Normally, Proctor Academy in Andover, N.H., begins the college 12 months with a five-day orientation within the White Mountains. The climate will be depressing, however the college students come away a close-knit group. This 12 months, they spent an in a single day on the college’s 2,500-acre forested property as an alternative. “It’s still fun, but it’s not the same kind of bonding experience,” mentioned Karin Clough, the assistant head of faculty.
The college, with 365 college students, has 21 dorms, and this 12 months college students can’t enter any dorm however their very own. “They become little pods, like little families,” Ms. Clough mentioned. But if a scholar doesn’t like these dorm mates, there are few choices to forge different shut connections. They can’t have dinner at their adviser’s home. Or lounge on the scholar heart, which this 12 months has restricted occupancy to 12 at a time. “It’s all those in-between spaces that I think kids are missing,” Ms. Clough mentioned.
For Scarlet Bowman, 15, a sophomore, her first 12 months at Proctor has been lonely and isolating. She determined final spring to go away her magnet college in Austin, Texas, as a result of she was frightened that it will stay digital into the autumn.
But she has struggled to search out her area of interest in New England. “I expected the community to just be nicer, more welcoming, but because there’s a pandemic and your life is at risk going outside everyday, it’s a lot harder,” she mentioned. Being caught on campus with none choice to go away is “suffocating,” she mentioned.
The winter was chilly, and made it even tougher to attach with different college students. When 5 college students examined optimistic for Covid-19 after coming back from the winter break, dozens needed to quarantine, together with Scarlet’s buddies. Suddenly, the campus felt abandoned and surreal. “It was horrible,” she mentioned. “I just wanted to go home.”
