what's it like to attend
Phillips Exeter Academy
a journey through boarding school, a story of growth, a promise to myself
PART II
the heart and core
Me posing in front of Stillwells, the best ice cream store in the whole world, followed by me eating said ice cream alongside my brother
One of the first things that became apparent to me during my time at the academy was that the school was much more liberal and diverse than I had ever been accustomed to, living in a small rural town in Louisiana and attending a small private, predominantly-white school in New Orleans. And this realization came to light when my dorm head introduced her partner to me and her partner was another woman. Prior to Mrs. L, I had never met someone who openly identified as gay, and although I didn’t feel discomfort, I can’t deny that I was thrown off. Moreover, my roommate was Nigerian, and although I was the only South Indian in my dorm, many of my floormates were Asian. While the campus population was and is still predominately cis-white, in comparison to what I was used to back home, Exeter initially felt like a sea of diversity, and for the first few hours, especially, I felt a sort of culture shock, a sense of disorientation as I attempted to adjust to this new reality with people from different backgrounds holding different identities than what I was previously accustomed to. But such feelings were short lived as a sense of normalcy started to kick in, and I began to officially unpack. And within a day, as I started to talk more freely with my roommate, M, the more I realized that we had a lot in common. We were both middle children with an older sister and younger brother, both taking Latin and pursuing the Classics diploma, both obsessed with bad drama TV shows like the Vampire Diaries, and both filled with jittered excitement about our next four years. It had only been a day, but I had found my best friend. And the more I got to know my other dormmates, the more I began to realize that I had found my family.
Hoyt was an old dorm established in 1903 before women were allowed to study at the institution. It was converted into one of the first two all girls dorms on campus in 1971, and by the look of it, with its brittle brick walls, chipped paint, and worn staircase so steep that I had to catch my breath after every flight, the dorm felt like it hadn’t been renovated since 1971 either. Moreover, as I’d learn early on, the common room for the dorm was the smallest of any other dorm or house on campus, and as a general opinion, was one of the most lousy and distasteful ones as well. It was located in a basement, had minimal kitchen amenities, and was severely lacking in fridge space. It barely had enough space to fit all the freshmen and their parents during the initial meet and greet for parents and dorm faculty. How we managed to fit all forty girls into that space during regular dorm meetings, I still wonder. But the dorm quickly became my home and the girls my family, for the next four years.
When I first arrived on campus grounds as an incoming freshman—or “prep” as they liked to call us—I was immediately met with a warm introduction from my dorm proctors, who essentially served as the dorm R.As (residential advisors). All of them were seniors and all of them were kind, welcoming, and extremely helpful as they were willing to lug my many suitcases up the many rugged and steep steps all the way to the fourth floor where my room was located. As I’d come to learn during my own time as proctor, their voluntary efforts to help with my luggage was a part of the job description, but their willingness to make me feel welcome was genuine. I immediately felt at ease. The girls in the dorm were quirky, intelligent, witty, and wonderful. Growing up I always felt like the one person who didn’t quite fit, judged for my lack of experiences and exposure, different because of my skin. In fact, as I’d soon come to learn, the feeling of being an outsider continued to plague me throughout my time at Exeter. Although I got into the academy, I never felt like I belonged, partly because my sister attended before me, qualifying me as a “legacy kid,” and partly because I struggled to keep up. I was just at the cusp of being enough, never completely terrible at anything I pursued—except for perhaps, Math—but never great at anything I attempted either. I never fully mixed in with the Hip Hop dance crew, never truly belonged on the Rowing team. I never really established a sound presence in any of my classes, never performed amazingly on any of my papers. But perhaps when I most felt like an imposter was through my failed efforts to qualify as a Classics fanatic, despite my commitment to learning Latin and Ancient Greek, and my time abroad in Rome studying historical Roman civilization. Imposter syndrome is very much a real phenomenon, and at that school I was consumed by it.
In my dorm, however, I fit right in. We were all quirky in a sense, but when everyone is weird together, it suddenly becomes the new norm. Soon enough, we’d be spending so much of our time together, staying up until 3 or 4 am in the common area or someone’s room and discussing anything from classes, to our lives back home, to more philosophical discussions on life and why society is the way it is. There’d be late nights in—watching movies, playing card games or partaking in “dorm wrestling”—and there’d be evenings out—going to the bowling alley, getting food at a sit-down restaurant, or even attending a haunted house. Almost every single week, I'd guilt one of my dormmates to join me on a trip to my favorite ice cream store down the street under the guise of feeling extremely sad and needing comfort food or feeling happy and in desire of celebration. And on cold winter Sunday mornings, my dorm head, Mrs. L, would often invite us into her humble home (a two-floor apartment attached to the side of the dorm) for some homemade brunch or tea and cookies—she was really like our dorm parent. Even during exam season we’d often be crowding each other's rooms with our stacks of books and wads of paper, because studying with each other (even if it led to way more distractions) was often much better than enduring the stress alone.
My favorite part of dorm life was the end of the year tradition of hosting a dorm talent show followed by a farewell to seniors celebration. We’d book the church basement (as our common room was much too small) for extra space, thrown on some tunes, munch on some food, and spend the night dancing and laughing and discussing what we love the most about each of our seniors and what we’d miss the most. At midnight we’d walk upstairs and stand outside to join the rest of the school in the end-of-term midnight scream fest, where when the clock struck 12 am, everyone would shout as loudly as they could out their dorm windows to symbolically—and literally—release their tensions and woes from the past term. The screams often lasted two to three minutes—a span of time that was short yet most certainly disturbing for the rest of the town—but one that filled me with so much joy, not only because I felt temporarily liberated from the stress of school, but also because it was when I felt the closest to my dorm and to the rest of the Exeter community. It was an incredible experience. And after that, my dormmates and I would try to stay up the whole night until 5 am when the dorm doors officially opened. And as soon as we could escape, we’d join other students on the 20 minute walk to Dunkin Donuts, trying to race each other in order to avoid falling toward the very back of the long line that would soon form in front of the donut shop’s doors. Why this tradition started, I have no idea, but we’d always love to joke about how much business that Dunkin Donuts would get from our school in order to make ourselves feel a bit better for bombarding its workers so early in the morning.
It was truly the best of times, one of the moments that made all the stress and pressure and loneliness that tormented Exeter students feel a bit more worth it. The end-of-the-year traditions are my most cherished memories with my dorm specifically, mostly because it was the longest span of time I could spend with all of the girls—and Hoyt affiliated faculty—without the thought of actual school. Because even the comfort of my dorm and friends couldn’t harbor me from the shattering of my confidence as the realities that came with growing up in a high-pressure, high-rigor institutional environment far away from home eventually came to life.
Taken on the annual end-of-the-year 5am Dunkin Donut my junior year
"Imposter syndrome is very much a real phenomenon, and at that school I was consumed by it."
One of Exeter’s biggest point’s of praise—and one of it’s biggest factors of stress in my own experience—is the academy’s coveted Harkness Method of teaching. The method incorporated round-table discussion that was predominantly led by the students in the room rather than the teacher, who primarily acted as the facilitator to ensure that students were staying on track and that the discussion continued to flow. This meant that every single classroom in the school, including in the science and math departments, had some manner of a round or oval-shaped wooden table with about 12-14 chairs surrounding it and slide out “desks” (which were simply slabs of flat wood that slid out from all around the end of the table) that were utilized during examination periods.
I still remember sitting in a lecture style room on the 3rd floor of the Phelps Academy Center (now renamed Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center), where we attended our first orientation session for the Harkness Method. There, us preps learned in more detail what the Harkness Method entailed and intently observed a practice discussion put on by a few uppers (as they called juniors at Exeter) and seniors. If I recall correctly, they were discussing a poem by Emily Dickinson. I was in awe. It was like a game—finding the perfect rhythm of dialogue flow and the perfect balance in each student’s engagement with the material as it was analyzed and explored. In every student’s face I could see their intense efforts to listen carefully to what was being said as they jotted down their own points to bring up in response. Most notable was the fact that no one raised hands. The commentary just bounced from student to student. How each student knew when to speak, how much to say, what questions to ask, when to press another student to dig deeper, when to step back, and how to formulate their thoughts succinctly without using “likes” and “ums,” did not fail to strike my attention. Indeed, while the discussion itself was not practiced prior to the performance, the students were somewhat performing nonetheless. Yet, I assumed that such natural eloquence and grace during a discussion was a talent, and that these students in particular were most likely called upon or volunteered themselves because of their natural inclination for Harkness. That was the first moment I felt a piece of my confidence, of my sense of belonging in this institution, crack.
To me the Harkness method appeared most incredible as an observer, as someone who didn’t feel the need or desire to input her voice into the conversation, but enjoyed listening to how intelligent and articulate her classmates’ thoughts and points were. However, I wasn’t just an observer in the room, I was the student. I was that classmate that was required to speak (for participation accounted for 40-60% of almost every course’s entire grade), and to engage “actively” in the discussion, which unfortunately, did not include the practice of active listening. And being the actual student who did the actual speaking was rough. At least for me it was. Mostly because I felt so inadequate in my public speaking skills and in my own analytical skills in comparison to the rest of my peers. And also because it was extremely stressful to be able to articulate my own intelligent and well-spoken sentences about a reading I never really understood while knowing that whatever I said would be analyzed, critiqued, and potentially shamed in an intensely thorough manner by my peers. Or even my teacher. Perhaps my willingness to engage in class discussion would have been greater had I felt more confident that I could express my thoughts or ask my questions without the potential for judgement or backlash. But that wasn’t my reality, and I’m skeptical that such an environment could ever exist in a class full of students who are all constantly trying to be the most intelligent and sound the most articulate in the room.
However, my reluctance to speak up still forced a reputation on me that I felt ashamed of, one of ignorance and stupidity, drawing me even deeper into the void of insecurity and inadequacy. I wasn’t just quiet, I was unintelligent, the one who simply “didn’t get it,” so much so that in a freshman history course peer review assignment, the classmate I was partnered with asked if he could subtly join another group because I wouldn’t be helpful or sufficient in my assessment of his essay—except his words were much less polite. And that moment left a bruise, and led to my first bout of resentment toward the prestigious learning method that did not allow for me to showcase my own intelligence, rather left me questioning whether or not I actually did belong at this “elite” academy.
Nevertheless, after experiencing college courses where the discussions were teacher-oriented rather than student-led, and barely scratched the surface of the content being analyzed, I began to retrospectively understand just how incredible the Harkness method really was, and have now grown a newfound appreciation for it despite my own experiences. Looking back, it was phenomenal to witness such young kids articulate such wise words and create such sophisticated connections so incredibly easily. It was beautiful.
Yet, it was also incredibly intimidating, frustrating, and exhausting. And during my sophomore winter term, as I continuously failed to speak up in my Modern India History class and my teacher continuously failed to help me (rather added the extra burden of her own disappointment and indifference) I questioned if Harkness was for me. And as I continuously received Cs or B-s on my papers, I came to accept that it wasn’t. While my sister’s confidence was somewhat hindered by the pressure to work as hard as possible to continue to uphold the high standards and level of respect others held for her, my confidence was stunted by a mindset that consented to accepting mediocrity. I wasn’t the worst, but I certainly wasn’t the best. And if I wasn’t the best, I was essentially irrelevant—that's what it felt like at least. At the same time I knew I could have tried harder. As the teachers insisted, I knew I could have spent time in office hours, or been more focused and taken more notes when I did my readings. I knew I could have stepped up if I wanted to. And I did want to. But I felt like other students had a natural inclination not only to the Harkness method of learning, but also to writing papers and excelling in exams, while I needed to put in three times the effort to catch up, time or energy that I didn't feel like I had. So I kept wondering what was the point? And coming to the conclusion that no amount of effort would ever be enough.
When my brother attended Phillips Exeter Academy, he too experienced a curb in his confidence and work ethic as the pressures of Harkness slowly stripped away his curiosity to learn and replaced it with fear and uncertainty. Unlike my sister and me, Sahith had a bit of a leg up in knowing what to expect not just at Exeter, but in boarding school in general. Because once Shay and I left home, my brother decided—and this time not due to my parents persuasion but out of his own sheer will—that he also wanted to leave our small town in Louisiana, and ended up attending Fessenden, an all boys boarding school in Massachusetts, from the 6th grade. So, because of this 3-year head start, he felt more ready than either of us for his shot at Exeter. Unfortunately, the first year he was waitlisted. But while this experience in itself bruised his confidence a bit, my brother gave it another shot and was admitted to attend beginning his sophomore year, and is now a senior on the brink of graduation.
When I spoke to my brother about his own experience with Harkness, he expressed a sentiment similar to mine. He too struggled in his history courses, he too felt that his teacher did not care enough to actually help him, and he too resorted to listening rather than speaking during the discussions. The first thing he told me when I asked him what his Exeter experience has been like thus far, was that “the school is just as hard as people say it is.” When I pressed him to share his feelings about how he fared in discussions, he told me there were some courses in which he spoke a total of two times the entire term, that his friends in the class would nag him afterwards about why he was so quiet and what grade he was getting in the class, that often times he’d lie about his grades because he felt ashamed. My brother has always been a private person, but his need to fudge the reality instead of simply refusing to disclose the truth threw me off guard. It was almost as if he wanted his classmates to consider him as intelligent. Or maybe he was just afraid of being treated as fully inept. My grades also suffered greatly because of my inability to participate in class discussions. But unlike Sahith, I thought it was easier being honest and playing into others’ expectations for me to be incompetent rather than trying to be considered intelligent and risking failure. Back then I often feared letting others down more than I did disappointing myself. My sister on the other hand, let the pressure to be deemed “smart” at the institution consume her and drive her into actually working as hard as she could for her grades. She mentioned how once in a chemistry course, when she received a D on the first test, rather than letting a low score discourage her, she instead met with her teacher, explained to him that this is not how she wanted to perform in his class, and worked with him to devise a plan to still end up with an A at the end of the term. And that’s exactly what she managed to do.
However, the pressure that the institution placed on its students to be exceptional failed to motivate my brother and me in the same ways. And because Sahith has yet to experience the college/university style of teaching and to learn outside of the Exeter bubble, he doesn’t yet share a mutual sense of awe and retrospective appreciation toward the learning method. Instead he nodded along in pretend agreement as I tried to defend Harkness, even though we both ultimately knew that despite its beauty and its benefits, this type of learning style just wasn’t our style and would never truly showcase any of our strengths. We were the same in that sense. Observers, interpreters, listeners...we were used to living in the shadows. But for me, that sense of “active listening” that I unsuccessfully attempted to employ as a valuable skill did not follow me beyond the classroom.
My brother on graduation day from Fessenden
"We were the same in that sense. Observers, interpreters, listeners...we were used to living in the shadows."
The next time I learned about depression was in my sophomore, or lower, year, when M somewhat half-jokingly admitted to me that she was experiencing it.
“M, are you depressed?” I asked.
She stopped folding her clothes and looked up at me with an awkward grimace as if she was caught in a lie. “Yea I think so?” she snickered awkwardly and then shrugged her shoulders. “It’s funny because I was just talking to my dad about maybe leaving here.” And she smirked while I joined her in an “ha, good one” kind of manner, yet confused about whether or not she was serious, and feeling heart-sunken nonetheless.
The weeks went by pretty quickly, and suddenly while I was packing up for winter break, M was packing up for the rest of the year. I couldn’t help but tear up as M gave me one last big hug. “This is only temporary, I’ll be back before you know it!”
“I’ll miss you so much, how will I survive here without you?” I sobbed into her shirt, unwilling to let go.
“I’ll miss you too. It will be okay. I’ll only be a text or call away. Don’t let the grind kill you,” she half joked. And then she left. There went my roommate and my best friend, on medical leave to take care of herself. It wouldn’t be until a year later that I’d get to see her again. And little did I know that by then, things would be completely different.
When my sister attended the academy, her roommate in her lower year also suffered from severe depression and eventually had to go on Medical leave as well so that she could spend some time recovering at home. And although not a roommate, my brother also knew a friend in his dorm during his lower year who was suffering from drug abuse and mental health issues, forcing him to go on a Medical Leave. It’s interesting how much my life at Exeter mirrored my siblings’. I wish I could say it was coincidence, and maybe these experiences occurring in our lower years in a way was. But the fact that all three of us were close to at least one person who had to go on Medical leave and many more who suffered silently spoke to a bigger institutional problem bred by the intensity and high-pressure nature of Exeter culture. While my sister attended the school at a time where concerns related to mental health were still not quite as vocalized, I experienced Exeter when such discussion was beginning to gain momentum. However, education around mental health and well-being was still lacking and so many people’s struggles continued to be unaddressed, minimized, or misunderstood.
When M left, one of my supposed friends told me it was my fault, that M was constantly comparing herself to me, that she grew disappointed and depressed with herself because I was doing better, that I wasn’t there for her enough, that if I had been more present in her life I would have noticed early on she was struggling. I was 15 years old. And that comment broke another piece of my confidence, except this time it wasn’t in terms of my abilities, it was in terms of my character. I never gathered the courage to ask her if this was true because I was afraid that to some extent it was. We were both so similar and interested in the same things. Yet somehow, I happened to be doing the slightest bit better academically. I had also been meeting other people through my classes and clubs, so I was out of the dorm more often. But I had assumed that M had her own friends, too. It was never my intention to grow apart.
It would be a whole year before M came back to school, my upper, or junior, winter. But her first term back we had to spend apart as I was completing that term abroad in Rome. However, we managed to finesse the dorm rooming situation so that when I came back, we’d still be roommates, just like freshman year. But things weren’t like freshman year, nor would they ever be. When M came back, I was under the false assumption that she had fully recovered from her depression. After witnessing the drastic change in my sister’s behavior during her own time at Exeter, when she fell apart her upper year yet managed to find her way back to her normalcy that following summer, I had assumed the same would happen for M. Clearly, I myself was misinformed about the workings of depression, because I figured that simply spending time away from the pressure of school was enough to “fix” her. In reality, M just became more open about her experiences, yet was still in the process of recovering. And this new level of comfort allowed her to speak more casually about her thoughts and feelings and struggles, which wasn’t something a lot of people did at that school, and wasn’t something I was used to. Her casualness threw me off guard and her sadness scared me. Honestly, it angered me. I missed how things used to be and my inability to be there for her while managing my own academics and personal problems felt stressful and suffocating. Instead of supporting her I grew frustrated with her. When I found out that she missed classes I yelled at her and when she told me she was trying, I wanted to scream at her to try harder, but chose to ignore her instead. We grew distant, didn’t speak as much, and eventually she made the decision to withdraw from the academy all together.
Overtime, we managed to rekindle our friendship and still keep in touch today. But back then I was bogged down by shame for how I failed to support her while she was there and guilt for how I felt a bit of relief when she was gone. I remember writing about this in one of my application essays for college, when asked to discuss a time I failed. When M left, I felt like I had failed as a roommate, and more importantly as a best friend. I prioritized my own needs above hers and I let my pride overtake my patience.
If I could do it all over again, however, I don’t know what I’d do differently. Balancing the stresses of academics and extracurriculars with being there for those who need you was difficult then and is still difficult now. Looking after someone else, no matter how much you want to, can be taxing and time consuming. And at Exeter, I couldn’t use “taking care of my friend” as an excuse to not finish my homework or skip class, I couldn’t skimp on my homework without risking a huge deduction in my participation grade, and I couldn’t skip more than three classes an entire term without suffering from either academic penalties or daily life restrictions, like being unable to participate in extracurricular or dorm activities. I wasn’t given much freedom of choice. And the line for what really mattered began to blur, especially since my parents were primarily paying for me to attend Exeter for the academics. I didn’t want to completely let them down. So I have to remind myself that I was still a kid when this took place, that I was still learning to balance my own stressors, still figuring out how to be there for myself, still trying to gain back all the confidence I had also lost.
When M initially left, lower year suddenly became a game, a time to figure out how to navigate the stressful Exeter environment without my best friend. Fortunately, I had a group of people to fall back on. Prep Spring I had started to become close to the South Asian community on campus and by lower winter we had formed our own squad. We called ourselves the Brown club. And while a few of us attempted to create our own radio show prep year, it quickly fell apart when one of our co hosts had graduated. But lower year B and I (two of the original hosts) brought it back and MC, my childhood friend who joined me that year at the academy, became our third host. We called ourselves the 3 Cups of Chai and used our platform to play Indian music while including descriptions of and opinions on the different songs we chose to feature. I remember how legitimate it felt to be in the tiny studio wedged into the corner of the Academy Center basement, sporting a big pair of headphones and speaking into a very official mic about something I loved. While we weren’t the most naturally gifted radio show hosts, we had a good number of listeners. Some were family and friends. And some were other students who were just curious about different cultures and music.
The show was one of the first ways I began to feel proud of my culture rather than ashamed. People at this institution were not quick to judge or call me or my brownness exotic. Rather, people here were interested in learning more. At least that’s what I liked to believe. Bollywood nights where we played an Indian movie and served an Indian dinner were famous at our school. And many students actually cared about knowing where my family was from. I felt like I was respected—at least by those who mattered to me. Growing up in rural Louisiana, I never really had the option of feeling that way because the most that people knew about my Indian heritage was that I was not white and that I was different. When it came to sharing aspects of my culture with classmates for World Day, my food was mocked and my clothes were critiqued. I always wanted to hide any part of myself that screamed I was “other”. But you can only do so much when your skin color is enough to distinguish you from the rest.
At Exeter I stood out too. But I felt proud about it. I felt unique. Like I had a special something that other people would never really understand. I was one of a few Indians at my school and one of an even smaller group of people who chose to embrace their culture rather than shame it. I quickly joined and eventually became the co-president of Hindu Society, Subcontinent Society, and Shakti, the Bollywood dance group on campus. That club was my favorite safe space at the school, and the biggest reason I appreciated my sister attending the academy before me. Although the dance club existed before her time at Exeter, it quickly faded away until she came back, re-found it, and rekindled the energy it brought to our campus. I quickly became her successor when I first came to the school, as everyone presumed and even insisted that I’d take her place as president. I was never confident in my own dancing abilities much less my choreography skills, so I made sure to always have a co-director. I was used to depending on people.
Soon, my original partners graduated, and when MC joined, she took their place. We would spend so much of our time locked away in the dance studio figuring out new routines and formations for the fall and winter dance showcases each year. I have never considered myself to be as graceful as a dancer or as natural as a choreographer as my sister, but I enjoyed my attempts to reach her potential nonetheless. And I made the club my own, by pushing my friends to be part of it and even persuading a few boys to join—the arts was mainly a female dominated space. Eventually, MC and I decided to do duet performances with just each other for other cultural events on campus as we often liked to experiment with more advanced choreography. I remember the many Saturdays we spent holed up in the battered studio tucked away in the cold basement of our gym, with odd cylindrical poles randomly placed throughout the room that would frustrate us to no end for their inconvenient spacing. That old studio has now been demolished, with a new one in its place, but the memories from it are everlasting. Dance had always felt somewhat obligatory growing up, done as another way to “twin” with my sister and eventually continued for the purpose of socializing with my friends rather than for the actual performances or experience. But at Exeter, it was my saving grace.
MC was my other saving grace. While we’ve known each other since birth because of our parents’ friendship, she and I were personally never close until high school. MC was a simple, sweet, and quiet girl, a year younger than me and much smaller than me. I didn’t know what it would be like when she came to Exeter but I never expected us to become best friends. But I felt like it was my personal responsibility to make sure she felt welcomed and comfortable. In retrospect, I think I had some subconscious desire to take someone under my own wing, to have someone look up to me, appreciate me, respect me, be like me. Little did I know that I’d instead grow to depend on her much more. She didn’t live in my dorm with me but fate had it so that she was situated in the one right across. I quickly introduced her to the “brown club” as we officially named ourselves, and she quickly became interwoven into almost everything I did.
But the very person who told me I had been the demise of my roommate’s mental health also told me that MC was the 2.0 version of me. In retrospect, I am much more aware that this person was manipulative and toxic, but at the time, I trusted her opinions, and her words always managed to stick, gnawing more and more at the few pieces of confidence I had left. MC was cute, she was skinny, she was smart, she was funny. She had a strong connection to my friends and even stronger connections to many of her own. She fit right into the Exonian culture, yet she also managed to stand out. Most of the time, I felt like I was only good at the latter. MC was beautiful and talented, and more significantly, she was loved. So again, the insecurities seeped in and the confidence I was working hard to re-fabricate started to unravel. I suddenly felt stuck in her shadow and knew I had to work even harder to claw my way back to the visible world. Nevertheless, I admired her and felt proud to be her best friend. And throughout the rest of my years there, our friendship only grew stronger.
Along with my newfound connection to the Indian community on campus, when M left, I started to open up to more and more people in my dorm. It was never that M held me back, rather I felt so comfortable and dependent on her friendship that I never really took the time to get to know others more personally, especially D. D, M, and I were a known trio in Hoyt, but M always seemed to connect to D in a way that I couldn’t. D and I were good friends since freshman year, but I wasn’t able to develop a trusting friendship with her until much later. She was smart, educated, and most significantly, she was “woke,” aware of the racial and class level injustices that still prevailed in our society. It was a term that was just gaining momentum during my time at Exeter, and one that I wasn’t able to honestly resonate with, primarily because I still had so much to learn.
While the immediate distinction between us was race—D was of Haitian descent and therefore, identified as Black—I think the more apparent difference for me was class. Both my parents were doctors with their own practice in a rural Louisiana town. Until I came to Exeter, I never really understood the extent of my parents wealth nor did I have to reconcile with how my family background blessed me with a kind of privilege I didn’t know I had. The abilities to pay full tuition, to attend summer camps, to receive paid tutoring for SAT/ACT prep, were not as wide-ranging as I had previously assumed. And while D (as well as many others in my dorm and around campus) always enjoyed conversing about the absurdity of our society’s dependency on wealth, status, privilege, and the manners in which institutional oppression exists on so many levels, I never knew how to respond since, due to my family’s socioeconomic status, I belonged to the very part of society that she was calling out. But once I began to recognize my own privilege, and empathize with others’ reality, I developed a new sense of trust, and therefore, a new kind of bond with D, a connection that has continued to persist to this day. But discovering new friendships and rekindling old after M left wasn’t enough to build back the pieces of my confidence I had long lost during my prep and lower years of Exeter. Because lower summer was when the murkier side of Exeter, and the darker reality of the world began to emerge, shattering the bubble I was apparently existing in.
When M first left I I found a way to fill the gaping hole in my life by getting closer to my dorm and my culture, and I felt that part of me that was breaking, slowly starting to repair itself. However, my mom didn’t seem convinced and insisted that I attend a two-week personal development camp at Stanford in the summer to help me rebuild my confidence. It’s hard to decipher just how impactful the camp was though, because on the day that it finished, I found out some news that broke me in a way I didn’t know was possible. I remember being at the LAX airport scrolling through my phone while walking into line to go through security when I saw an email from my school principal stating that my classmate, P, had passed away. I found out from my peers that she had committed suicide. Hung herself.
P was in my freshman fall drawing class and the first thought I had when I saw her work was, “Dang, she can draw.” But instead of admiration, I felt envy. Where I came from, I didn’t know a lot of other brown people, let alone people who were focused on their artistic skills. And so I had the bliss of feeling as if I were one of the special ones, where my only real competition was my sister. It was not a great mindset to have, but growing up with a sister who seemed to be able to do everything and do it well while being respected, appreciated, loved, and even worshipped by everyone else I knew while I hid in her shadow, made it easy for jealousy to seep into my mind and corrupt my thoughts. But I did what I could to stand out. And yet, here was this girl, also Indian, who was fashionable, artistic, intelligent, and sociable. I immediately felt my heart sink and my mind burn. I was discouraged and angry. But I was also very curious. About where she was from, what she wanted to study, why she came to Exeter, and how she was so impressive.
A few weeks later I remember when I had my first genuine conversation with P. We were sitting on the cold steps that led into the locker rooms of our concrete school gym, trying to pass the time in order to avoid whatever uninteresting activity we were subjected to endure as part of our prep sports requirement. While the exact reasoning for why we decided to sit on those steps together is hazy, I remember a part of our conversation rather well. It was the moment when I realized that P was one of the sweetest girls I knew. The moment where her warmth and grace felt comforting and any envy that corrupted my mind quickly dissipated into admiration. I remember asking her how she seamlessly made so many friends, how she managed to always smile so big and to excel so well, while all I could do was long for more friendship and flounder my way through my classes, simply hoping I would pass. And she told me she struggled too, that it was part of the experience, that we all left our homes and that everyone was figuring out how to navigate this school together. And then she assured me that I was going to be okay, that I didn’t have to feel pressured to drink or participate in the hookup culture that so heavily infested our school as students craved the intimate attention of someone else yet lacked the time to let it morph into something more meaningful. She wasn’t a fan of it either. So that freshman fall, I found my idol. I wanted to be just like her in the same ways that I tried so hard to be just like my sister. I looked up to her and I began to depend on her—something I found myself doing frequently with a lot of the strong and capable women I met in my life.
But in the course of time, P gained a reputation in my grade and eventually in my school. The radical feminist. She would sport around a bright pink double breasted knee-length wool coat and bold make-up everywhere she went, and she made sure her voice was dominant in class discussions. In the classes I had with her, she was a Harkness Warrior, an Exeter-coined nickname given to those students who overtly dominate class discussions without leaving much room for those of us who were quieter to jump in. She started a feminist club on our campus, which wasn’t simply an organization but a whole new movement. One that wasn’t yet normalized and only started to become more relevant amongst my generation during my years in college. In high school, feminism still didn’t make sense to me or to many other students, especially the boys. And so I steered clear, not really recognizing the true value behind her outspokenness, but morphing into the crowd because it was much easier than risking contempt for being different. But while we prided ourselves on being a liberal and open and accepting academy, the feminist movement was still very much controversial. And therefore, it was still very much not welcomed.
P was constantly mocked and ridiculed. By her classmates, by her peers, even by some teachers. I remember being in her lower winter English class where my teacher literally sighed a breath of relief (which he weakly attempted to cover up as a joke) when she was absent from discussion one day. But I never knew to the extent that the bullying persisted. At the same time a new app called Yik Yak came into the social media sphere to provide an anonymous platform to foster community and connection amongst college students, but instead turned into an easy space for bullying, hate speech and even violent threats. Why such an app was created is above me—online anonymous platforms are a recipe for hate and aggression—but it became quite popular on our campus. I refused to download it no matter how much curiosity badgered me on what was being said about whom, but that didn’t stop most of my friends or classmates. I remember hearing about one of my classmates getting bullied for his weight and another for his stutter, but what I didn’t hear about until much later on was that P was getting harassed too. While I’m unclear of what exactly was said of her or whether or not her reputation as a feminist was a point of ridicule, people told me that the app itself played a huge role in her death.
That day at the airport, when I learned the news of her passing, I remember running into the bathroom and locking myself into one of the corner stalls, crying uncontrollably yet trying to pinpoint a reason for my outburst. I knew I wasn’t close to P. What little connection we had freshman year dissipated with her transition towards an objectively better version of herself and my transition into a worse version of me. But I remember going home so angry and upset. Obsessed with reading her Facebook feed that was swarming with messages and wall posts from so many people paying their respects. I remember posting something myself. I felt guilty doing so because I didn’t know her very well, but I also felt obligated. In a sense I felt responsible for her death. I was one of her bullies—maybe not directly—but my silence and my judgement was enough to play a part.
Bullying felt different on this campus. It felt more personal. It was bolstered by political backlash. We weren’t kids, we were harsh critics. And we were trapped together on a campus that suddenly felt too small and too suffocating. I didn't feel that sense of togetherness P once told me about. I felt more alone than ever. And loneliness, too, hit differently at this school. But I was one of the luckier ones. My dorm became my home away from home and my dormmates became my second family. And I was fortunate enough to have been placed in a dorm that I felt like I belonged in. Others, including my sister herself, weren’t so lucky. While Shay too retrospectively loved her dorm, she had also experienced a lot of her own personal bullying. I wasn’t the only one jealous of my sister—many of her friends and peers were too. And they showed it not through admirable love, but by shaming her in whatever way they could. Calling her fat if she ate a lot of snacks one night, talking about her behind her back, judging her grades, judging her life decisions.
Yet, when I asked her about how that impacted her own mental health, she attributed her feelings to age. “We were all just angsty teenagers. I don’t think I ever became legitimately depressed at that school. I was just dealing with my emotions like any adolescent would.” And to an extent she was right. We were still young. We were still growing, still learning how to cope, still learning how to respect and treat each other as well as ourselves right.
But that is also the very root of the problem. So many people, who are too young to be experiencing these emotions while separated from their families and loved ones, are constantly feeding off of other people’s negative emotions. It was hard for anyone to be there for you when they were struggling themselves—too stressed with their classes, too focused on their extracurriculars, too absorbed in their own social lives. Talking on the phone to my parents or my siblings or my best friend back home just wasn’t enough. I missed their warmth. I missed the comfort of my room, the familiarity of my home. Instead I would often find myself locking my dorm-room door, curling up in my bed and sobbing until I felt guilty for wasting too much time without completing the hours of homework I had left to do. While retrospectively, I’ve come to learn that Exeter isn’t the most difficult high school school socially or even academically, at that age—so separated from family and comfort—such an enclosed and removed environment felt claustrophobic and the negative energy that came with the academic and social pressure felt poisonous. I can’t say for sure that P was suffering from depression, nor will I ever truly know. But what I do know is that while she seemed to have endured the most painful parts of growing up, so much so that it became unbearable, I seemed to have been spared, rising from the aftermath of growth. Does that make me strong? Or was I just more fortunate?
"Bullying felt different on this campus. It felt more personal. It was bolstered by political backlash. We weren’t kids, we were harsh critics."
When I consider my sister’s and brother’s experience at Exeter in comparison to my own, one of the most significant factors that stands out to me is the emphasis of the academy’s culture on politics. Exeter isn’t just an academic campus. It’s a political one too. Many students, faculty, staff, and other outside observers would mutually agree that Phillips Exeter Academy is extremely liberal. It is also extremely shameful and toxic. Exeter tends to promote “call-out” culture over dialogue, which seemingly contradicts the very foundational teachings that Harkness—the most heavily emphasized component of the academy—promotes. All three of us agree that our time at Exeter was filled with constant conversation on the happenings of the world, and all three of us also agreed that not knowing about such happenings led to humiliation and not agreeing with the majority liberal community’s beliefs about such happenings led to ostracization.
What’s more interesting is to see how this extreme political culture shifted throughout each of our time there. While my sister’s generation seemed to be at the edge of many movements—of outwardly discussing mental health, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, recognizing the still existing forms of Black oppression—my time at the academy was filled with normalizing conversation amongst the youth about such social campaigns. When I attended the Exeter, the Black Lives Matter movement was getting into full swing, gay marriage became legalized, and the concept of Mental Health was becoming less stigmatized. More students were coming out as part of the queer community, and more people were intent on vocalizing their opinions regarding equity and justice. It was both empowering and overwhelming. The pressure to be well acquainted with social injustices seemed to rise more during my four years there, mimicking the social climate in the rest of the world. It became more and more expected for students to be aware of current news and controversial issues. Having an opinion on everything was a requirement to be socially accepted, something I continuously struggled with, having come into the institution with absolutely no sense of our country’s economic, social, or governmental politics as that was not expected of me in my old school.
More significantly, social media was more frequently becoming the center for new information. Someone in my class used Facebook to start the first Exeter exclusive anonymous page onto which anyone under the guise of ‘no one’ could comment anything they wanted regarding academy affairs or individuals at their own discretion. Presumably, such freedom came with dire consequences as many people used the page to aggressively attack the institution, assembly speakers, faculty, staff, and other students in whatever manner they desired, without recognizing the negative impact of their words. Exeter was where I began to truly understand that words could hurt, sometimes more than weapons. Words—especially words posted on a public forum for everyone to view at their leisure—felt more permanent. And soon, anonymous platforms for public discussion became the norm, not just in our school but in society. And the cost was not always hurt feelings or shattered confidences. At times, like in the case of P, the cost was life itself.
As a first year student at the academy, my brother felt scarred. While he himself identified as left-leaning, he knew he didn’t entirely agree with those who qualified as liberal extremists, and so my brother still worried about discussing any of his own social or political views for fear of being misjudged or demonized. When my brother attended the institution, Donald Trump was already president. And the school climate had shifted to a new level of toxic progressiveness. Sahith equated expressing his opinion to picking a fight. One of the most prominent memories of his lower year included the school-wide public shaming of a conservative-identifying student who had previously expressed his concerns in a school newspaper article of feeling unheard and uncomfortable because of his political beliefs. He was called out for his beliefs in an all-school assembly, commentary that was followed by lots of cheering and jeering.
“You never know when you’re going to be ambushed, when you’re going to sit down at a table in the dining hall with two friends, and suddenly experience them jump into a heated political discussion, viciously attacking all those in opposition to their views as ‘stupid capitalists pigs’, when you’ll feel isolated, knowing technically you’re one of those who slightly disagree,” he told me. “And campus is not that big, so sometimes, it can feel like there’s no escape.”
Politics are nuanced, but at Exeter they felt black and white. While the intensity of “talking politics” at Exeter was similar during my own time, there was a new level of confidence amongst students when my brother attended. He went on to describe the interesting power dynamics between students, teachers, and administrators. How when the students joined forces, they held all the power, how the shaming didn’t stop at other students but affected teachers as well. How when students organized sit-ins to protest the administration over their poor handling of sexual assault scandals, they went so far as to shame and harass the Principal of the academy to his face until he provided some answers. The civil discourse Exonians were taught to engage in within the classroom failed to translate to the reality outside academic halls and classroom bubbles. The very skills the academy primarily emphasized as necessary when creating “adults” did not seem relevant when navigating adult matters.
However, in a way, what he was describing made me feel proud. Now that I myself have become a bit more well-versed in hierarchies, power structures, and politics, I can understand how useful it can be for a group of individuals who are not officially in charge to be able to keep those actually in power, in check. The ability to mobilize a movement is crucial in advocating for and creating change. And the time for that change is most definitely now. I almost felt jealous for not having witnessed and partaken in these moments of history at Exeter, myself. Almost. But I also knew that throughout my college years I had the actual space and opportunity to better understand my own political and social views and form my own opinions. And while many of my beliefs align with what’s considered the liberal way of thinking, it is now a choice backed up by personal understanding, not an obligatory decision to avoid shame. At Exeter, it felt as if I was thrown into a whole new world, much like many people do when they enter college. In the most obvious sense, Exeter was a preview of college. It was considered a preparatory school for a reason. But in high-school, I personally do not believe I had the maturity necessary to experience “college” when I was 15 years old. And yet, I don’t believe I would have progressed in college in the same way without having the foundational insights and maturation that I gained at the boarding school either. Therefore, my Exeter experience and the academic, social, and political pressures that came with it, was essential in molding my current character, and in helping me navigate the challenges of the next four years.
Taken after Shay committed to Dartmouth and I committed to Exeter for the Fall of 2012
My sister’s absorption into the traditional Exeter culture differed from my brother’s and my own experience. Maybe her perseverance stemmed from her role as the oldest child, the first born, the one with all the pressure and the expectations. In a sense, it was easier for my brother and me to make mistakes. There was less attention on us, we were shadow-dwellers. And yet, all three of us struggled at Exeter in similar forms but managed to handle that struggle so differently. While my sister buried herself in her books, in her clubs, in her sports, in her need to be the best, and in the pressure to be loved, my brother found solace in spending time with his dormmates and friends, finding it unnecessary to discuss his grievances. I, on the other hand, needed to release my stress and did so by venting out all of my emotions, thoughts, and feelings to my closest friends.
My sister believes that she was a fighter during her Exeter career. I think she still is. Yet, while my brother’s and my lack of willpower negatively impacted our growth, my sister admitted that her competitive drive was at times toxic as well. Phillips Exeter attempts to breed miniature adults whose ultimate purpose is to get into an Ivy League school and make it big. Every grade, every activity, every leadership position is usually considered a resume booster, and every individual, friend or otherwise, was in some sense the enemy. And my sister fell into the trap. “I wanted to go to an Ivy league school, there was no doubt about it,” she said. “I’d work my ass off and if I didn't end up getting in, I would have be really disappointed in myself.”
I still remember hearing her crying into my dad’s phone when she found out she got waitlisted at Harvard. And when he tried comforting her by saying she still had Dartmouth, she only felt validated after learning that that college, too, was considered one of the Ivys. “Things felt good again. I could somehow package all of my high school years off and say it was for this reason...I don’t know why that was all people talked about, but that was just the toxic environment I was in,” she told me.
I wonder why no matter how much the academic and social pressure got to us, my siblings and I continued to push through. My sister simply didn’t quit, and even if I chose to accept mediocrity academically, I worked hard to excel in my extracurriculars. My brother also had the option to quit, to come home, to take a break, yet he persisted as well. Were we all fighters in a sense? Or, again, were we just lucky? Whatever the case, I’m starting to learn that in this way too my sister and I differed, because although I didn’t have her same fire to meet high standards for goals and grades, I never gave up. Instead I remained resilient, not only at Exeter but in college as well. And I’d like to think that my brother will too. Maybe that’s what happens when you're the younger sibling. The drive to fight harder isn’t as necessary as the ability to remain standing. But even still I can’t help but wonder how we developed that strength. I’ve heard from so many people that ‘growth is relative’. But how much of your growth depends on you and how much of it depends on everything around you? Your environment, your experiences, your interactions with other people, your support system, your well-being, your family, your family history, your trauma, your privilege?
Shay graduating from Dartmouth College. She told me it was the best four years of her life.
"Maybe that’s what happens when you're the younger sibling. The drive to fight harder isn’t as necessary as the ability to remain standing."
While the same level of toxicity persisted in my years at the academy, I actively chose to avoid it. I refused to even consider applying to an Ivy League school because I assumed I wouldn’t get in, and if I did, I was unwilling to subject myself to four more years of feeling less than and being over-consumed by getting stellar grades. I was looking for something different. Getting into the University of Michigan was easily one of the best days of my life. I still remember squealing and falling out of my chair as I saw the word, “Congratulations!” written out on my screen. My dormmate heard the thump and burst into my room asking if everything was alright.
“I got into my first choice college!” I yelled as I jumped into her arms. We stood in the third floor hallway jumping up and down in excitement as more girls opened their doors to peep at the commotion.
“Vennela got into college!” my dormmate yelled. And one by one people came flaunting out of their rooms from literally every floor of the old dorm building to join in the celebration and wish me congratulations. We were all jumping up and down so hard that I genuinely feared the flimsy, creaking floor would fall through. But while that moment itself was one for the memory books, I still remember going to the dining hall the next day to hear people congratulating seniors that got into Harvard and Columbia and Princeton while gossiping in hushed whispers about those who got rejected. Everyone else felt irrelevant. Initially, I was slightly disheartened. I knew UofM was many of my classmates’ safety school, so it was hard to feel personally proud or accomplished or validated in the way that my sister felt when she got accepted into Dartmouth. But I mostly felt relieved, excited at the thought of something new, something different. Little did I know that UofM carried its own culture of pride and the toxic curse of competitiveness.