Is Landon worth it?

[Anonymous]

Debating if Landon is worth the tuition cost compared to other privates like Potomac, Prep, or Gonzaga. I understand the Gonzaga tuition is lower than all the others in comparison, but what is the advantage to attending Landon over other privates? If you have a DC attending Landon now, what has your experience been like? Is the academic rigor there even though they plan to exit AP courses? What is the Landon student body like? There seems to be many bad actors in one of the upper-school grades, how do they manage those students? Is the coach-mentor- thing really a thing or just for some?

[Anonymous]

After you receive decisions you should ask to speak with current families and attend all events. Have your son do a shadow day. I know more than one family very happy at Landon but it is not better than others, or a good public, for every kid.

[Anonymous]

Every private school has or is in the process of removing AP course offerings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After you receive decisions you should ask to speak with current families and attend all events. Have your son do a shadow day. I know more than one family very happy at Landon but it is not better than others, or a good public, for every kid.

However, it is for most of the kids that have gone there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every private school has or is in the process of removing AP course offerings.

Does this mean schools are going to be relaxing academic expectations?

[Anonymous]

I think this is a very personal decision.

For us, no, Landon would not have been worth paying $45K over public. We thought about this long an hard and filled out the application but never hit send.
We applied to STA, Sidwell and Potomac. We felt like each of them were worth the money over public for our kid who was doing very well in public.
Our son ended up at STA and it's been great. It's $$ but the experience (high academics, unique experience on the close, etc) is worth the money over a decent public
for our kid.
We had different reasons for feeling like Sidwell and to a lesser extent Potomac, would also have been worth spending the money over public school.
We didn't feel any need to leave public school "at any cost".

Everyone's calculation is going to be different.

[Anonymous]

What do they love about the school? How competitive is the acceptance rate? Seems like they take anyone paying full tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every private school has or is in the process of removing AP course offerings.

The question should be will they still have advanced options, as not all the boys took the AP, so the highest achieving group should still have challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every private school has or is in the process of removing AP course offerings.

Does this mean schools are going to be relaxing academic expectations?

They shouldn’t be.
But it s good question to ask: how will they differentiate and how many kids sit for the AP exams?

[Anonymous]

Landon has been absolutely worth it for our son. The community is extraordinarily tight and the teachers/coaches know the kids very well and on an academic and personal level. Our kid is bright but absolutely has to work for all his grades. And the minute he takes his foot of the pedal, we see his grades come down. Mr. Neill is terrific as HOS. He is academic and philosophical and strategic when you need him to be. And today when construction was causing disruptions during drop-off he was out there being the traffic police and directing cars for over an hour. We have had a kid at another Big 3 and the HOS was nowhere close to being as engaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do they love about the school? How competitive is the acceptance rate? Seems like they take anyone paying full tuition.

I don’t think this is true. I know people who applied last year and said it was competitive. I have a daughter and don’t know much about the school, but I’ve heard good things from people who have kids there.

[Anonymous]

Don't believe the hype about trying to rebuild the school's reputation. The factors that caused the scandals run deep. Do you really want to pay that much to have your kid exposed to that kind of toxicity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Landon has been absolutely worth it for our son. The community is extraordinarily tight and the teachers/coaches know the kids very well and on an academic and personal level. Our kid is bright but absolutely has to work for all his grades. And the minute he takes his foot of the pedal, we see his grades come down. Mr. Neill is terrific as HOS. He is academic and philosophical and strategic when you need him to be. And today when construction was causing disruptions during drop-off he was out there being the traffic police and directing cars for over an hour. We have had a kid at another Big 3 and the HOS was nowhere close to being as engaged.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't believe the hype about trying to rebuild the school's reputation. The factors that caused the scandals run deep. Do you really want to pay that much to have your kid exposed to that kind of toxicity?

That's not been our experience at all. The teachers have been phenomenal.

[Anonymous]

All the privates and publics have their issues. You go for the private school attitude and privilege and to be with a certain kinds of families. Also smaller class sizes. The only difference we see and we do their summer classes, is that they use textbooks. Teachers have been hit or miss. We like their summer program but based off that when our children do well in public, it doesn't seem worth it to us (and I'd prefer private given the choice but our kids prefer public).