What is the Proctor difference? Three huge factors deserve consideration, but one—
the breadth of the curriculum—comes first, because it impacts every student’s experience.
Proctor offers 350 students academic programs designed for a much larger school. The choices available to each student are so extensive that you can
design your own Proctor experience! One parent comments, “At most schools, the student conforms to the school’s systems. At Proctor, the school actually grows around each individual’s passions and interests.” Customize your education to meet your goals and dreams. Build a boat in the woodshop while taking both wildlife science and AP physics…. Design a major course in voice, or photography or studio art, while doubling up in English with an elective in poetry, or play writing or photo journalism. Plan a term at
Proctor in Spain or
France as well as another term on
Ocean Classroom or
Mountain Classroom. This is a college preparatory school that encourages you to become a unique individual! No cookie cutters here. With advice from your academic advisor and parents, you take charge of your academic life.
Before plunging into the details of our educational programs, let’s look at the other factors that create the Proctor difference.
Academic support means that your success reflects your effort. Proctor doesn’t allow hardworking students to fail. If you ask for extra help from a teacher, you get it, and you might also receive an Honors Effort grade. The
Learning Skills Department offers different degrees of tutorial help, and approximately 100 students take advantage of structured support every day. At the heart of the system is
communication. If a teacher is worried about the quality of homework, or passivity in the classroom, she fires off a
Notice To the Advisor. An NTA is like an email message that goes to the student, the student’s advisor, the dorm parent (who oversees study hours) and parents at home. The advisor’s job is to respond as necessary: arrange for extra help, adjust study location or make certain that you’re getting enough sleep. One NTA might say, “Sophie has an important project due Tuesday,” and be followed by another exclaiming, “Great job!” Good communication enables the school to work
with—rather than against—each student.
A final major factor in the Proctor difference is the active nature of teaching and learning here. The term “experiential education” means much more than programs in Europe, out West, or on the North Atlantic. It means studying a plot of Proctor woodlands for evidence of distinct wildlife populations, working a lathe in woodshop, role-playing a key Senate debate, tapping maple trees in March, gathering recyclable bottles and cans in your dorm and building a Power Point presentation for a whole-school assembly. “Learning by doing” may be a cliché in American education, but at Proctor, it is a way of life.