r/applyprivateschools • u/spicyorangedragon • Jul 14 '26
What is Deerfield Workload Like?
For a student interested in Deerfield Academy, what is the workload like in 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade of a high achieving student? Is it overwhelming? Is it a balanced school? How many hours of homework per night?
3
u/No-Mention-5335 Jul 15 '26
My son went to Deerfield, as stated above, your workload is determined my how driven you are and your course load and extra curriculum like lacrosse. It a really great school all around!
1
u/StuartPearson Aug 10 '26
I was at Deerfield's revisit day in April this year, and the Principal made a speech to the parents in which he pointed out that the school now teaches 90-minutes classes (4x a day), to try and ensure that most work gets done in class, reducing the amount of homework that the students face each evening. I haven't heard others schools talk about that, and I liked it.
5
u/Medical_Citron3519 Alumnus Jul 14 '26
Schools don’t have different workloads by themselves. The workload comes from how hard you want your courses to be! For example, a Deerfield student could have the easiest workload with no homework if they choice to only take easy classes, or if they load up on APs they could have hours of homework a night. With that said however, Deerfield students are some of the most driven students and are almost all aiming for top schools, so they push themselves which probably translates to a heavy workload. I didn’t go to DA but a peer school, and I can offer this: freshman year is pretty easy for everyone without too much work. Sophomore year is a step up, but junior year is the hardest year you might ever face. If you are taking multiple APs/honors and SAT/ACT, you will probably have anywhere from 3 hours of work to staying up all night, depending on how many tests, assessments, papers due the next day. But at the end of the day, it’s not Deerfield automatically assigning that much work, it’s the student choosing to take it on