 | | Abby Ryland '12 When I was an eighth-grader, I had no idea what to expect when looking at boarding schools. |
|
| Amara Onyewuchi ’14 “I like being able to walk around campus to go to classes instead of just being in one building all the time. And I really love dorm life! |
|
| Ayo Adjibaba '13 Everybody knows each other. You build a lot of friendships, and it’s a lot of fun. I’ve met a lot of people from a lot of different countries that I’ve gotten close to. |
|
| Brad McGhee ’14 “When I first saw campus, I thought it was the coolest place in the world. I liked how all the buildings were so different and how spread out everything was. |
|
| Caroline Metz ’13 “I jumped at the opportunity to come to Mercersburg. I had been at my previous school in New York City for 11 years and I was ready for a change. |
|
| Christina Hyrkas '13 Swimming definitely influenced my deciding to come here – that and the arts program. |
|
| David Bowes '12 There are football players that attend dance concerts and perform in plays. There are lacrosse players that are in AP calculus. There are people in AP calculus who are incredibly intrigued by pottery. People are really well rounded here. |
|
| Eli Woodworth '13 I love my parents. There’s nothing wrong with being home. But I felt that the boarding-school experience was more isolated, so I could like really study hard and get into sports. |
|
| George Zhu '13 At my middle school, everyone was from China. Here it’s international. I have learned much more about Thailand, Korea, Spain, and America. We also talk about the same interests here, like badminton, or football, or soccer. |
|
| Grace Wiener ’14 “When I looked at campus for the first time it had just snowed. I’m not used to snow, and I saw the beauty in this place right away. |
|
| Johanna Krygsman ’13 “I would say the Burgin Center is my favorite place on campus. I feel like when I go there, it’s so perfect for what I like to do. |
|
| Lexy Watson ’14 “I really like my history class with Mr. Kantaros. He knows how to make it fun, but at the same time we’re learning a lot. |
|
| Syd Godbey ’14 “Nobody in my family had ever gone to boarding school and no one from my old school went to boarding school. But someone from Mercersburg came to my high school, and I kind of fell in love with the school on the spot. |
|
| | | Justin Reyes '12 I definitely think the slogan “Define Yourself” is true, because at Mercersburg, everything is here that you need to prosper. You just really have to find out who you are, in terms of how you put these to use, how you use your time, and how hard you work. |
|
| Emma Clarke ’14 “I knew at least from sixth or seventh grade that I wanted to go to boarding school, specifically Mercersburg. When I was going through the application process, my mom did have me look at a couple other schools, but nothing drew me in like Mercersburg. |
|
| Jack Flanagan ’14 “I’m the 19th Flanagan to go to Mercersburg, so I pretty much knew I’d end up coming here. It’s always been somewhere that I wanted to go. |
|
| Janice Huang '13 I have loved language since I was a kid. I just feel like language is really a magical thing. That it’s a tool that you can use to connect with lots of people you don’t know. And it’s really fascinating because through a language you know a culture. |
|
| John San-Filippo '12 To come here and experience cultures that I’ve never really seen before, but always dreamed about going to -- to live with people from those cultures, and to learn from them and really get a deep understanding of non-Western views, it’s honestly been a lot of fun, but at the same time, it’s made me grow up. |
|
| Jordan Shihadeh ’14 I’ve lived in England, Ireland, Colorado and Virginia, so I didn’t have a transition when I came here—I kind of just slid right in. |
|
| Julius Everke ’13 “In Germany, where I’m from, we just have public schools, so I had never seen a big campus and students living in the dorms. Coming here and seeing Mercersburg—it was really impressive to me. |
|
| Laney deCordova '12 At Mercersburg there are so many opportunities. Everyone picks something that they want to be excellent at. Here I can go to school everyday and just be around all these different girls and boys my age, all wanting to do something different. Yet everyone’s supportive of that, and that makes me comfortable, that makes me feel safe, that makes me feel like I matter. |
|
| Lola Tijani '13 My favorite place on campus would have to be the library. The architecture is kind of abstract on the outside, but once you get inside, you feel the studious environment. I get so much work done there, and I can concentrate so much better than anywhere else. |
|
| Luca Albisetti '13 The faculty here are really nice. Mr. Cubit is kind of like a second dad to me sort of now. I live in the room right next to the apartment where he and Mrs. Cubit live. So he’s almost always there checking in, seeing how things are going, making sure that you’re doing your homework, getting to bed on time, and keeping your room clean. That part I didn’t expect, but it has worked out quite well. |
|
| Trustin Riley ’14 “ The teachers are so close to us and because we live with them, you see them all the time and see that they actually have lives here. The classroom feels more personal because of that. |
|
| | | Alex Boyd ’13 “The campus is gorgeous, of course. However, the first thing that surprised me was the historical landmark here on campus, the house James Buchanan was born in. I found that quite fascinating. |
|
| Ashley Frederick ’13 “My history teacher, Ms. Stephens, is really energetic and not so much of a lecture-type of teacher; she is a teacher who incorporates students into the class. She uses a lot of modern technology, but she still uses textbooks, too. It’s the best of both worlds. |
|
| Chris Thomas ’14 “I first came to campus sometime during my eighth grade year. It was actually a really nice day, in the middle of winter. And the campus was amazing—so beautiful. |
|
| David Lee ’14 “The Chapel is what stood out to me the first time I saw campus. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly religious, but I enjoy going to the Chapel—just for the sake of it. |
|
| Matthew MacMahon '12 Probably the biggest difference coming to Mercersburg from a big public school is at a big public school, the teachers know you by name, but you don’t have like a close relationship with them like you do here. Here you and your teachers are almost like friends, and the teachers are available for help whenever you need it. |
|
| Max Lissette ’14 “My coaches at Mercersburg are different than the coaches at my old school. Here, they’re our teachers and sometimes our advisers. And then, you might live in the dorm with them, so you see them all the time. |
|
| Melody Gomez '13 I felt coming to Mercersburg from Spanish Harlem in New York City was pretty easy. I love the fact that there are people from everywhere – the same as New York. Mercersburg is so quiet and calm – it’s own little unit. It was a little different, but it wasn’t hard to adjust. Once you come here, you fit right in. You find your place, and it’s one big community. It works out well. |
|
| Michaella Hoehn-Saric '13 The Writing Center has been the biggest help to me, because my writing skills were not very good coming into Mercersburg. And I can already tell from the beginning of the year to now that my writing skills have improved a ton. At the Writing Center they taught me to work on my grammar, how to make things flow better, and a lot of new writing skills that I was never introduced to before. |
|
| Miranda Lang '13 What’s so great about Mercersburg? The people. The people here are amazing. There are barely words to describe the people you meet and the relationships you develop in such a short time. |
|
| Otto Bunjapamai '13 I’d try to persuade future students to come by giving them the same advice that my brother gave to me, which was: Mercersburg is like a community. Because we’re all a big community, everyone here is really nice. We all just bond to each other. Yeah. |
|
| Phoebe Moore '13 What stood out to me about Mercersburg was that at all the other schools I went to, it felt like everyone was just trying to like impress me that their school had this or that. But when I came to Mercersburg, people were actually trying to be friendly with me and to treat me like I belonged here. |
|
| |