Phillips Exeter Academy

The pressure that my sister felt to be somebody inauthentic, to continuously uphold the standards she somehow managed to unintentionally set up for herself, to excel in academics while simultaneously balancing her extracurriculars and her relations with friends and faculty, broke her confidence. I still remember being convinced that by my sister’s junior year, when I myself was in the 7th grade, I had lost my real sister forever. While Shay now denies that she was actually suffering from depression during that year, at the time I believed otherwise. I had looked up her symptoms online—happy some days but upset on others, random spurts of anger, constantly feeling alone, unwilling to get out of her room, random crying, lots of sadness—and depression was one of the first issues to pop up. 

 

When we talked about it later, my sister shared with me how much the pressures to do well and be respected at Exeter got to her head, but more than that, how much she missed home. She started to feel that same sense of love and admiration that she received at home slowly beginning to fade away as she grew further apart from her friends. She was angry. And sad. And most significantly, she felt alone. She couldn’t express her feelings of vulnerability to her peers at school without risking her chill, easy-going, always lovable reputation, which prompted her to bottle up those emotions. And she unsuccessfully managed to release those feelings to her family through an encoded cry for help. It was just unfortunate that we weren’t able to decipher exactly what she was experiencing. But present-day Shay attributes those emotions not to depression, rather to being an adolescent, convinced that the pressures to excel academically were actually not her downfall, rather her saving grace as she focused all of her time and energy into her classes to distract herself from that sense of aloneness tugging away at her happiness. And Shay’s academic success during her junior year finally transferred back into her spirit, eventually pushing her out of the spiral.

 

At the time, however, I was confused by her change in persona, worried that it was permanent, and convinced that it was the institution's fault. I was convinced that Exeter had corrupted her, that the school stripped away her bubbly, happy personality and left me with a sister who was constantly sad or angry, mad at my parents, mad at me, mad at her friends, upset with anyone who seemed to care. And given the school’s track record for the number of students experiencing a variety of mental health issues, I wasn’t entirely wrong. As I’d learn during my own four years, the academic, social, and political culture at Exeter was notoriously known by its students to be toxic, severely pressuring students to think, behave, and participate in certain ways or risk being ostracized or considered an outcast. Risk being looked at as incapable or unintelligent if they consistently performed anything less than an “A” in grade-standards, which was something I knew my sister feared. I didn’t know how depression worked—and never having gone through it myself, I still can’t say I know for certain—but I assumed she had it. And I didn’t understand what she was experiencing and why she felt so alone, but I missed her. I was convinced that this was the new her and that I had lost my real sister forever. And I was more worried than ever that the same would happen to me if I attended boarding school as well. 

 

In the back of my head, though, I knew I couldn’t leave my life in the shadows so easily. Because once my sister left, I couldn’t help but assume that it was only a matter of time before I left too. While I enjoyed my time at St. Martin’s, the school was an hour (sometimes longer depending on traffic) drive away from my home, making it difficult for me to easily participate in school-sanctioned activities or spend time simply hanging with my friends. And while I longed to stay at home, the schools close by just simply weren’t as good as where I already was, so it was either St. Martin’s or out of state. But Phillips Exeter Academy was never my first choice for a boarding school. It seemed tough, and there were other preparatory schools, like Milton Academy, that were smaller, cozier, and closer to the city. I always wanted to be a city girl. I wasn’t interested in a challenge, rather I was looking for a change—a fun, exciting one where I had enough freedom to actually spend time with my friends or explore different places, where I wasn't stuck at home on the weekends because I lived too far to go anywhere else. In reality, however, the decision wasn’t in my hands, rather in my parents’—the official gatekeepers to my educational and financial well-being—and in the universe’s, which ultimately blessed me with admission into the academy despite my intentionally lackadaisical efforts in the application process. 

 

Moreover, by that summer, my sister seemed to get back to her positive, happy, childlike self again. And after that it was hard to clearly remember the more sullen and distressed version of her. Once she was back, the rest of us simply moved forward. By her senior year everything felt normal, and when it came time for me to consider attending boarding school, my parents still encouraged me to apply, convinced that the educational experience was impassable and that whatever my sister had experienced a year prior was unconventional, a simple glitch in the system, a temporary sense of loneliness that could easily be remedied by a quick visit from the parents or a quick weekend trip back home. I was swayed by their rationale, but told them that if I got into another school, like Milton, I would go there instead. Still, my parents insisted that I apply to Exeter to “keep my options open.” And when I got in, there was no question of whether or not Exeter, the most elite of the boarding schools in the U.S, the best of the best, was the place that I’d go—it was definite. 

 

My parents and I have never been able to see eye to eye. And while at this time in my life they’ve blessed me with so many uncountable opportunities to pursue what I want however I want it, when I was younger things were different, and rightly so. Because when I was still merely in middle school, I didn’t have the same opportunities to prove myself, and my parents simply didn’t have the reasons they needed to trust in my capability of making the best decisions. I’m glad they didn’t because if it were up to me, I probably wouldn’t have gone to Exeter, and potentially wouldn't have grown up to be the same driven and ambitious person that I am today.

 

Years later when I asked my parents why they still insisted on sending my brother and me to P.E.A., even after observing some of the ways in which my sister struggled, they responded that each of us were different and therefore, each of our experiences were bound to be different. There was no point in assuming that the ways in which my sister failed and succeeded at Exeter would be identical to my own ups and downs at the institution, despite my youthful efforts to be just like her. They weren’t completely right nor were they entirely wrong. But their confidence in my abilities to excel in such an environment is something I continue to be grateful for, despite the challenges that were yet to come. Soon enough it was my turn to attend the great elite Phillips Exeter Academy full of class-toppers and Mark Zuckerberg wannabes, my turn to jump into a newer reality—a truer reality—and experience the place that would inaugurate my own journey of growth, my turn to call Exeter my home.