Residential Life: What Students Learn by Living Together

Every August, in the weeks leading up to the start of the school year, members of our Admissions and Student Life teams field a familiar set of questions from families of boarding students new to Proctor. "What happens if my student doesn't get along with their roommate, or struggles to connect with other students in the dorm?" Students arrive with their own version. "Will my roommate be messy?" "What if our sleep schedules don't match?" These worries are reasonable. Asking a young person to leave home and share a room with someone they have never met is no small undertaking.

Hadley '27, who arrived as a freshman three years ago, offered this reminder. "Something that is helpful to remember is that everyone is in the same boat as you," she said. "Everyone is new to high school and boarding school and just trying to make friends and succeed."

Proctor's philosophy of residential life has not changed for generations. Dormitories are intentionally small – an average of twelve students – so that friendships have room to form and dorm parents and affiliates come to know each student well.

Learning to Live with Others

Will '27 remembered his first days at Proctor through the people around him. "The main thing I remember from my first few days at Proctor was hanging out in the dorm," he said. "The first few nights were super fun, and I enjoyed getting to know the kids in my dorm." His advice was to start early and meet everyone. "The earlier you start to hang out and talk with different people, the sooner you will find out what kids you want to be around," he reflected.

Building on the natural foundation of small-dorm living, Proctor’s residential curriculum runs throughout the school year and is driven by student Dorm Leaders who facilitate regular meetings and theme-based activities. Last year, students explored gratitude through letter writing and dorm and community-wide "shout-outs." At the end of the spring, they reflected on the year through "snowball fights," writing down thoughts, crumpling them up, tossing them across the room, and reading them aloud. 

Hadley describes what she loves most about being a part of dorm leadership: "I love being there for the girls in my dorm when they just need a little bit of extra support," she said. "It is so fun watching people thrive and come into their own as they grow as individuals in the Proctor dorms."

Sharing a Room

Working through a roommate challenge is often a student's first practice at sorting out a difficult relationship on their own. Roommate pairings are made thoughtfully – our Admissions and Deans teams consider students' interests and living habits before making assignments. Students then work through issues independently, learning to compromise and to advocate for themselves. And when a student needs support, dorm parents, advisors, class deans, and the counseling, and health and well-being teams are all available. 

Many students live with different people over four years, and some move into a single after a year or two. No single version of a successful residential experience exists.

Hadley advised withholding judgment. "Give everyone a second chance!" she said. "Everyone is learning and growing." Teenagers change quickly. The person a student meets in September may be very different by spring, and the roommate who initially seems like a poor match may become someone they come to understand. Much of what makes relationships between roommates successful, and a room feel like home, comes from simply spending time and being present with each other. "Something my roommate and I did to make our dorm feel like a home away from home is keeping it clean and decorating it together," Hadley said.

What Students Remember

In an open letter to students, Assistant Head of School Annie MacKenzie asked them to picture their favorite Proctor memories – a desert sunrise on Mountain Classroom, celebrating a goal under the lights with the entire school, or playing hacky sack on the turf with friends during the moments in between commitments. What those moments have in common, she wrote, is that phones are not present. Many of these moments occur in dormitory and community spaces.

On a warm evening in September, a dorm might have a grill going, music coming from a speaker propped in a window, and a lawn game underway in the grass out front. Students wander out of the common room to eat and wander back in. Other friend groups – made up of day and boarding students – might stop by to join in. Field Day pits dorm pods against one another, and students build freestyle jumps and homemade rails on Burbank Hill. There are movie nights and dance parties, holiday decorating and gingerbread house contests, grocery runs, trips to Tucker's, and late-night McDonald's runs where dorm groups inevitably run into each other, twenty minutes from campus

Prospective families picturing an independent school experience do not always imagine these little, everyday moments of boarding school life. For students, they are a different kind of learning, and no less important than what happens in a classroom. Asked what she will miss most when she graduates, Hadley named "all the fun laughs and silly games." Her favorite memory over four years comes from the first day of classes her junior fall. "All the girls in Sally B got together, and we made pancakes out on the porch and then passed the pancakes out to everybody," she said. "It was a great moment to be with friends and strengthen the community." 

Learn more about Residential Life at Proctor!