If I were to paint a picture generalizing all Dartmouth students' singular high school experience, I'd tell you to listen to John Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane." Then, I'd then tell you (as Mindy Kaling '01 does in her book) that our experience was the opposite. Within that description, you'd find endless variations, ranging from love to hate, public to prep and TGIF to TTSAGA (time to study and get ahead) as well as from student bodies consisting of "Jack and Diane" to just "Jack" or just "Diane."
Most of us can't imagine high school being anything but coed, so when we meet someone who went to a single-sex high school, we often approach the subject with stereotypical retorts or skepticism.
Hannah Hoyt '13, who went to the Winsor School in Boston, said that the image of her school is often simplified into that of a "nerdy slob."
"People definitely associate [single-sex schools] with plaid skirts and monogrammed sweaters," she said.
We often fail to realize that the experience at single-sex high schools is equally as enriching as that of a coed equivalent, according to Gianna Guarino '15, who also attended Winsor.
"Most people who don't think positively of it say it must've been horrible and assume it was a negative experience," Guarino said. "The minute I say I loved it and that it was an amazing experience, they're taken aback."
Still, some students who went to single-sex high schools admitted they had social difficulties transitioning to a coed environment.
"My friends certainly knew it was more apparent freshman year," Ryan Ganong '13, who went to the Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Mass., said. "Since then, I've changed, and it's worn off a little, but my buddies still give me a hard time."
Of course, it's true that the environment in these schools is different from that of any coed school, including Dartmouth, but not necessarily in the kind of sexually repressed, angst-ridden teenager kind of way we might expect.
"Because it was all guys, it made us closer," Bronson Green '14, who went to the Loyola High School in Los Angeles, said. "I've gone to Boston and had no place to stay and got in contact with one of the guys who went to my school, and I was able to stay with him, even though we didn't know each other that well in high school. It was a big brotherhood, like a frat."
The single-gender environment did, of course, mean that members of the opposite sex were literally forbidden from the classrooms.
"If a guy came on our property, he got in trouble," Hoyt said. "One time, a guy came onto our campus to pick me up, and he was driven away by a Latin teacher."
In the sense that guys were never present in all-female classrooms and vice versa, many Dartmouth students who have come from these schools have found the classroom experience offers more diverse perspectives.
"I still get intrigued by the male perspective in classes," Guarino said. "I'm not used to it, although I can't really pinpoint the difference."
Dartmouth's coed environment has also necessitated certain changes in lifestyle for students making the shift.
"No one cared what they looked like they didn't shave," Brian Grumka '15, who went to the Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J., said. "Our valedictorian's speech talked about how going to college would mean that now, we have to get haircuts."
At the same time, Dartmouth's Greek system, sports teams and other gender-specific organizations provide a kind of continuity of the special camaraderie of a single-sex school. Guarino said the Dartmouth women's rowing team provides her this consistency.
"It's a place that I can always be myself and be completely relaxed with girls," she said. "If I didn't have that steady transition to still have some space where it's just the girls, it would be difficult."
As easy as it is to think that the move from a single-sex high school to a coed college would be difficult, the transition for any of these students is as typical as any of their peers.
"My friends and I thought it would be a huge shock, but I haven't really noticed it," Grumka said. "At the end of the day, it's not really that big of a deal."
It might be hilarious to imagine our peers who hail from single-gender high schools as socially awkward, but in reality they're often just as well-adjusted as any coed. Going to school without members of the opposite sex is just another distinction (among the many others) that characterize some students' lives prior to Dartmouth, adding a valuable perspective to our coed world.
