I found mentors in the faculty that I still talk to and seek counsel from to this day. Some of my best friends are people from Appleby. The people in the community were truly everything for me. I love this quote that says, ‘you’re an average of the five people you spend the most time with.’ And if that’s true, then Appleby is the perfect place to be, because you’ll find incredible people. If you become the average of any of the five people there, I think you’re in a pretty good place.
The friendships my children formed at Appleby are truly remarkable. The Grade 12 year is particularly a time that students form deep friendships. The children build strong bonds with the teachers as well, and these relationships continue even after they graduate. The friendships among the students and the connections they form with the faculty are one of the highlights of their time at Appleby. It gives them a deep sense of community and belonging.
For my girls, my older children, their best friends are still the kids that they started with at Appleby in Grade 7. They’ve gone off and done their things, but when they’re together with that Appleby crew, they say it really just feels like home.
Appleby College was formative for me in a couple of ways. It gave me a willingness to throw myself into a community. I did that at Appleby and loved it, and wanted to spend more and more time on campus because of how it made me feel when I was there. That definitely translated to my experiences at Harvard University. Right when I got onto campus and arrived in Boston, I remember thinking, ‘I just want to throw myself into this experience now.’ I was honestly pretty sad to leave Appleby, because it did become a second home for me, and it was sad to go. What I found also is that you never really do leave it behind. I still keep in touch with so many of my peers there and teachers and mentors.
I look back now at my experience at Appleby with such a lens of gratitude, because I understand that the kind of experience I had was not the norm compared to other schools. When you’re so invested in a place that feels like everyone loves their high school, everyone is getting so much out of it, everyone is having such a great experience. My experience was so positive that I look at it now with really such a lens of gratitude.
Another thing I think that sets Appleby apart is the relationships that you're able to make at Appleby. I still have a lot of friends from Appleby, and I think that's really special. I was able to develop those relationships there, and Appleby makes it possible to develop those friendships. The close community and the friendships that you make, again, high school can be a really challenging time for a lot of students, a lot of families. So having such a close community is really beneficial during that time.
Without Appleby, I don't think I'd be where I am today, especially in my hockey career. Hockey definitely helped me. Just the relationships I formed through hockey, the networking that I was able to do through Appleby hockey was really important and has helped me get to where I am today. I just learned so much from Appleby in terms of life skills and just values. For me, speaking personally, I am forever in debt to my parents for enrolling me in Appleby.
