Is Bryn Mawr School still worth it?

[Anonymous]

Their reputation is impeccable, but we don’t live in the city anymore. I've also heard some complaints it's gone downhill. College matriculation look good but otherwise I don't get it.

We live north of Baltimore and the Tome School is equidistant from us. It's a very cheap school and rather charming, but nothing like a "big city" private. Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I know a senior there and she loves it, had a great time there since 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

Bryn Mawr has an EXCELLENT reputation. Many, including myself, have never heard of Tome School, and I'm guessing most employers haven't either.

Happen to know a current freshman who is loving Bryn Mawr, learning tons and has made great friends.

I am not sure what city you don't live in any more, or what that has to do with where your child goes to school, but most people believe that Bryn Mawr is worth the cost

[Anonymous]

We moved DD to BMS from a different all girls school last year, in an off entry year. Overall we are very pleased. The academics are top notch - uniformly excellent teachers. The classes are 70 (80?) min long with 20 min “passing periods” to get to class (allowing kid time to get to Gilman or RPCS for class). Kids have 3 academic classes each day and each class meets every other day. No academics after lunch - instead, clubs, time to meet teachers, yoga, PE, free time. I love this schedule- school days are not intense with only 3 classes and time in between to relax. Girls can be cliquish, though it feels as though my DD found her group pretty quickly and is happy.
The school is very diverse - 50% non- white and very accepting of LBGTQ+. The school’s detractors will tell you that it’s too accepting and will “turn your kid gay.” In reality, kids feel comfortable in their own skin, being who they are, and sometimes trying on different identities. To me that just shows how accepting the school is and how safe the girls feel, which are good things.
It’s definitely worth a visit if you are looking for strong academics in an all girls setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bryn Mawr has an EXCELLENT reputation. Many, including myself, have never heard of Tome School, and I'm guessing most employers haven't either.

Happen to know a current freshman who is loving Bryn Mawr, learning tons and has made great friends.

I am not sure what city you don't live in any more, or what that has to do with where your child goes to school, but most people believe that Bryn Mawr is worth the cost

Tome is a very small independent school in Cecil County, MD. It is like 1/4 the price of Bryn Mawr. They don't even bother posting college acceptances on their website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved DD to BMS from a different all girls school last year, in an off entry year. Overall we are very pleased. The academics are top notch - uniformly excellent teachers. The classes are 70 (80?) min long with 20 min “passing periods” to get to class (allowing kid time to get to Gilman or RPCS for class). Kids have 3 academic classes each day and each class meets every other day. No academics after lunch - instead, clubs, time to meet teachers, yoga, PE, free time. I love this schedule- school days are not intense with only 3 classes and time in between to relax. Girls can be cliquish, though it feels as though my DD found her group pretty quickly and is happy.
The school is very diverse - 50% non- white and very accepting of LBGTQ+. The school’s detractors will tell you that it’s too accepting and will “turn your kid gay.” In reality, kids feel comfortable in their own skin, being who they are, and sometimes trying on different identities. To me that just shows how accepting the school is and how safe the girls feel, which are good things.
It’s definitely worth a visit if you are looking for strong academics in an all girls setting.

I'm confused. What % of the student body is non cisgender heterosexual? Is it more than the base rate in the broader population?

[Anonymous]

No idea what % of noncisgender non heterosexual. Not sure those stats are kept. I only raised the issue bc I actually had folks “warn” us that DD would “turn” gay and I know a family that left bc their DD began “questioning” her sexual orientation. Sounds as though this is a non issue for you, which is great - but I did want to address it in case that was a concern.
We are very happy that we made the switch. And yes, college admissions are excellent.

[Anonymous]

You're the first person to ever compare Bryn Mawr to Tome. I can't imagine why anyone would look at both schools. If you're in Harford County, the only place where it might be feasible to be able to contemplate either school, there's Harford Day and John Carroll, which are more reliable options than Tome.

If the whole question of whether Bryn Mawr is "worth it" comes down to the schools' ideological stance towards gender matters, then it is definitely on the progressive side. Bryn Mawr's kindness and tolerance is going to be other people's foolish enability and injustice against girls. Like everything else in modern society, the private schools are sorting out on either side of the fault lines and there are other private schools that take a more traditional approach to gender identities, whether directly or indirectly.

County privates tend to be more pragmatic than the city privates. Except Park. You have plenty of options in the Baltimore area, minus Oldfields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bryn Mawr has an EXCELLENT reputation. Many, including myself, have never heard of Tome School, and I'm guessing most employers haven't either.

Happen to know a current freshman who is loving Bryn Mawr, learning tons and has made great friends.

I am not sure what city you don't live in any more, or what that has to do with where your child goes to school, but most people believe that Bryn Mawr is worth the cost

Why do employers care where someone went to HS? How is it possible you don’t see a correlation in where someone lives to where they send their child to HS? Unless you’re confusing OP’s question with Bryn Mawr College in PA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're the first person to ever compare Bryn Mawr to Tome. I can't imagine why anyone would look at both schools. If you're in Harford County, the only place where it might be feasible to be able to contemplate either school, there's Harford Day and John Carroll, which are more reliable options than Tome.

If the whole question of whether Bryn Mawr is "worth it" comes down to the schools' ideological stance towards gender matters, then it is definitely on the progressive side. Bryn Mawr's kindness and tolerance is going to be other people's foolish enability and injustice against girls. Like everything else in modern society, the private schools are sorting out on either side of the fault lines and there are other private schools that take a more traditional approach to gender identities, whether directly or indirectly.

County privates tend to be more pragmatic than the city privates. Except Park. You have plenty of options in the Baltimore area, minus Oldfields.

Yes, Harford County. Since you are familiar - Why do you feel Harford Day/John Carroll are better options than Tome? Out of those three, I've heard the most positive things from Tome. The reason we are looking at Tome and Bryn Mawr is simply that we're still early in this process and the financial side of things isn't really a major hurdle one way or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're the first person to ever compare Bryn Mawr to Tome. I can't imagine why anyone would look at both schools. If you're in Harford County, the only place where it might be feasible to be able to contemplate either school, there's Harford Day and John Carroll, which are more reliable options than Tome.

If the whole question of whether Bryn Mawr is "worth it" comes down to the schools' ideological stance towards gender matters, then it is definitely on the progressive side. Bryn Mawr's kindness and tolerance is going to be other people's foolish enability and injustice against girls. Like everything else in modern society, the private schools are sorting out on either side of the fault lines and there are other private schools that take a more traditional approach to gender identities, whether directly or indirectly.

County privates tend to be more pragmatic than the city privates. Except Park. You have plenty of options in the Baltimore area, minus Oldfields.

Yes, Harford County. Since you are familiar - Why do you feel Harford Day/John Carroll are better options than Tome? Out of those three, I've heard the most positive things from Tome. The reason we are looking at Tome and Bryn Mawr is simply that we're still early in this process and the financial side of things isn't really a major hurdle one way or the other.

John Carroll is a great school if you want you kid to have a drug problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're the first person to ever compare Bryn Mawr to Tome. I can't imagine why anyone would look at both schools. If you're in Harford County, the only place where it might be feasible to be able to contemplate either school, there's Harford Day and John Carroll, which are more reliable options than Tome.

If the whole question of whether Bryn Mawr is "worth it" comes down to the schools' ideological stance towards gender matters, then it is definitely on the progressive side. Bryn Mawr's kindness and tolerance is going to be other people's foolish enability and injustice against girls. Like everything else in modern society, the private schools are sorting out on either side of the fault lines and there are other private schools that take a more traditional approach to gender identities, whether directly or indirectly.

County privates tend to be more pragmatic than the city privates. Except Park. You have plenty of options in the Baltimore area, minus Oldfields.

Yes, Harford County. Since you are familiar - Why do you feel Harford Day/John Carroll are better options than Tome? Out of those three, I've heard the most positive things from Tome. The reason we are looking at Tome and Bryn Mawr is simply that we're still early in this process and the financial side of things isn't really a major hurdle one way or the other.

John Carroll is a great school if you want you kid to have a drug problem.

Which is said about every school, public or private.

If finances aren't an issue for OP, then the difference between Tome and a full fledged private like Bryn Mawr is going to be staggering. Quality of facilities, instruction, student body, the overall campus atmosphere. You'd want to visit all the schools and see for yourself.

Commuting from Harford to the Baltimore area schools is going to be rough. It's possible McDonogh may run a bus out to Harford. I'd also look at the Saint Pauls schools as they're right off the beltway. If you can't move closer in, then I'd probably look closely at Harford Day as a long established option that has sent graduates to the Baltimore area schools for HS. I know very little about Tome other than it is a resurrection of a much older boarding school that closed during the Depression. The only connection is the name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're the first person to ever compare Bryn Mawr to Tome. I can't imagine why anyone would look at both schools. If you're in Harford County, the only place where it might be feasible to be able to contemplate either school, there's Harford Day and John Carroll, which are more reliable options than Tome.

If the whole question of whether Bryn Mawr is "worth it" comes down to the schools' ideological stance towards gender matters, then it is definitely on the progressive side. Bryn Mawr's kindness and tolerance is going to be other people's foolish enability and injustice against girls. Like everything else in modern society, the private schools are sorting out on either side of the fault lines and there are other private schools that take a more traditional approach to gender identities, whether directly or indirectly.

County privates tend to be more pragmatic than the city privates. Except Park. You have plenty of options in the Baltimore area, minus Oldfields.

Yes, Harford County. Since you are familiar - Why do you feel Harford Day/John Carroll are better options than Tome? Out of those three, I've heard the most positive things from Tome. The reason we are looking at Tome and Bryn Mawr is simply that we're still early in this process and the financial side of things isn't really a major hurdle one way or the other.

John Carroll is a great school if you want you kid to have a drug problem.

Which is said about every school, public or private.

If finances aren't an issue for OP, then the difference between Tome and a full fledged private like Bryn Mawr is going to be staggering. Quality of facilities, instruction, student body, the overall campus atmosphere. You'd want to visit all the schools and see for yourself.

Commuting from Harford to the Baltimore area schools is going to be rough. It's possible McDonogh may run a bus out to Harford. I'd also look at the Saint Pauls schools as they're right off the beltway. If you can't move closer in, then I'd probably look closely at Harford Day as a long established option that has sent graduates to the Baltimore area schools for HS. I know very little about Tome other than it is a resurrection of a much older boarding school that closed during the Depression. The only connection is the name.

There's a bus at the Fallston Park and Ride that goes to the city privates. I personally would worry about sending my young children on a 45 minute bus ride into Baltimore City. I mean, I assume they take good care of the kids and all, but jeez.

[Anonymous]

NP, I have toured these schools. Here are my 2 cents

Harford Day looks good on paper but is thoroughly unimpressive. I have never met a family who has been through the school who was glad they spent the money on it.

John Carroll is about as bad as it gets in terms of hick trash with a little money. Their college matriculation is so unimpressive I can't imagine the local publics are worse.

Tome is in the middle of the boonies. It has trash college admissions, although that might be the parents' fault. It is a good school. Better in person than on paper. Frankly I don't understand why the kids don't go on to better things. I felt like I was missing something with them.


Really no great option, but I will say parents of Tome absolutely love it, and it's the only one on this list that comes with a ton of parent satisfaction. So I dunno. Harford County isn't great for good options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP, I have toured these schools. Here are my 2 cents

Harford Day looks good on paper but is thoroughly unimpressive. I have never met a family who has been through the school who was glad they spent the money on it.

John Carroll is about as bad as it gets in terms of hick trash with a little money. Their college matriculation is so unimpressive I can't imagine the local publics are worse.

Tome is in the middle of the boonies. It has trash college admissions, although that might be the parents' fault. It is a good school. Better in person than on paper. Frankly I don't understand why the kids don't go on to better things. I felt like I was missing something with them.


Really no great option, but I will say parents of Tome absolutely love it, and it's the only one on this list that comes with a ton of parent satisfaction. So I dunno. Harford County isn't great for good options.

OP here, are you me??? I toured Harford Day and thought it was dreadful. Tome blew us away. But then when you think about it more, it's like, gee, Tome sends their students to like College Park at best, what's up with that.

Tome is convenient and it seems awesome, but there's no arguing with poor college matriculation lists. I am aware of the chasm between Tome vs Bryn Mawr but I don't know about daily commutes into the city, or using a bus. Maybe when my kids aren't young.