Residential Life | Junior Program

The “Living Group” is Exploration’s version of the bunk house. Each Living Group is comprised of approximately 12 students and two floor advisors who are called residential advisors. Residential advisors are immersed in the lives of the students within their Living Groups. They help students choose activities, make friends, and deal with the issues associated with being away from home. Living Groups meet together many times each day, including at breakfast and dinner.

Dorm rooms have many different configurations and sizes. Some have carpet, some do not. Some are doubles, others triples. Each room contains a bed for each student (sometimes bunk beds), at least one dresser, and a closet or wardrobe. Each student is given two bath towels, linens, a pillow, and one blanket. Linens are exchanged weekly. Once a week, students’ personal laundry is sent to a nearby laundry service. Residential Advisors help students with both the linen exchanges and the laundry service.

Bathrooms are located right down the hall from student rooms. There are between two and four toilets, sinks, and showers in each bathroom. Students take showers either in the morning when they wake up or at night before they go to bed. In addition, there are boys’ and girls’ locker rooms near the pool so that students can also take showers after swimming.

The St. Mark’s School custodial department cleans bathrooms and common areas daily. Students are expected to keep their rooms tidy and residential advisors conduct regular room inspections to make sure student rooms are reasonably well-cleaned and organized.






The dormitory supervision is extremely comprehensive. In addition to residential advisors, each living group has two residence directors, with eight residence directors at the program in all. Residence directors are Exploration staff members with experience working in both residential life and directly with students. Residence directors provide support and supervise students and residential advisors. Working with the residence directors are the Assistant Deans, and the Dean of Students. The Dean’s Office is generally open from 8:30am until 10:30pm each day. The Deans, the Heads of Program, and all Exploration faculty and staff live on the campus during the summer.



Prior to arriving at Exploration, students complete a roommate form that tells us about their interests, habits, and some characteristics they might like to see in a roommate. In addition, parents complete a parent information form telling us about their children. We use these forms to match students based on grade in school, extracurricular and academic interests, and special requests made by students and parents. Generally, there are two or three students to a room. Most students who attend the Junior Program arrive without knowing anyone, and, therefore, a majority of students do not request to live with a particular person. We try to honor roommate requests, as long as both students are in the same grade and both students and their parents have requested each other. We encourage friends attending the Program to seriously consider not rooming with one another so that they can get to know new people. It is possible to assign students to the same Living Group not as roommates, as long as both students are in the same grade and they both request each other. 

If families have additional needs, concerns, or preferences regarding housing, they should be in contact with David Torcoletti, the Head of Program, before June 1.



St. Mark’s has an excellent health center and the nursing staff is on-duty 24 hours a day. The Southborough Medical Group is located next door to the campus and pediatricians in the practice hold daily appointment times open for Junior Program students. Within five miles of the school are two hospitals, one affiliated with Boston University Medical School and the other with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.