• by MIT Ivy League and Oxbridge Educated Insiders
  • Trusted by over tens of thousands online subscribers

Thacher School

School rating 4 / 5 by

5025 Thacher Road Ojai CA 93023 United States
Boarding
9th to 12th
Day
9th to 12th
Gender
Coed

Academic

Thacher School review by .

The Thacher School devotes much of the academic program to the humanities, aiming to develop students' ability to write analytically and to construct interesting, and complex, arguments. Thacher's small class size-generally less than ten or so- and discussion based learning allows such a premise to flourish: ideas are openly discussed and traded in class as material is discussed; never is the voice of one heard alone and treated as supreme, rather it is the combination of a number of ideas and the process that is stressed. Thacher's student body is simply spectacular, everyone is good-natured and interested in learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of competition. The school provides fairly great support for students of almost all abilities, teachers are regularly available to meet during most days of the week, and most reasonable hours. Thacher prepared me for college quite well, it readied me for the rigors of college and taught me to balance my time well.

College Counseling

The college counseling services at Thacher are superb, as the counselors know you intimately, likely....

Sample insights on college counseling

  • They have contacts at most of the major universities and feel perfectly comfortable picking up the phone and advocating for a student to get accepted somewhere they feel is a good fit for that student. However, these counselors are certainly not magic bullets. They cannot guarantee that a student will get into an Ivy League university...
  • For those wishing to move on to Oxford or Cambridge, the provision is second-to-none. In the months running up to application and interview, every subject faculty offers classes (often run by former Oxbridge tutors) exploring further areas of their subject as well as offering advice on personal statements, interview technique and more...

Admissions - Getting Accepted

The admission process is simple: to be accepted to Thacher, you need to be smart,....

Sample insights on admissions

  • For the interview, dress conservatively. Try to be very clean and put together. Also, I was a tour guide for two years and at the end of every tour, we were asked to evaluate the candidate so if you think the tour is not apart of the process, you are very wrong. Ask questions and be interested. Also, tip for the parents: the kids speak on the tour. Do not ask their questions for them...
  • Most younger siblings have an easy time in the admissions process. I can only think of one case of a younger sibling not being admitted. About half of the students who entered with me had come from public schools. The remainder came from private K-6 schools, or had transferred from other New York private schools The Elizabeth Morrow School and St. Bernard were two of the larger feeder schools...

School Life

The quality of life is next to none-- there are no drugs, no alcohol, amazing food, amazing buildings, amazing people and what is simply one of the greatest natural beauties in the world. The study body is very largely from the upper class, but that is not a part of the image, such petty things as wealth are hidden as much as possible. At Thacher, everyone is there to help you, they are your family, they are your friends! With respect to discipline, Thacher's honor code is a very effective means by which to enforce high level discipline: any breaches....

Popular Comparisons