In the state of Vermont, USA, at “The Mountain School”, exceptional high school students from across America and even overseas pay a steep tuition of $40,000 per semester, yet lead a daily life of washing dishes, cleaning compost toilets, chopping wood, and herding sheep. Despite seemingly paying for hardships, students and parents are drawn to it.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal on September 15th, this special semester-long program has attracted a large number of students vying to enroll, driven by four main factors:
Facing the intense competition of college applications, student Estela Whitney from Buenos Aires bluntly stated, “My grades are good enough, but I need something that makes me stand out.”
The official posts from The Mountain School often showcase the joyous news of graduates being accepted into Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, and the University of California, Berkeley, with many graduates even going directly to work at Goldman Sachs.
The admissions director stated that the school has an “extremely impressive track record”, with admissions officers valuing students who are “willing to take risks for learning”. Some students even vividly portrayed their encounters with a broody hen in their application essays for the University of Chicago.
On their first day at the school, students are required to lock their phones in a “phone prison”, the dormitories have no internet, and the main building’s Wi-Fi is disconnected every night at a set time.
During the four-day “Solo” wilderness experience, veteran teacher Bruce Brough jokingly remarked that in the past, students feared encountering bears, but now their biggest fear is “not knowing who they are without screens”. However, after adapting to nature, student Cassie Scott couldn’t help but exclaim while climbing trees to pick apples, “I’m actually hugging trees!”
There are even students who, at the end of the semester, wrote a hymn “dedicated to the furnace that has warmed us”, unwilling to retrieve their phones.
Many affluent students never do household chores at home, with principal Alex Myers once witnessing a student sweeping the floor without even touching the ground with the broom, prompting personal correction.
The genuine farm labor has brought about impressive educational outcomes. Whitney, after feeding the pigs hours late, felt guilty watching the squealing piglets and vowed, “I will never make this mistake again.” Student Max Sherman spent a whole week cleaning compost toilets, with a sign at the entrance saying, “Thank him for keeping it clean, if it’s too dirty, go find him to settle the score.”
Parents lamented that their children learned “how to become adults” here and witnessed the intangible sacrifices in society.
This school is not just a simple farm camp but an official school operated by the prestigious Milton Academy.
Students work 8 hours a week, in the “Food Systems” class, doing planks with the teacher, preventing backaches while picking beans, and shouting “there’s a bug” upon discovering a bug in the chaff; meanwhile, the school also offers high-intensity academic courses like AP Calculus. Balancing rigorous academics with the unique experience of soil and scent, is the core advantage attracting this group of top students.