How welcoming is Visi?

[Anonymous]

DD has been accepted and is trying to decide if she will attend. We are not wealthy. Can afford the tuition but we live in a modest home in a modest neighborhood and don’t drive fancy cars. She will not be driving a brand new luxury car to school when she gets her license. She isn’t sporty at all but is into the arts. Does very well in school and wants to be challenged academically. Will she/we fit in or will we feel out of place in the community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD has been accepted and is trying to decide if she will attend. We are not wealthy. Can afford the tuition but we live in a modest home in a modest neighborhood and don’t drive fancy cars. She will not be driving a brand new luxury car to school when she gets her license. She isn’t sporty at all but is into the arts. Does very well in school and wants to be challenged academically. Will she/we fit in or will we feel out of place in the community.

6 of the 8 girls I know that attend Visi are all wealthy and belong to either Chevy or Congo clubs. Parents are very into the DC CC social scene.

[Anonymous]

These schools always have a balance of the wealthy socialites and those who are not.
If your kid is not a country club member and chases after the kids who are she may have real issues fitting in (or may not--depends on the kids). But regardless there is always the rest of the class. Hopefully your kid will gravitate towards them.

It's always a bit of a crap shoot when you join one of the fancier DC schools but most kids will find their crowd.

[Anonymous]

Visi has a mix of girls. As a PP said, if she doesn't spend time running after the country club crowd, she will find her tribe. My nieces graduated from there on almost full scholarships (no big or fancy house and never drove any car to school). They hung out with friends like them from their K-8 school with similar backgrounds and were happy there. I never even heard about the country club crowd from there so I guess it was not a big issue to them.

[Anonymous]

OP here. She definitely does not have any interest in the country club crowd and her main reason for hesitating to accept is this country club crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. She definitely does not have any interest in the country club crowd and her main reason for hesitating to accept is this country club crowd.

I think you could probably ask admissions what the personality of the class is. You have nothing to lose (she's in!)

That said, I really don't think she'll have a problem unless she has the personality where she wants to be the center of the action/popular/a leader. Well, this kid may be more likely to have a hard time there. In contrast, a kid who is just going to quietly find her friends will quietly find her friends. There will be plenty of girls who don't get caught up in the social scene.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These schools always have a balance of the wealthy socialites and those who are not.
If your kid is not a country club member and chases after the kids who are she may have real issues fitting in (or may not--depends on the kids). But regardless there is always the rest of the class. Hopefully your kid will gravitate towards them.

It's always a bit of a crap shoot when you join one of the fancier DC schools but most kids will find their crowd.

This is such a weird way of viewing classmates. I don’t think op wants to feel her daughter should only stick to her “own” to fit in. Yuck. What a sad way to view your classmates. We are wealthy but I encourage my children to have friends from all economic and social group backgrounds. I would never encourage my children to only hang out with a certain set of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These schools always have a balance of the wealthy socialites and those who are not.
If your kid is not a country club member and chases after the kids who are she may have real issues fitting in (or may not--depends on the kids). But regardless there is always the rest of the class. Hopefully your kid will gravitate towards them.

It's always a bit of a crap shoot when you join one of the fancier DC schools but most kids will find their crowd.

This is such a weird way of viewing classmates. I don’t think op wants to feel her daughter should only stick to her “own” to fit in. Yuck. What a sad way to view your classmates. We are wealthy but I encourage my children to have friends from all economic and social group backgrounds. I would never encourage my children to only hang out with a certain set of people.

+1000 parents should encourage girls to be friends with all girls no matter their background or social economic status. Sad.

[Anonymous]

Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

I have no horse in this race (DC will not go to this school) but a friend of DC's has it as her top choice. She told DC she wanted to go there "to be challenged". I thought Visi had a good rep for rigor?

So hard to parse things on an anonymous board. Most posts I have seen have intimated Visi was academically challenging, with some posters even insinuating the work load there was making kids miserable.

Which is it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

I have no horse in this race (DC will not go to this school) but a friend of DC's has it as her top choice. She told DC she wanted to go there "to be challenged". I thought Visi had a good rep for rigor?

So hard to parse things on an anonymous board. Most posts I have seen have intimated Visi was academically challenging, with some posters even insinuating the work load there was making kids miserable.

Which is it.

There's a distinction between amount of work and quality of work. Visi's reputation is for the former, which is among the reasons we did not apply our daughter there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

I have no horse in this race (DC will not go to this school) but a friend of DC's has it as her top choice. She told DC she wanted to go there "to be challenged". I thought Visi had a good rep for rigor?

So hard to parse things on an anonymous board. Most posts I have seen have intimated Visi was academically challenging, with some posters even insinuating the work load there was making kids miserable.

Which is it.

NP here. I applied for a teaching job there about twenty years ago. I went to NCS. The headmaster told me, “we aren’t as rigorous as NCS and we don’t aim to be.” He explained that they have to take a certain number of girls from each parish and that they also have legacy considerations.

Of course that was a while ago. Things may have changed. And NCS is insanely rigorous, so being less rigorous than NCS may not be a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

Why is this poster bad-mouthing Visi without any facts? "just not worth the money" "academics behind other private schools"

The facts are that Visi has very rigorous academics for those taking the Honors/AP track. And Visi's college placement clearly shows that the academics are rigorous. My DD is a very recent grad and below are some college placements for her class. If you do as the PP says and "consider the college placement" you would certainly not find Visi lacking in any way. SR also has good college placement.

Georgetown (9)
Cornell (4)
Princeton (2)
Notre Dame (2)
Dartmouth
Penn
Tufts (2)
UNC (1)
Vanderbilt (2)
Amherst
Williams
Middlebury
Wake Forest (4)
William & Mary (2)
Northwestern
Bowdoin
UCLA
Georgia Tech (2)
Michigan (3)
UVA (2)
USC
Washington & Lee (2)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

Why is this poster bad-mouthing Visi without any facts? "just not worth the money" "academics behind other private schools"

The facts are that Visi has very rigorous academics for those taking the Honors/AP track. And Visi's college placement clearly shows that the academics are rigorous. My DD is a very recent grad and below are some college placements for her class. If you do as the PP says and "consider the college placement" you would certainly not find Visi lacking in any way. SR also has good college placement.

Georgetown (9)
Cornell (4)
Princeton (2)
Notre Dame (2)
Dartmouth
Penn
Tufts (2)
UNC (1)
Vanderbilt (2)
Amherst
Williams
Middlebury
Wake Forest (4)
William & Mary (2)
Northwestern
Bowdoin
UCLA
Georgia Tech (2)
Michigan (3)
UVA (2)
USC
Washington & Lee (2)

+1. SR will cost you $36,000 more than Visi for four years of high school. If you are comparing "value" then I'd take the significant tuition difference into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your family Catholic? What are the other high school options for your DD? I would not send my DD to Visi -- the academics are behind other private schools (even all girls schools) and the school is just not worth the money. Compare the academic offerings at Visi to other schools and you will see this. Plus consider the college placement.

I have no horse in this race (DC will not go to this school) but a friend of DC's has it as her top choice. She told DC she wanted to go there "to be challenged". I thought Visi had a good rep for rigor?

So hard to parse things on an anonymous board. Most posts I have seen have intimated Visi was academically challenging, with some posters even insinuating the work load there was making kids miserable.

Which is it.

There's a distinction between amount of work and quality of work. Visi's reputation is for the former, which is among the reasons we did not apply our daughter there.

So you don't know.