Kelly Johnson-Arbor.
Courtesy of Kelly Johnson-Arbor
Kelly Johnson-Arbor said Phillips Exeter stabilized her life and helped her overcome shyness.Tuition with boarding costs more than $60,000 a year for students without financial aid now.While she had a positive experience, she decided not to send her own children to boarding school.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kelly Johnson-Arbor, a physician based in Washington, DC. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I’m a physician, board certified in emergency medicine, medical toxicology, and undersea and hyperbaric medicine. I’m the medical director and interim executive director of the National Capital Poison Center, and I practice hyperbaric medicine and toxicology at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
I went to Phillips Exeter Academy, which is ranked by Niche as the third-best boarding high school in America. I started at the school in 1989, when I was 15, and graduated in 1992.
I overcame many challenges but had a positive experience overall. The school gave me extra confidence and a great education, but I don’t think boarding school is the right fit for everyone.
Many people think that all kids who go to elite boarding schools are wealthy
That’s true for some, but I was completely the opposite. I grew up the only child of a single mother in Anchorage, Alaska. I didn’t meet my father until I was in my 20s. My upbringing was very sheltered.
My mom was a teacher, but earlier in her career, she had been a television journalist and worked in a nightclub. She had friends who sent their kids to boarding schools, and she wanted me to have that experience.
She never could’ve afforded the fees, so I went there on a scholarship
I can’t recall the fees at the time, but they’re now over $60,000 a year for boarding students.
To get a scholarship, I had to take the Preliminary SAT, which a lot of boarding schools use to measure applicants. I started interviewing with major East Coast schools when I was in eighth grade. My mom rented the cheapest car possible to drive us to the interviews, and we used food stamps for groceries.
The schools interviewed the parents and the students, and I deferred mostly to my mother. I remember the interviewer at Andover, another school I applied to, asked my mom why I didn’t do more chores at home. She took that to mean that the interviewer didn’t think I was mature enough for the school.
I was accepted to Phillips Exeter and moved to Exeter, New Hampshire
It was quite a shock because I had to leave my home in Alaska, move across the country, and live in a dormitory with people I’d never met before who came from completely different backgrounds than me.
They also looked very different than me. My mom was Black, and my father is white, so I was a minority at Exeter. That was pretty rare at the time.
I was a boarding student for 3 years
After the initial culture shock, I came to really like it. I know that a lot of people don’t enjoy the boarding-school experience, but I always wanted to get away from home and be independent. I’m still a pretty independent person, and I think much of that comes from Exeter.
Getting away from home was the best thing for me — my mother faced homelessness around that time and was living in transient hotels. Campus for me was a stable place with three meals a day, a room to go to, and clean laundry.
I also made some really good friends there, and I still keep in touch with many of them. The bonds that we made at Exeter were very strong.
Before Exeter, I was painfully shy
Boarding school definitely helped me get past my shyness and set me up for my career. Classes at Exeter are held around an oval-shaped table called the Harkness table that’s supposed to promote open discussion and democratic learning. You have to speak to get a good grade, and there’s nowhere to hide.
Before that, I never spoke to people spontaneously. I’m completely different now. I learned not to be afraid when I want to speak up. As a 15-year-old, it was a very important lesson.
On top of that, I was able to take classes in Greek and Latin and other subjects that weren’t offered in high schools in Alaska.
Exeter was socially challenging at times, especially as a scholarship student
Not having the financial resources a lot of the other students had was the biggest challenge.
Everyone knew who was on scholarship because we had to do jobs around campus to help pay our way. My job was delivering the daily bulletin, so my circumstances were known.
Some of the scholarship kids figured out how to make these disparities less visible. We ate in a dining hall, and if the rich kids didn’t like the food, they could just go and buy pizza. We couldn’t afford it.
Then one of my friends found a pizza place in town that sold breadsticks for a dollar and put them in pizza boxes. After that, we could walk around campus with pizza boxes, too, and we would blend in.
The dress code also taught me a lot
There were standards to enforce discipline. I got sent home from class once because I was wearing cutoff shorts that I had rolled up. That wasn’t allowed — shorts had to have a hem.
I’m now comfortable dressing up in my daily life. For most people, this isn’t a big deal, but when you’re poor and come from an environment where you don’t wear nice clothes on a regular basis, it’s important to get that experience.
Exeter prepared me for Harvard
At boarding school, I learned about the opposite sex, drinking, and socioeconomic disparities at a much younger age than most other people.
By the time I graduated and went to Harvard for college, it was all out of my system. A lot of the other freshmen in college were going out and partying, but I didn’t do that.
I’d already been in a dorm for three years, and unlike most of my peers, I didn’t have those temptations that came from being away from home for the first time.
I’m glad I went to Exeter — I wouldn’t be where I am today without it
It’s not for everyone, though. My children are 10 and 12, and given their more comfortable upbringing, I couldn’t picture sending them away to boarding school.
It was an environment that favors people who are very mentally strong, and by their age, I’d faced so much more than they have. I’ve tried to protect them and nurture them so they don’t need a school like Exeter to thrive.