Curriculum, campus, community, and tradition--Puna...

Curriculum, campus, community, and tradition--Punahou has it all. The classes are so challenging that when I later attended a top 25 liberal arts college the first and second year courses there seemed to be high school level.

In addition to the excellent academics, they offer a plethora of extracurricular and co-curricular activities that you couldn't get elsewhere. This is a key difference between Punahou and other schools on the island. You can participate in anything from a school production of Les Miserables to the chemistry club (responsible for some of the burn marks on the concrete in the academy) to almost any sport imaginable. The quality of these programs is extremely high--as an example one of my classmates was a presidential scholar in the arts for her dramatic work. I personally participated in JROTC, multiple choirs, and the robotics club, as well as taking a leadership role in student government and Punahou Carnival. You will never be bored unless you want to be.

The community on campus is another key feature of the Punahou experience. Through the many traditions of campus life each class is bound together despite their many differences. Even though there are the sports groups, the smart kids, and the stoners (as another commenter mentioned) there is a common thread between all of them which is forged from the shared experiences of Punahou Carnival, Variety Show, and Senior Sing--just to name a few.

One of the best things about Punahou was that it taught me to be self directed. I noticed that others mentioned that the curriculum "allows" the students to have up to 4 hour breaks in their schedule. While that is true, I was signed up for so many classes that my mother had to sign a permission form and I often had to spend the first week of school trying to fix my schedule to fit everything in. I generally had at least 2 days in the week where I went to classes from 7:30am to 3:30pm with no break--I even ate lunch during class. At Punahou, as in life, how involved you are is your decision, not anyone else's.