Graphic courtesy of Choate Rosemary Hall
It’s springtime at Choate, and that means warm weather, new classes, and, of course, long-awaited Signature Program decisions. Choate’s eight Signature Programs — including the John F. Kennedy Program in Government and Public Service, the Science Research Program, the Environmental Immersion Program, and Advanced Robotics Concentration — allow students to specialize in an academic area of particular interest to them, but can be quite difficult to snag a spot in.
Many students enter Choate with the intention of participating in a Signature Program for the opportunity to research and explore their passion with assistance and guidance they might not find otherwise. However, there are also some students who — despite having interests that align with the programs and the prestige wound up in many of them — choose not to apply to Signature Programs at all.
Conor Brown ’22, Livia Fingerson ’22, and Adriana Rivera ’22 are three such students. Despite all coming to Choate with the mindset that they’d like to join a Signature Program, upon talking to their peers and seeing what they were like firsthand, for varying reasons they ultimately decided they’d be better off without them.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with the notion of providing kids with the opportunities to specialize. In the abstract, Signature Programs could be fantastic,” Brown said.
Brown, who is interested in the humanities and feels that he’d fit right into the JFK Program, says that rather than allowing students to take full advantage of the opportunities that Choate offers them, the JFK Program is restrictive, forcing students to give up elective slots in order to fit a slate of required classes into their already tighly packed academic schedules.
Although he acknowledged the potential benefits of the JFK Program — such as internship connections or the program’s small seminar course — Brown believes that by participating in Signature Programs, “you are making an incredible sacrifice in your course autonomy for comparatively little gain.”
Fingerson also brought up the idea of course autonomy in her rationale for abstaining from Signature Programs. Although she came to Choate eyeing the Science Research Program, she discovered an unanticipated love for humanities during her freshman year. Freed from the specialized, predetermined course requirements of Signature Programs, she’s been able to explore a wide range of electives. “I’m a kid who likes all my classes. I think it’s really cool — I can be in my philosophy class, and I’ll see a concept that I can relate to a math class. I want to spend this time [at Choate] taking as many classes as I can and finding out what I’m passionate about.”
Still, Fingerson views the choice of whether or not to participate in Signature Programs as a personal one, saying that the programs can be incredibly beneficial for those who are laser-focused on a certain area, as opposed to those who feel pressured into applying.
“There’s nothing wrong with the Signature Programs themselves, but rather the way in which they’re talked about at Choate,” said Fingerson. “I feel like the culture around Signature Programs should change a little bit, so you can have programs where the students are actually solely passionate about those areas” — rather than simply motivated by a desire to enhance their resumes, something she believes plagues Signature Program applicant pools.
Given the variety of her interests, Rivera would be a likely candidate for multiple Signature Programs. She plays the oboe, has a deep concern for the environment, and is interested in Spanish language and culture, yet has consciously chosen not to participate in Arts Concentration, the Environmental Immersion Program, or Term Abroad.
Upon arriving at Choate and consulting returning students to see which program might fit her best, she received mixed feedback. “After asking around, I saw that there were large expectations for these programs that often got overwhelming and time-consuming for those involved. Even though I am highly invested in my extracurriculars, I didn’t want something that would dominate my everyday life in this manner and prevent me from exploring other interests,” she said.
As an alternative to intense Signature Programs, Brown suggested that Choate should give students the option to have more relaxed schedules in their junior and senior years in order to allow for independent academic specialization beyond formal coursework. “The reason I can’t research, that I can’t read those books and do a deep dive in my free time, is because, at Choate, we don’t really have free time,” he said. “There’s a much grander problem at play here: Choate structures the time of students so that there isn’t time for independent intellectual exploration.”
A Signature Program is, of course, a major commitment. While there is prestige associated with participating in one, several students find freedom in the ability to create a schedule of their own. Fingerson said, “You can be a very successful student without doing a signature program — it doesn’t make you a bad student not to be in one.”
