Senior Spring Sets Sail

There are many activities and privileges to look forward to when students become seniors: walking on senior grass, cutting the line at the Koch cafe, and going to prom. However, perhaps the greatest gift of the Academy for seniors is vacation time. The Academy blesses students with the chance to escape the restrictive campus, heavy workload, co-curricular commitments, and the stress of college applications. For the senior class, long winter weekends and Spring Break are the most anticipated breaks of the year. Perhaps second only to the three months after graduation before college starts for the Academy’s graduates.

Let’s start with long winter weekend. The first Thursday of February at 12:00 p.m. sharp, school gets out for the entire student body. While many underclassmen set off for various destinations, many seniors head for Bradley International Airport to board the JetBlue flight to Palm Beach, an 18-mile-long island connected to nearby West Palm Beach in Florida. A brief three-hour flight from Deerfield, the seniors—and many exceptional juniors—leave behind the dreary New England winter for warmth and clear skies. Staying at private residences, The Colony Hotel, or The Breakers, seniors spend their weekend unwinding on the beach, mingling with classmates, forming new connections (and sometimes breaking old ones), and eating food other than chicken. This isn’t just a Deerfield tradition either. Oftentimes, the senior and junior classes from other upper-crust schools such as St. Paul’s and Westminster visit the island as well, giving students the opportunity to meet new friends.

A few weeks later it’s Spring Break time. This time, the adventure takes select seniors even further from their dorm rooms. Seniors round up their friends and rent homes on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, spending time bonding as a class before the Spring. Famous for its pink sand beaches and small pigs, seniors look forward to renting golf carts and driving around the small island, frequently running into classmates. One of the final hurrahs before graduation, going to Harbour Island is a Deerfield rite of passage nowadays.

Taking pictures with friends, having large meals, getting sunburned, and meeting other boarding school students are all hallmarks of the trip. Giving students time to connect both with their own class and meet future college classmates and potential coworkers.