1. Your school looked like Hogwarts.
Yes, your dining hall really did look like that.
2. Abercrombie and Hollister were not considered preppy enough.
3. You wore J.Crew, Ralph Lauren and Lilly Pulitzer instead…
4. …which is why you have an abundance of blazers, all in your school colors.
5. You own Patagonias in six different colors.
6. In the spring, all the guys on your campus wore matching salmon shorts.
Mint, light yellow, or sky blue were acceptable as well.
7. The guys also wore socks with their boat shoes.
8. The boys in your school’s a cappella group were like rockstars.
And when they performed, all the freshmen were like:
9. Debate was, in fact, a varsity sport.
10. All-School Meeting was really just naptime.
11. You know all details of the Andover-Exeter rivalry… and you didn’t even go there.
12. You had a weird relationship with the “townies.”
13. You spent an exorbitant amount of time on the quads/great lawn/green.
14. When you try to describe all of your prep school’s weird traditions to your new friends in college, they’re like:
15. You only consider a school a prep school if it was in this region:
16. Winters were like:
17. But when spring came, everyone was like:
“Bikini and lawnchair time!”
18. You started worrying about college when you were this young.
19. Your family sent out yearly Christmas/holiday cards.
20. And on vacations, you went here…
…or out “boating.”
21. Most of your teachers had been teaching since before you were born…
22. …and they probably had been coaching your sport since the ’50s.
23. But they were cool enough to have lunch with, and they still remember your name at reunions.
24. Legacy kids held a “special” place in your heart.
25. You played a sport like this,
or this,
or this.
26. This was the mandatory winter footgear:
27. Upperclassmen were like gods.
28. But this idol-worship was justified, because your senior year of high school was harder than college.
29. As a result, you’ve had a caffeine addiction since you were 15.
30. Ultimate or “finals” week was like death…
31. …so you know exactly what it’s like to work hard.
32. And though prep school was brutal while you were there…
…you missed it terribly when you had to leave.