Photos: What do you get for $45,605 a year in private school tuition?

Video: Hotchkiss School Football Highlights
See the Bearcats in action in recent seasons, including home games at Sprole Field.

LAKEVILLE, Conn. - So what do you get for $45,605 a year in private school tuition these days?

If you're at the Hotchkiss School (Lakeville, Conn.) and participate on one of its 61 interscholastic teams, plenty.

A survey last summer by MSN Moneyranked the Top 20 most expensive private schools in America and Hotchkiss, located in the bucolic northwest corner of Connecticut, earned the No. 3 overall spot, bested only by No. 1 Lawrenceville, N.J. ($47,840), and No. 2 Salisbury, Conn. ($47,250).

While there is no Allen (Texas)-style football stadium at Hotchkiss, no New Castle (Ind.)-style basketball arena, the sum of its athletic parts is impressive, as it is at many New England prep schools.

View the Jackman Stewart Center at No. 19 Berkshire ($42,975 per)

The crown athletic jewels at Hotchkiss are the 220,000-square foot Forrest E. Mars Jr. Athletic Center and the nine-hole Seth Raynor/Charles Banks-designed golf course that runs through the 827-acre campus. The sprawling indoor athletic center is named for its chief benefactor and graduate Forrest Mars, he of the Mars chocolate and confectionery empire.

The Mars Athletic Center includes:

- A 4,000-square-foot field house, with multi-purpose playing surfaces and a two-lane, 1/11th-mile elevated indoor exercise track.

- A 10-lane natatorium, with a separate diving well.

- Two hockey rinks, including one 200 x 100 Olympic-size sheet.

- Eight international squash courts.

- Three indoor tennis courts named after William and Martha Ford, of Ford Motor Company fame (William was the youngest grandson of Henry Ford and a Hotchkiss graduate).

As for the Hotchkiss Golf Course, Bill Pennington of the New York Times wrote that it is "filled with devilishly sloping fairways, spectacular lake views and a closing-hole par 5 that began in a narrow stand of trees, skirted past a swamp and finished with a serpentine uphill approach to a plateau green." Several of the course's holes overlook scenic Lake Wononscopomuc, home of the Hotchkiss sailing team.

The Mars Athletic Center is managed by 1991 Hotchkiss graduate Mike Traggio, who is also the boys varsity hockey coach. Traggio, who skated on defense for four years at Brown University before playing for a season in Italy, left his job as director of hockey at Logitech Ice in San Jose, California, to manage the Mars Center when it opened in 2002.

"As hard as it was to leave California, there was always one place I told my wife (Anna) that would be ideal to raise our family," Traggio said.

"Helping to open our doors to the local community, through various recreational programs, has proven to be a very rewarding part of the job. Having the ability to expose other people to the special Hotchkiss community has been an added bonus.

"There were definite difficulties and new challenges when we expanded to the (current) athletic complex," he added. "The former gym didn't really have operating hours; Hotchkiss community members could call the security office, and be let into the facility at any time. I think it is always a challenge when you have a place steeped in such history and tradition. But it's been fun to intermix the history of the school and past teams, with the excitement of creating new memories and traditions with these great facilities."

Jim Stout is the CBS MaxPreps Media Manager for the Eastern U.S. He may be reached at jim.stout@cbsi.com or @MaxPrepsPR