Forging Connections

Mason ’25 recalls being “completely blown away” the first time he toured Prep’s campus. But his induction into the Prep brotherhood began in earnest with a knock on his front door in 8th grade. Michael Connelly ’83 from Prep’s development office had come to tell Mason he’d been awarded one of Prep’s new Magis merit scholarships. “That helped seal the deal,” Mason notes. 

 

Prep’s all-boy nature and the sense of brotherhood on campus have been the best part of Mason’s Prep experience so far. “The brotherhood really is a true thing. It’s not that hard to see in everyday life,” says Mason, who points to examples like the way the community has come together in hard times or how guys will invite others who are alone to sit with them at lunch. “There’s just this general sense of belonging here. Nobody can slip under the radar.” 

 

Mason’s eye-opening first tour of Prep was shortly after the addition of the McLeod Innovation Center and the Barrett Science Center. The fact that alumni gave money to renovate areas of the campus where he now spends most of his free time has left an impression on Mason, who hopes one day to follow suit. “They could have done that for their college,” he observes. “It really shows that Prep had such a profound impact on them that that’s what they wanted to do.”

 

Mason, who was named All Conference and All State in football his junior year, has been making the most of the opportunities available to him at Prep. He’s captain of the football team, earned summa cum laude honors for the last three years, serves in student government, and attended the Kairos retreat, among other activities. Mason has always seen himself as a leader, and credits Prep with helping him expand his leadership abilities and grow as a person.

 

At Prep, Mason found the academic challenge he was seeking. His AP Calculus AB course junior year stretched him in math, which has always come easily to him even in the advanced courses he’s taken since 5th grade. Mason also extols Prep’s English teachers for helping him “fall back in love with English and the language side of school” by enabling him to see the subject as a way to build skills for thinking and analysis, rather than simply reading and writing. 

 

“It’s good for your formation as a person to be able to do hard things. It really prepares you for the real world,” asserts Mason, who appreciates Prep’s emphasis on developing the work ethic and mentality necessary for college.

 

Like many Prep graduates, Mason’s possibilities for the future are wide open. Before committing to the Naval Academy, he had more than a dozen offers to play Division I football in college, including from Princeton, Yale, Penn, and all three military academies. He’s still thinking about what he’ll major in, maybe engineering or economics, but he’s already set on a minor—English.