), and short story, Six of One (1932), mentions the school several times.
- In 1947, TIME magazine made a piece of Hotchkiss graffiti famous by publishing it twice: "In Lakeville, Conn., someone penciled in the Hotchkiss School lavatory: "Schuyler van Kilroy 3rd was here," a humorous, noble and generational-titled variation of the popular expression, "Kilroy was here."
- Archibald MacLeish's last interview (1982) in American Heritage magazine disclosed, "God, how I did not like Hotchkiss!"
- Rosemary Wells' book, Through the Hidden Door (1987), features the main character, Barney Penniman, who plans to attend Hotchkiss.
- Bret Easton Ellis' book, American Psycho (1991), features Patrick Bateman's fiancee, Evelyn, as a Hotchkiss graduate.
- Elizabeth Wurtzel's book, Prozac Nation (1994), mentions the school.
- Joe Klein's book, Primary Colors (1996), features the principal character, Henry Burton, as a Hotchkiss graduate frequently called "Hotchkiss."
- Jeffrey Archer's book, Sons of Fortune (2002), features the protagonist, Fletcher Davenport, as a Hotchkiss graduate.
- Jay McInerney's short story, The Madonna of the Turkey Season (2007), features a principal character, Aidan, as a Hotchkiss alumnus.
- The Mad Men TV series (2007) character, Glen Bishop, attends Hotchkiss. In season 5, episode 12 - "Commissions and Fees," he sneaks off campus to visit Sally Draper in New York.
- Malcolm Gladwell's book, David and Goliath (2013), mentioned the school.
References
External links
- Official website