Beyond the Classroom
Boarding and Residential Experience
Boarding
With Pacific and mountain views from your dorm room, the Mesa is an incredible place to call home. Of Cate’s 310 students, 240 are boarding students who live right here on campus. Each dorm has dedicated faculty team that manage and oversee the dorm and who with the Senior Prefects, the student leaders in the dorm. There are 10 different dorms to live in at Cate, all with their own unique personalities. They are:
- Class of 1925 House (referred to as ’25 House)
- Long House
- Schoolhouse
- High House
- Lido
- Parsonage
- Bothin
- Savage
- Cook House East (Referred to as CHE)
- Cook House West (Referred to as CHW)
Bothin and Parsonage Dorms at a dorm meeting
All 9th graders live in either Long House or ’25 House. Long House is all single rooms while ’25 House is all doublerooms. From sophomore through senior year, students have more options on their housing as all dorms are mixed grades and have a variety of singles and doubles.
Faculty residents live in each dorm, so students have a trusted adult nearby. Senior Prefects assist the faculty in the dorm, helping oversee dorm activities, chores, study hours, and help run the weekly dorm meetings.
Residential Experience: Log off, Show up, Pitch in!
On weekends and after sports, students can take the school shuttle bus into Carpinteria to grab food in town, stock up on dorm supplies, or to simply enjoy time on the beach and in town. Each weekend there are activities organized ranging from dodgeball tournaments on campus, to school dances such as Homecoming and Winter Formal, to outdoors camping trips, to community service trips to local nonprofits, and other excursions off campus.
Throughout the week, living in the dorm comes with community expectations that align with our motto of Servons. Each student is learns to share a room, maintain a clean room, to do their laundry, and every student is given a dorm chore to help our communal spaces remain clean and inviting for all. In the evenings, students head to study hours where they work in their rooms or in the academic spaces on campus to complete their academic work. During this time, students can attend peer tutoring sessions to get assistance form their peers.
Dining
Booth Commons is Cate’s dining hall where students receive 3 wonderful meal everyday. Day students and families are welcome to join for all meals whenever they are on the Mesa as well!
The dining hall keeps fruit, cereals, teas, and sandwich materials throughout the evening in case you need study snack later on!
On Mondays, our community comes to Booth for Formal Dinner, where we enjoy randomly assigned tables to share a meal with a new group of friends and faculty.
