A century ago, during the Progressive era, the United States government responded to the evils of unfettered freedom by assuming a new, regulatory relationship with business. Over subsequent decades, one industry was spared governmental interference: independent schools and colleges. Free to articulate a mission out of thin air, create programs and services that execute that mission, we can hire and fire with extraordinary latitude, offer and deny admission without justification. This
laissez faire environment provides uncommon opportunity for schools to differentiate within the marketplace, to create a catagory in which no other school competes.
Few schools have capitalized on this opportunity with greater success than Proctor. This is a school with its own genetic code! One strand of Proctor's DNA--if you will--is to balance academic challenge with overt support for a student body that spans the college bound population. One hundred students--many of them in honors and Advanced Placement courses--have tutors. This academic diversity, written right into our mission, is a source of great strength.
A second strand of Proctor's DNA is the healthy balance of academic structure (read "communication and accountability") and social informality. Visitors pick up on this unique quality immediately. Some disapprove of the informality, which is fine. The more who are aware of this before initiating the admission process, the better.
Another piece of Proctor's genetic make-up is its preference for hands-on teaching and learning methodologies.
We're not the only school recognizing the superiority of active learning, but we're the only one that does it with the other two "strands" in place.
The point is this: the more knowable a school is, the more irresistible it becomes to a subset of the overall population.
Proctor owns its own category. With whom do we compete? Well, we overlap with many schools in admission applications, but we don't compete with any of them. Of course, many other qualities distinguish Proctor. Some are attracted to the community for its practice of environmental responsibility, or the broad integration of the arts, or outdoor programs like Proctor Mountaineering.
Then, there are wholly unique off-campus electives that somehow evolved into the fabric of the school, like the life-changing Ocean Classroom program.
Spending ten weeks sailing a schooner to the Caribbean while studying academic subjects doesn't appeal to everyone, but it is a strong magnet to some.
Today, Proctor has a remarkable problem. We are over-enrolled for the 2009-10 school year. It is a problem of our own making.
