On Thursday, April 4, 50 prospective KO students had the opportunity to attend the Upper School Accepted Students Day. After a welcome from Head of School Thomas Dillow in Roberts Theater, students then could choose to spend their day at KO in various different programs that focused on their own interests. “We take a look every year at the program and see how we set up the program, and this year we decided to give the kids and the parents a choice of programming throughout the day,” Associate Director of Admissions Meredith Crowther said.
From Roberts, students and parents could choose to go to various programs of interest. There was a snapshot of the KO curriculum, the Opportunities Abound fair, as well as both student and parent panels. The snapshot of KO curriculum, which was run by Director of the Upper School Carolyn McKee, showed prospective families the types of academic opportunities available to them at KO. “Ms. McKee brought in faculty and students to talk about different programs within the different classes and also how they cross our curriculum,” Mrs. Crowther explained.
At the Opportunities Abound fair in the Conklin Library, students got a taste of the different club offerings at KO from the students and teachers who run them. Mrs. Crowther explained that the fair featured some of the school’s extracurricular activities, similar to our own club fair. “It was sort of a sampling of our club offerings, as well as a little bit more about VQV, a little bit more about diversity and inclusion,” she said. Sophomore Madeline Arcaro helped out at the KO News table. “Students and their parents could come up and see some of the highlighted activities at KO,” Madeline said. “So certain clubs and certain groups of people could go and kind of just showcase what they’ve been doing and working on.” Junior Alexandra D’Addabbo told prospective families about Model UN at the fair. “I like to meet the new kids, they’re always really nice,” she said.
A student-led panel was also available to prospective students. The Life of a Wyvern panel ran in three 35-minute sessions, where students and their parents could ask current KO students any questions they have about daily life at KO. Sophomore Evan Banning was on the panel. “They just asked us questions about homework load, stress, amount of sleep that we usually get,” he said. “Just everything that prospective students would want to know about a new school.” Sophomore Risha Ranjan, who was also on the panel, said she would have enjoyed the panel as a prospective student. “Especially since they gave students the option to ask questions, it really helped them look into the lives of actual KO students,” she added. Parents could also attend a parent panel during their lunch. To end their visit to campus, prospective students were paired up with current KO students and shadowed their lunch period and G period class.
A lot of planning goes into making sure every student has a shadow and a class, and Mrs. Crowther describes the process as similar to a jigsaw puzzle. “We have to look at all of our G classes and all of our G classes that are set up to accept guests, whether it’s a smaller classroom or a lab or an elective, what would be a really good representation of KO,” she said. Freshman Marrich Somridhivej and Lindsey Bailey both hosted prospective students and said they enjoyed the experience. “I brought him to my English class, and it was pretty fun,” Marrich said.
Overall, Mrs. Crowther said the event and its choice of programming were well received by families. “I think the choice of programming was neat,” she said. “You know every accepted student comes here with different interests and different expectations, so allowing them to kind of pick and choose what they wanted to see I think was great.”
