A total of 417 students, nearly half of the upper school student body, signed up for Peer Support at Activities Fair this year, making it the largest club on campus.
Peer support coordinators also created groups without any adult involvement for the first time. Although many students signed up, only about 300 students attended the first meeting held Oct. 7.

This attendance is fairly common for the first couple of meetings, Peer Support supervisor Luba Bek said.

After the first couple of meetings, the attendance tends to drop, Bek said.

“What is predictable every year is the attendance,” Bek said. “The first couple of meetings are quite big, and then things quiet down. Some people are too busy. Some people decide they can’t commit to Peer Support. Some people are just not the ‘Peer Support’ type.”

Bek attributes the amount of students signed up to the activeness of the Peer Support trainees and leaders at Activities Fair.

While the numbers are encouraging for the popularity of Peer Support, they also made it very difficult for the coordinators to split the large crowd of students into the usual amount of 14 groups.

“Choosing groups was definitely really hard because we wanted to make the best groups possible but at the same time meet everyone’s needs,” Peer Support coordinator Sophie Sunkin said.