Interview with The Country Day School Alum, Eric Pinto

One of the greatest benefits about my high school experience was having access to the opportunities that CDS makes readily available to all of their students, particularly when it comes to extracurriculars. The way that they structure the daily schedule was that buses didn't leave the school until 5:00, which basically meant either you were sitting around doing nothing between the time that school was done and the time that you left or you're doing extracurriculars—and nobody sat around. That option of expanding your horizons a little bit after school hours was really important because when you're in high school you have no idea what you like and what you don't like. And so you need somebody to push you along a little bit and introduce you to new experiences. I think in a traditional school, you might not have ever had exposure to that sort of thing.

One of the big selling points of CDs is that they have a massive amount of property behind them. I think they have like 100 acres, and they really try to leverage that to introduce students to nature and try to run programs that facilitate that connection with being outside. There's a lot of value in having that land back there because it gives you the freedom to run those outdoor activities that maybe some other schools wouldn't have access to because of the topography of the campus.

It's a very welcoming place. You can tell that your teachers really do care about you. And because of those smaller classroom sizes, it's easier to get to know those teachers on a deeper level. You want to keep in touch with those people -- you don't want to just cut ties and move on. When I was in university, CDS made the effort to reach out to me and all the other alumni that were at my university and meet up with us, have dinner with us, and just keep those relationships going, which I really value because it makes you feel that you've made lifelong connections.

I think as with any high school, you get a breadth of different personalities. But I think the school was so diverse in terms of personalities that everybody found a group to connect with. And typically, that manifested itself in your extracurriculars that you signed up for. But everybody was just happy to be around each other. It wasn't very cliquey. I would say everybody was appreciative to be there, and there was a willingness to learn new things.

They made a ton of enhancements since I left, and they were in the process of implementing those changes as I was leaving. So my senior year they completely redid the school, and I believe they demolished a lot of the school that I was studying in. The new facilities are incredibly state of the art, and it's kind of hard to believe that it's a high school and not a university. One thing I loved was the size of the classrooms. They weren't too big, and there was a lot of attention from the teachers, and I think that they're trying to make a concerted effort to keep it smaller so that they can maintain that sort of personal touch.

The first reason to choose CDS is obviously the calibre of the teachers. They're not just incredible at what they do. They're also just incredible people in general. And you can tell when somebody genuinely cares about where your life is heading and tries to put those opportunities in front of you to help foster your creativity, your technical ability, so that hopefully you can end up in a place that you're happy with post secondary.

There are a tremendous amount of opportunities that are presented to the students to explore what they might be good at outside of the classroom. So whether that's developing your outdoor skills or learning a new instrument or trying to foster some sort of business acumen through DECA, there's so many different opportunities. And the way that the terms are structured allows you to sign up for so many different things. Throughout a year, you can end up being in six different extracurricular activities.

I only have great things to say about my time there. CDS does such an excellent job managing the different parts of what it means to be a teenager growing up.

To the student just entering Country Day School, I would definitely take advantage of it. It's going to seem overwhelming at the start in terms of all the things that you can get involved with. But if you take the leap and you feel like you're overextending yourself a little bit, I think it will pay off in the long run and you're going to forge deeper relationships with people, with your fellow students, you're going to get to know your teachers better and you're going to feel a lot more comfortable overall. Just take that plunge and get as involved as possible.