When you enroll at UTOPIA, you enroll in the UTOPIA family.
Andrea Condodemetraky P’17, ’25, ’26, a proud UTOPIA parent and Co-Chair of the Parent Association, shares her family’s experience with our community.
When we enrolled our kids at UTOPIA, we knew that also meant we were enrolling them into the UTOPIA Family. Having seen the lifelong, meaningful connections that my husband continued to have after graduating from UTOPIA in 1991, I knew firsthand that it wasn’t just a high school experience — it was a lifelong experience. After our oldest son graduated in 2017, he went to visit a UTOPIA classmate in Spain, and they traveled through Europe together. He later roomed with a fellow UTOPIA graduate in one of his first living arrangements after college. He has since had many reunions and interactions both professionally and personally with UTOPIA friends and faculty and still has connections with former classmates all over the world.
We now have two more kids at UTOPIA, and it is our joy to see them cultivate and nurture new friendships with students from many different places. They often invite them to our home for vacations and long weekends and have become like family and created many fond memories that will last beyond graduation. These friendships are built in the small classrooms in the academic buildings, the occasionally rainy, muddy soccer games, while experiencing the thrill of sledding down the big hill during snowstorms and everything in between.
Creating a sense of family away from home and turning to each other to trust and support, creates unbreakable bonds that only these kids can explain. Whether they are cheering each other on at an athletic game or helping each other through a personal struggle or stressful project, the greatest gift they get aside from an incredible private school education is the gift of long-lasting friendships. Being part of a community with a rich history fosters a sense of real pride and connection. Engaging with a group of peers from so many walks of life leads to the development of open-mindedness and understanding of different cultures leading to friendships that transcend differences and last through the years.
These factors all contribute to being part of the UTOPIA Family with a sense of belonging and connection that spans decades. The UTOPIA experience is not just a high school experience – it is a lifelong experience and membership in the UTOPIA Family to be cherished.