Opinion | The Milton Measure

College Greek Life Demands Submission, Not Solidarity

I still recall the first time I came across a sorority TikTok dance video in August a few years back. Dozens of girls were dressed up to match the “puppy eyes” theme, dancing to "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani in front of an exquisitely decorated house. Everybody wore a radiant smile as all the girls cheered each other on. At that moment, I was drawn to the sense of belonging they seemed to share, and I thought, I wanna be a part of whatever that is.

By Riley Qiu '28October 9, 20264 min read

Call It Columbus Day

The name “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” paints over history and fails to properly celebrate Native Nations, whose individual and year-round celebrations should be observed instead. The holiday, also known as Columbus Day, should go by that name and hold a twofold significance of both celebrating Italian-American heritage and solemnly memorializing Christopher Columbus’s damaging arrival.

By Adair Johnson '27October 9, 20264 min read

In-Class Essays Cannot Be Our Only Writing

At 8:05 a.m., you burst into your classroom, ready to start your in-class essay. Opening DigiExam, you enter a code as long as your phone number and brace yourself for the prompt. A clock counts down in the corner and reminds you that you do not have infinite time to experiment or think through your argument.

By Elle Thurow '29October 9, 20264 min read

New Proposal Propels High-Speed Rail

American high-speed rail (HSR) has been notoriously expensive and slow to develop. Compared with its European counterparts, America ranked as the sixth most expensive country to build HSR. Currently, only a handful of HSRs operate in the U.S., with the most famous being Amtrak’s Acela corridor connecting Boston, Massachusetts, to Washington, D.C., and Brightline’s regional network connecting Miami to Orlando, Florida.

By Mike Gao '28October 9, 20264 min read

Despite Being an Admissions Credential, Mountain School Experience Has Value

For millions of Americans, everyday manual labor is not a “retreat” from daily life. Rather, such labor is a fact of daily life itself, and a way to provide for themselves. But at places like the Mountain School, students pay $40,000 in tuition to perform the kind of physical work that many families hope education will allow their children to avoid. In the early hours of the morning, they will feed animals, clean stalls, and complete chores. A few hours later, those same students attend classes and prepare for some of the most selective colleges in the country.

By Alissa Rabin '29October 9, 20264 min read

Let’s Fix A Painful 44% of Our Fall Semester

44%. That is the portion of Milton’s fall semester that will use the new four-day schedule. Prepare yourself for seven four-day weeks this semester, compared to just five Blue and four Orange Weeks. Since this schedule seems here to stay, we should work on improving it.

By Asher Berk '29October 9, 20264 min read

To Make Meetings Human, Cut Robotism

Clap clap clap. Like robots, we clap even as our hands go numb. For the hundredth time, another teacher gets on stage, opens their folded paper, and reads about a student’s accomplishments. The awardee walks up, claims their goodie bag, and sits back down. Clap clap clap…

By Samuel Breyer-Essiam '28 & Isaac Wu '28September 25, 20266 min read

Community Requires Unity, Not AI Hypocrisy

The 2026 Convocation included a speech from Head of School Alixe Callen ’88 with her iconic line: “My favorite word is community.” Accompanied by various synonyms, Callen used this word several times throughout the speech, each example building upon the concept of simultaneous unity and authenticity. Less than four hours after the ceremony began, several photos were posted onto Milton Academy’s official Instagram with an incredibly suspicious caption. The three paragraphs contain generative artificial intelligence patterns, including the unmistakable phrase: “School connectedness isn’t a nice idea. It’s the whole point.”

By Madeleine Stuart '29September 25, 20264 min read

The Value of a Life

What is a life worth? Total contribution to the economy? The health and commercial values of individual organs and tissues recoupable after death? Or subjective means like societal contribution, inherent dignity, and religious worth?

By Tatsuya Seto '28 & Riley Qiu '28September 25, 20265 min read

Sit-Down Dinner Must Also Include Day Students

Milton presents itself as a unified community of day and boarding students; the school takes pride in how these two distinct communities learn, play, and thrive together. The new dining policy announced this week, however, risks marginalizing the day student experience. I strongly urge the administration to reconsider excluding uninvited day students from the required boarding sit-down dinner on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

By Solomon Fleiss '28September 25, 20263 min read

The Law School Admission Council Forgot the Law

Imagine studying for hours every day for months—even years—to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), just to get an email three days before your test informing you that you were barred from the test and resources because you were part Iranian. This image was the reality for thousands of students on September 8, 2026. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC), under a sweeping interpretation of a new wave of sanctions against Iran, barred many Iranian students, dual citizens, and nationals from taking the LSAT.

By Elle Thurow '29September 25, 20264 min read

A Pass/Fail Elective Allowance Would Grant Students Freedom to Explore

In its mission statement, Milton claims to cultivate a passion for learning in its students and wishes to develop creative, critical thinkers unafraid to express their ideas. Our celebration of diversity, in both identity and talent, suggests that our academic policies should strive to reflect our aspirations. Generally, high-school electives seek to broaden our perspective on the world, but growing academic pressures in recent years seem to have put a strain on our exploration.

By Alissa Rabin '29September 25, 20263 min read

Give Students a Course-Tryout Period

As we settled into a rhythm at the outset of another school year, we may have felt odd pondering course selection. Last March, we reflected on our goals and ambitions, spoke with faculty, planned with friends, made hard decisions, and locked in our classes for the 2026–27 school year. Then, we forgot about course selection for a while, and school life resumed as it had before. By summer, we may have looked ahead with distant optimism, school lying on the far horizon.

By Daniyal Mian '28September 25, 20263 min read

We Must Stop Chasing Prestige

In the 1970s, one in twenty Harvard graduates went into finance or consulting. In fact, the fields of finance, consulting, and technology combined accounted for 53% of Class of 2025 careers. Princeton University similarly produces around twenty management consultants per thousand graduates. Elite colleges are pipelines to such careers, and that is no coincidence. More importantly, elite schools like Milton serve as the first stage.

By Tatsuya Seto '28June 5, 20264 min read

Nostalgia Costs Us

Humans have a desire, concealed by daily routines and eclipsed by the pressure of the future, to revitalize a past version of ourselves. Nostalgia fills tedious ceremonies like graduation with verbose speeches tangled in youth ful memories. While listening to these speeches, I cannot prevent nostalgia from seeping through my own memories and controlling my mind.

By Madeleine Stuart '29June 5, 20263 min read

Student-Faculty Discussions Would Create a More Open, Unified Community

At Milton, the importance of speaking is rarely underestimated. Take most Monday and Friday mornings as an example. A plethora of student and faculty voices at Upper School and Class Meetings greets us, with each voice sharing and promoting various engaging opportunities here at Milton. But where speech has the power to inform and to persuade, discussion has the power to compromise and thereby create change in our communal expectations.

By Daniyal Mian '28June 5, 20263 min read

Minimize Mandatory Homework, Maximize Optional Learning

With his head collapsed over his elbow on the Harkness table, my friend naps during class. His eyes, which he forced to remain open late into the previous night, close. As he sleeps, a sixth of the material for our new unit whizzes by. “What are we doing?” asks my friend after he sees the worksheet before him.

By Isaac Wu '28June 5, 20264 min read

Everyone Needs To Try Community Engagement

Every Sunday in early May, joy emanates around the track. Rather than a Mustang team clinching a pivotal win, the elation radiated from over 500 athletes competing at a Special Olympics event and the people who helped make the event happen. Volunteering at the Special Olympics turned out to be one of the most rewarding afternoons of my entire freshman year. Ever since, I couldn’t help but wonder how different my freshman year would have been if I had volunteered sooner. Should Milton have made me volunteer?

By Asher Berk '29June 5, 20263 min read

Let Us Normalize Amateurism

During icebreakers, we often share our interests. “I sail.” “I like to play chess.” “I solve math problems in my free time.” Think back to the icebreakers that happened at the beginning of the year when everyone in your class took turns telling each other a few quick things about themselves. When someone said they loved doing something, did you automatically assume that they were skilled at it? That they’d had years of experience engaging in their passions? Upon hearing people list their hobbies, I myself have frequently made that assumption. Have you ever stopped to wonder why that assumption even takes shape in our heads in the first place?

By Elizabeth Sim '27May 14, 20264 min read

Your Summer Doesn’t Need a LinkedIn Profile

“You’re not doing a three-month college academic intensive?”

By Alissa Rabin '29May 14, 20264 min read

Advocate Against Attacks on Women’s Reproductive Healthcare

Access to reproductive healthcare, once federally protected under Roe v. Wade, is now over 300 miles and three days of lost wages away from most low-income rural areas. Beyond the headlines of total legal bans, the strategic defunding and disappearance of healthcare infrastructure are eroding reproductive rights. In cutting Title X grants, blocking ways to get accessible abortions, and driving away maternity centers and doctors, policymakers are ensuring that a safe pregnancy becomes a privilege reserved only for those in certain zip codes.

By Elle Thurow '29May 14, 20264 min read

Compassionate Competition Shapes a Collaborative Community

According to the popular college-connection website Niche, over 50% of polled students and parents consider Milton a competitive environment, and reasonably so. Students vie for leadership positions, aim for higher grades than their peers, and generally look to “be the best,” whatever that means. Still, we feel like we don’t do enough—as The Milton Paper’s State of the Acad reported in 2025, 82% of respondents felt academically insecure at least rarely, despite 80.7% having an average grade of an A- or above. This imbalance begs the question: to what standards do we compare ourselves, and how should we set them?

By Adair Johnson '27May 14, 20264 min read

Why “Jungle Primary” Hurts Massachusetts Voters

Last week, the Massachusetts Top-Two Primary Elections Initiative, which would dissolve all political-party primaries, passed the requirements to collect signatures to gain ballot access for the November 2026 election. The initiative would result in a single “jungle” primary—a primary in which all candidates run against each other at the same time, regardless of party affiliation—and only the top two finishers would advance to the general election. This change would impact state elections for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and the state legislature, as well as elections for both houses of Congress. California, Washington, and Alaska have all adopted variants of this structure.

By Solomon Fleiss '28May 14, 20263 min read

Allow AI on All Take-Home Assignments

You fear that when your teacher reads your AI-generated essay, sirens will go off. Rather, sirens should sound throughout our school to alert us to our unpreparedness for the AI revolution. To nullify AI-assisted cheating, help students develop AI-era skills, promote deeper human connections, and more effectively teach critical thinking, Milton should allow AI on all take-home assignments.

By Isaac Wu '28May 14, 20265 min read

Phone Policy is the Treatment, but Student Culture is the Cure

As Milton considers different versions of a phone policy—whether it includes stricter restrictions, phone-free classrooms, or designated usage times—we must ask a more fundamental question: will any version of a phone policy actually work? While limiting phone access may reduce visible distractions, it risks overlooking a deeper issue. Without a broader shift in school culture—particularly around student engagement—even the most carefully designed policy is unlikely to achieve its intended impact.

By Rachel Pang '27May 1, 20264 min read