Since its founding, The Hill has strived to maintain an atmosphere which encourages communication and understanding. This closeness is the cornerstone of the counseling at The Hill. Teachers, coaches, and drom parents frequently and naturally serve as means through which students can receive help, understanding, advice, and a friendly ear as they encounter difficulties in their lives.
In addition to receiving as much of this informal counseling as he or she needs, each student is assigned a faculty adviser. Each adviser has an advisee group of 6-8 students which meets once a week to discuss academic and personal issues. Private meetings also are scheduled throught the school-year. This adviser stays informed about his or her advisees' progress in the classroom, in the dormitories, on the playing fields, and in other extracurricular activities. Aside from the formal duties the adviser performs (such as distributing and reviewing grades, making periodic reports to each advisee's parents, and helping advisees select courses for the following academic year), the advier also supports and encourages each advisee, trying always to promote each advisee's best interests and to make each advisee's Hill School experience as worthwhile as possible.
However, the adviser-advisee relationship can become much richer than this list of tasks indicates. It is the hope of the School that students will see their advisers as partners in their learning and as advocates for them in the life of the School. In these roles the advisers act as mentors who have come to know the students' strengths and weaknesses. They are able to offer advice that is born out of their relationships with their advisees. When students are struggling, advisers are able to advocate for the students' needs and concerns; when students experience success, advisers are able to join in the celebrations as faculty who understand all the hard work that has gone into the victory.