How do you know when you might have hired the wrong person as your new head of school? When the new HOS doesn’t know the answer and can’t guess within 80% or $800,000,000 the size of the largest prep school endowments in the country.

This conversation took place when several senior coaches/administrators at a prep school were having one of their initial conversations with the new head of school regarding financial aid, athletic recruitment, school resources etc. One coach/administrator asked the new HOS if he knew the size of the endowment at Exeter. Those that knew the correct answer were shocked at the inaccuracy of his guess.