The Sault’s Evelyn Mooney is about to embark on a demanding academic and athletic journey.
The 14-year-old will be attending Proctor Academy, a preparatory school in Andover, New Hampshire for the next four years beginning in September.
Prep schools are private secondary schools with rigorous academic and athletic standards. Its students live in dormitories on school property.
Evelyn, a White Pines Collegiate student last year who played as a central midfielder for the Soo City United soccer club, will be studying at Proctor and playing for its soccer club.
“It’ll be demanding. There are a lot of emotions. There are a lot of unknowns but I'm also really excited to see what happens,” Evelyn told SooToday.
She’s excited about the edge a prep school education will give her when it comes to post-secondary education.
“It seems like most people that have graduated from Proctor and other prep schools have gone to top universities and colleges,” Evelyn said.
After Proctor, she would like to pursue her post-secondary education in the U.S. and play soccer at the NCAA level.
Evelyn will be following in the footsteps of her mother, Kristin Mooney.
As a teen in the Sault, Kristin attended St. Mary’s College for three years before studying for two additional years at Lawrence Academy, a prep school in Groton, Massachusetts.
She played as a goaltender for Lawrence Academy’s hockey team.
“I very much enjoyed it. I'm a bit envious of Evelyn because she will get the full four-year experience at a prep school. Given the experience that I had, I wished I had known about that pathway earlier to get the full four years,” Kristin said.
She described prep school as a smaller version of a university.
“You have a regimented schedule. In terms of academics, the standards are higher, absolutely,” Kristin said, adding that prep school taught her about independence and self-reliance.
She wants her daughter Evelyn to enjoy the unique outside the classroom learning experiences a prep school offers.
“It allows for so many opportunities that just cannot be provided in any other environment. In my senior year I was able to study journalism for two weeks in the spring term, and the way I learned journalism was by travelling with the Boston Red Sox to their training camp in Florida.
"You get to see different things the world has to offer,” Kristin said.
After graduating from Lawrence Academy, Kristin played hockey as a goaltender at the NCAA level for Elmira College in Elmira, New York.
She and her Elmira Soaring Eagles teammates won NCAA championships in her first and second years at the college.
Kristin is now a finance controller for two Sault and area companies.
Her hockey days are over but she coaches her youngest daughter’s soccer team.
Reflecting on her life so far, Kristin credits much of her success to not only her prep school academic achievements but also her athletic prowess.
That athletic ability led to success at college and in her career.
“Whatever sport a female can excel in can play a very significant role in their lives. If you look into a lot of statistics, 80 per cent of females who are higher up in corporations are most likely to have played some sort of competitive sport,” Kristin said.
Gaining admission into a prep school involves not only high academic and athletic achievement but also earning both teacher and personal recommendations and writing a series of essays.
Then, of course, there is the cost, though Evelyn will be attending Proctor partly due to a scholarship.
But the cost is worth it, Kristin said.
“In a lot of ways Evelyn and I definitely have a lot of similar qualities. We're both the first born in our families so she has a very natural leadership style as I have. A lot of people see that in her on the soccer field. But I hope she takes this opportunity at Proctor and does whatever she wants for herself and finds her own path.”