Midland School

Posted: December 3, 2020

Midland is a place unlike any other. A rigorous school on a gorgeous campus. Midland gives students real responsibility, teaches self-advocacy, self-reliance, and working as a team. To see the growth in a student from 9th grade to 12th is incredible. Everyone at Midland is known, seen, and heard. Class sizes allow for every teacher to help support students and with teachers living on campus, students can seek help whenever needed.
While Midland is not a truly completive school when it comes to athletics, the extra-curriculars are phenomenal. Natural Horsemanship and Outdoor Leadership are favorites of mine. Where else can you saddle up your horse or pack an overnight pack and head out onto 35 miles of trails right outside your cabin door.
And the food! Midland's 10-acre organic garden provides ingredients for the best homemade meals in Stillman Dining Hall. They also raise their own meat, but always have vegetarian and vegan options for those who wish.
Midland is a place you really have to see for yourself to experience the magic of the community and campus. You will not regret it!

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: December 3, 2020

Posted: October 6, 2020

They do have study hours every night, however even though we were assured during the application process that kids who were struggling in a given subject would receive assistance or supervision during this time, that is not what my child experienced. She was consistently buried in homework, struggled to complete it, and wasn't given any guidance or help, even when we drove all the way to Midland to meet with the academic Dean about it.

Posted: October 6, 2020

Some of the teachers were fantastic. My daughter had great experiences in math and English. She loved the horse instructor and the art teacher. However, nearly the whole class was failing Spanish, and for whatever reason, they allowed the teacher to continue teaching exactly as she had been.

Posted: October 6, 2020

As mentioned before, we had to drive several hours down to Midland on multiple occasions to meet with school leadership to try and get some kind of support for the issues our child was experiencing. They did absolutely nothing on any of the occasions to correct the problems. Toward the middle of the year, they stopped calling us back altogether when we left messages. For the price they charge, you'd expect a great experience, or at least a willingness to try to fix whatever was going wrong. Clearly, they didn't care, which was so disheartening, and completely the opposite of what we had been led to believe when we toured and interviewed there.

Posted: October 6, 2020

Absolutely not. My daughter has a diagnosed learning difference, and even after multiple in-person meetings and dozens of e-mails, they had absolutely no idea what her learning difference entailed. They would make references to her "shortcomings" on her report card as if she simply wasn't trying hard enough! We had meetings and provided resources repeatedly so they could understand her learning differences, but nothing ever changed. Even toward the end of the year, several of her teachers expressed surprise that she had a learning difference - nobody had ever told them! (What?!)

Posted: October 6, 2020

My daughter attended Midland for one year, and I’m sorry to say it was an awful experience. During our application process, we double-checked with the school that our daughter’s learning disability was something they could handle. We didn’t want to set our child up for failure, obviously! They assured us that she was welcome. We sent her, and right away she started experiencing problems.

The teaching staff seemed unaware of my daughter’s learning disability, and the learning specialist was no help. We drove down to Midland on multiple occasions to meet with the Dean, who couldn’t have cared less.

My daughter was relentlessly bullied by the other girls in her class, to the point she didn’t even want to shower (the showers are communal). The adults refused to get involved. We decided to pull our child out of the school because she had become suicidal. Nobody at the school reached out to ask why we unenrolled.

On the plus side, the food was good and the horse program is exemplary.

Posted: February 27, 2020

Midland put my son on a trajectory to be a leader in anything he does, specifically supporting and advancing those around him to be happier and more successful in their own endeavors.

Posted: February 27, 2020

Midland taught my son to take responsibility for his work and to look at education as an opportunity for learning rather than a burden. That transformation has helped him excel in his college experience.

Posted: February 27, 2020

Teachers actually care about the subject. For my son, that inspired a love of science, mathematics, and outdoor leadership that he sustains in his continuing education.

Posted: February 27, 2020

My son learned to be a leader at Midland, supporting the school and its community. He's taken that learning and is now in leadership positions in college, not to build his resume but because of the opportunity to contribute.

Posted: February 27, 2020

My son was inspired by the seniors who supervised his first year...they taught him that the most important role a student leader could play was to support the kids who were taking their first steps on campus. Because of that, he pursued and became that leader -- and eventually a leader across the whole student body -- his senior year.

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Midland provides the most incredible academic and community experience of any school I've come across. The intentional stance on technology use blends beautifully with the rustic, nature-focused campus.

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: February 27, 2020

Posted: July 24, 2019

Posted: July 24, 2019

Posted: July 24, 2019

Students are given power roles over different students depending on favoritism from the dean of prefects. Often the students ego is heavily inflated after that and they will feel they are better than their peers for having this arbitrary roll.

Posted: July 24, 2019

Posted: July 24, 2019

The nurse is not an actual nurse. There is little help for students with learning differences and students suffering from mental illness (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc...) face an even more challenging time.

Posted: July 24, 2019

I hated it here. The headmaster only cares about money and has no personal connection to any of the students, despite living on the same campus. The dean of prefects is sexist, narcissistic, and power hungry. He is a hypocrite. He will say he is open for a discussion when something controversial happens (like him changing sleepover rules day of) but when students politely try to talk to him, he will wave his finger in their face, interrupt them, and is quicker to shut down girls and even is female colleagues.

Posted: January 16, 2017

Posted: January 16, 2017

The faculty live on campus and have proximity to the students, which allows them to keep watch for bullying. They are also very approachable, so victims of bullying can find someone to talk to.

Posted: January 16, 2017

The small classroom environments and the proximity of faculty on campus, allow students with learning differences to get more after class attention, along with tutoring.

Posted: January 16, 2017

The school is run by the students and leadership positions for prefects and jobs give students a number of opportunities to develop and strengthen their leadership skills.

Posted: January 16, 2017

The faculty was deeply invested in the students and had an intimate knowledge of the students. Given the small classes, the teachers knew each students strength and weakness. They fostered our interests and help strengthen our weaknesses. Class discussions often continued during meals, where students and faculty dined together.

Posted: January 16, 2017

Posted: January 16, 2017

Few schools empower you the way Midland does. The school's experiential learning coupled with its student run maintenance program gives students the skillset to pursue and build their own projects. For instance, learning how to weld opened a whole world of opportunities for tinkering and building objects whether artistic or utilitarian. These skills engage the body with the mind and make you a resourceful individual.
To further build confidence, the school organized several week long backpacking trips. These journeys into the wild helped me find peace in an often-chaotic world filled with digital media and its associated distractions. The experiences gave joy and fun from the simple company of friends and the outdoors, without the superfluous world of consumer goods. It also empowered me, as I new I could survive on my own.
As a junior in high school I became very interested in organic farming. It was the mid nineties and the movement was starting to find a resurgence, albeit, not the commercial success it is today. So I began by growing my own little vegetable garden by my cabin. Over the course of the year, I further pursued this interest and spent the following summer working on an organic farm. When I returned my senior year, I was the founding student for the school’s organic garden, which is in operation to this day.

Posted: January 13, 2017

Attending Midland was one of the best decisions I ever made. Midland lives its philosophy of needs not wants every day. Students live in wood cabins. There is no custodial service. I learned to chop wood and make a fire, in order to heat the shower water. I learned how to use a router, which a teacher taught me to use and I created a sign for the Midland Radio Station. I learned to hike--high in the mountains--for a week with only a pack on my back. But I also gained an excellent education. The small community and low student-teacher ratio meant that I got to know my teachers. I sought them out. They helped me where I needed assistance and they pushed me to excel where I could push ahead. When I arrived at Stanford, I felt prepared academically. And I felt prepared to get to know my professors. More importantly, though when I became an adult, I felt prepared to be one. Because Midland taught me to be self-reliant and it taught me how to be a good citizen and how to live in a community.

Posted: October 18, 2011

It's much more than just a high school. To this day, I still think I owe more of my formation to Midland than to the much more prestigious undergraduate or graduate institions. The school has a very healthy mix of student body. Not everyone is obsessed with the academics and not everyone strolls down the walk of glamour before or afterwards. But that's what makes one appreciate the wholistic view of the very distinct echelons in the society, which becomes much harder to grasp once you are locked into a settled demography in the university. The sense of community and collegial kinship takes precendence over any preconceived notion of success. As a student at midland, it's all what you make out of it. Sure, it doesn't have all the upper level science courses like those being offered at schools like Thomas Jefferson or even at Exeter, yet all the resources do stay at the students' disposal. In a realistic way, no one is shielded from failure, which also happens aplenty. And yet no one is left untransformed. You should definitely talk to the current teachers, cuz with the exception of the Mungers and the Cummings, most do not stay long and the culture tends to evolve rather quickly.