Yearlong or Semester
Off-Campus Opportunities

Hotchkiss is affiliated with several off-campus programs that provide a blend of experiential learning with college preparatory classes. While offering students the courses that they need to complete their Hotchkiss studies, as well as access to standardized testing and college counseling, these programs provide distinctive experiences that are unavailable in Lakeville.

Although it is often hard for students and parents to think of spending time away from Hotchkiss, students report that these programs provide them with a fresh perspective and new skills and often greatly influence their options after graduation.

For more information on these programs, please contact the coordinator of off-campus programs, Ms. Laurie Grusauski, via e-mail or phone at (860) 435-3614.

The Opportunities

CITYterm
Maine Coast Semester
Rocky Mountain Semester
School Year Abroad

CITYterm
Hotchkiss is a member of CITYterm, an interdisciplinary, experience-based semester program organized around an intensive study of New York City. (Math, science and foreign languages classes are also included.) The thirty students who participate in the program are housed at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Cityterm students have classes three afternoons a week, the other three "academic" afternoons are spent in the city. Classroom learning and city experiences complement one another. Students at the CITYterm invariably comment on the seamlessness of the total learning experience.

CITYterm does a particularly good job at teaching higher level learning skills such as critical thinking, textual analysis (where the text could be a book or a cityscape), problem solving, and cognitive awareness. CITYterm also stresses working in groups and learning from other students.

For more information go to www.cityterm.org.
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Maine Coast Semester Program
Lower mids can apply to spend a semester of their upper mid year living and working with students from other schools at a saltwater farm on Chewonki Neck in Wiscasset, Maine. Maine Coast Semester is a challenging semester school emphasizing the natural world, hands-on work, sustainability, and community. Students attend traditional classes, but also study field ecology, work on a farm, participate in an outdoor program, live in rustic, wood-heated cabins, and learn about a suite of renewable energy options. The average class size is under eight, and the total student body numbers forty or fewer.

For additional information, visit Maine Coast Semester online.
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Rocky Mountain Semester
Hotchkiss is one of 12 Member Schools for the Rocky Mountain Semester (RMS) at the High Mountain Institute (HMI). The RMS is an eighteen-week academic, wilderness and residential program for up to thirty-six high school juniors. The RMS curriculum focuses on students’ connections to the natural world, community and leadership skills, and rigorous, college-prep academic class work. The semester is divided between the HMI campus in Leadville, Colorado and six weeks of wilderness expeditions in Colorado and Utah. Because Hotchkiss is an RMS Member School, Hotchkiss students are given preference in admissions and financial aid awards and are guaranteed one semester of academic credit toward graduation from Hotchkiss. For more information, visit the Rocky Mountain Semester website.
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Rocky Mountain Semester classes


School Year Abroad
Our membership in the School Year Abroad program allows qualified students to increase their knowledge of another language and culture through total immersion in the life of France, India, Italy, Spain, or the People’s Republic of China.

Participants live with families, attend SYA’s unique schools, and pursue a course of study (both in English and in French; Latin, Greek and Italian; Spanish; or Mandarin Chinese) under the supervision of teachers from the sponsoring schools. SYA provides full academic credit, college testing and guidance, permitting students to graduate from Hotchkiss with their own class while continuing their preparation for selective colleges and universities.

Students apply in their lower-mid or upper-mid year to attend SYA as an upper mid or senior. Note that the program in India is offered durring the first semester only.

For more information please visit the SYA website.

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Comments from Hotchkiss alumni of CITYterm

"We learned how to express ourselves clearly, how to write well, and how to navigate the subway with ease. We learned not only to ask questions, but how to ask them."

"Every day our classes consisted not of simply the transfer of information from teacher to student, but educated and inspiring conversations . . . the kind that leave you thinking long after the class has ended. Conversations in class never failed to continue into lunch, onto the train, and into the city."

"The most important thing I learned at CITYterm was the value of other people."

"It was at CITYterm that I was first able to consider my teachers as friends and my friends as teachers."

 

Application deadlines

All applications for SYA, Maine Coast Semester, and CityTerm are due to the coordinator of off-campus programs no later than February 1. The Rocky Mountain Semester application deadline is February 15. For more information please contact Ms. Laurie Grusauski via e-mail or phone her at
(860) 435-3614.