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Xaverian Brothers High School

School rating 4 / 5 by

800 Clapboardtree Street Westwood MA 02090 United States
Day
7th to 12th
Gender
Boys only

Academic

Xaverian Brothers High School review by .

Xaverian Brother's prides itself on its academic prestige and value of the education. I would agree with this 100% if you tend to make the most of what Xaverian has to offer by taking the hardest and most intense classes. I did not get to experience all of the classes, but from what I hear you can get by doing very little in the lower level classes. The higher level classes can be tough, but the teachers are great. I never felt swamped with work, despite taking the hardest possible courses. The teachers were all very adept at assigning the "right" amount of work: enough to learn the material but not to much to the point where other aspects of your life suffer. The best thing about Xaverian was the schedule. Schedules come with built in free periods equalling about 80 minutes a day. I was able to finish 80% of my homework in this time period. I rarely needed to study anymore than the night before. Although Xaverian was pretty easy, I think it was efficient. For example, I was fortunate to have amazing teachers that gave me the skills to score a 5 on all my AP exams. I would say the majority of each AP class scores a 5 on the AP exam, and almost everyone scores a 4 or 5. The English department was awesome. I had great teachers who really motivated me to love English, a subject I never liked or excelled at. The best aspect of Xaverian is their chemistry program. Mr. Howard and Mr. McCready were two of the best teachers I have ever had and instilled in me a love for the sciences. I never had any issues with any department, although I think the Physics department could have been better. I now attend Duke University, a top ten school in the country with kids from the best private schools in the world. I would say I am more prepared than 80% of the students, even kids who went to schools that cost 40,000 grand a year. Xaverian definitely gave me all the tools needed to succeed at his very difficult school, without overworking you. Xaverian really pushed critical thinking skills and problem solving skills. This is what has allowed me to exceed in even the hardest classes at Duke. Many kids have been taught to memorize not think, and now are having trouble adjusting to the intensive critical thinking aspects of a college curriculum. Xaverian had a good mix of group work and lectures, however, I would say lectures were by far more predominant. The lectures were definitely useful and educational. I personally know from experience that group work with a bunch of 16 year old kids never actually results in work. Therefore, I am glad Xaverian utilized lecture style teaching. Class size was around 22 kids at Xaverian. I never felt distant from the teachers. Also, Xaverian has the amazing concept of academic centers. Centers are large rooms where each teacher for a certain department has their desk. For example, if I was struggling with Math, I could go to the Math Center and 90% of the time there was a teacher on duty who could assist me. Like aforementioned, I never was overwhelmed regarding work and rarely spent more than 45 minutes doing work at home. I think Xaverian's sciences are the best department, but overall they emphasize a well rounded curriculum. It really depends on the student to determine what areas of study they desire to concentrate on. All graduates (of the higher level courses) will develop with great problem solving skills.

College Counseling

My counselor put 100% into my application process. I originally was put on the wait-list....

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

I applied as a transfer student for sophomore year so I can't comment on the....

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 student body is general conservative, which is especially interesting beause Massachusetts is such a liberal state. This a mostly white, all-boys Catholic school, so this is my biggest theory as to why the student body is so conservative. That being said, there were a good amount of liberals and they never were persecuted for their beliefs. The school was not a politically active place. I rarely talked about politics or heard about them when interacting with other students. However, one class I took that examined all the most prominent social issues of the day was very political and probably....

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