What are the “Big 3” or “Big 5” in Baltimore?

[Anonymous]

Omg you are such a bore! We are so fortunate to have schools for all kinds of kids here in Baltimore - smart kids, theater kids, artsy kids, sports kids. None is superior.
Oh, and by the way, won’t YOUR kids be - gasp!- “from Maryland”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh ducks. Ivy League? We could care less about that foolishness. Give us a good lacrosse program and we’re good to go.

I would love a Baltimore forum if you could me the moderator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ruxton is honestly a mixed bag of aspirational folks and actual interesting people. Dropping where you live shows aspiration. That being said I live in Ruxton as well and I send my child to a private school in the county. I still think the kids at St Pauls and McD are lesser students. Sports seem to take priority over academics. Parents tend to be from Maryland. Parents seem to be from less educated backgrounds and are seem more provincial. It's almost like working class person made good in owning their own box company or restaurant who have lacrosse loving future fraternity boy sons looking to get a sports scholarship before Junior Year.

Now you're trolling Even your writing style is juvenile and reeks of a bored high school teen pretending to be a parent. Mind you, I admit to knowing one person who does write like this and even think like this, and she's a trust funder who's upset at languishing in Maryland because for whatever reason New York didn't work out for her. The trust, ie her parents' money, pays for the kid's tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not! I clearly recall going to a birthday party at Irvine Nature center for my son's friend who went to St Pauls. He did not get into Gilman despite his dad having gone there and multiple family donations. I was so struck by how slow the kids were. I asked his mom if they "tracked" at at Paul's and she said yes there were three groups. This was confirmed by others. This was clearly the slow class. The parents at this party were all from the county. They all were down to year but not sophisticated at all. I got this same feeling at other parties. When I looked at schools for my daughter I ruled out schools based on this as well.

Oh, I think I was at that party too! Were you the one telling everyone your SAT scores and talking about how many AP classes you took when you were in high school? That must have been you, so fun! I thought it was so fun when you started quizzing the kids on vocab words while they were serving cake! Great idea to demand math facts in exchange for goodie bags, you gotta make those kids EARN it!

These kid bday parties in the county are such a bore. I know I always appreciate it when another parent whips out a copy of the Stanford-Binet and gives all the children IQ tests. Then things start to get interesting.

Absolutely, I broke into the admissions office of the big 3 to steal all the ISEE scores for my son's class to screen for his recent party. Even at our "very rigorous" school there are some bad seeds (...dumbos) I don't want spoiling the mood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ruxton is honestly a mixed bag of aspirational folks and actual interesting people. Dropping where you live shows aspiration. That being said I live in Ruxton as well and I send my child to a private school in the county. I still think the kids at St Pauls and McD are lesser students. Sports seem to take priority over academics. Parents tend to be from Maryland. Parents seem to be from less educated backgrounds and are seem more provincial. It's almost like working class person made good in owning their own box company or restaurant who have lacrosse loving future fraternity boy sons looking to get a sports scholarship before Junior Year.

Maybe it's just late, but im trying to figure out why you name dropped immediately after you mocked people who name drop. AND what school your kid go to "in the county" if not stp or mcd? The only other high schools are parochial. Is the parent of a six year old?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not! I clearly recall going to a birthday party at Irvine Nature center for my son's friend who went to St Pauls. He did not get into Gilman despite his dad having gone there and multiple family donations. I was so struck by how slow the kids were. I asked his mom if they "tracked" at at Paul's and she said yes there were three groups. This was confirmed by others. This was clearly the slow class. The parents at this party were all from the county. They all were down to year but not sophisticated at all. I got this same feeling at other parties. When I looked at schools for my daughter I ruled out schools based on this as well.

So everyone else at the party was having a good time while you were judging small children and their parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not! I clearly recall going to a birthday party at Irvine Nature center for my son's friend who went to St Pauls. He did not get into Gilman despite his dad having gone there and multiple family donations. I was so struck by how slow the kids were. I asked his mom if they "tracked" at at Paul's and she said yes there were three groups. This was confirmed by others. This was clearly the slow class. The parents at this party were all from the county. They all were down to year but not sophisticated at all. I got this same feeling at other parties. When I looked at schools for my daughter I ruled out schools based on this as well.

So everyone else at the party was having a good time while you were judging small children and their parents?

Sounds like it. But if I'm being honest, I do see where that poster is coming from. Private school parents in Baltimore range from dual JHU doctors who came to Baltimore from Boston or NYC or California to local families who founded a successful business and are very Baltimore-oriented. It's her language that is unfortunate and offensive. In my view, anyone who took the initiative and creativity to start a business and kept it going and successful enough to afford multiple private school fees for their kids is pretty d*mn impressive. Do a lot of the private school parents grow up in Baltimore and are happy having good local jobs, whether a family business or T Rowe Price / Legg Mason / Brown Advisory and local lives with their friends from high school days and local clubs and schools and getting on with life in a comfortable way? Absolutely. Interesting people come from all walks of life. Her usage of "sophistication" only revealed her to be both snobby without justification and short-sighted.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t the crime rate in Baltimore off the charts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t the crime rate in Baltimore off the charts?

🙄

I assure you that the Roland Park area (where all these schools are located) is safe enough for the most terrified suburbanite. Kids are not popping over to Sandtown-Winchester for lunch.

[Anonymous]

Is it still McDonogh, Gilman, and Bryn Mawr in 2024?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it still McDonogh, Gilman, and Bryn Mawr in 2024?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it still McDonogh, Gilman, and Bryn Mawr in 2024?

Yes, anyone who truly thinks this is up for discussion is not from Baltimore.

[Anonymous]

What about Park and Friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about Park and Friends?

They're great schools. My family has attended both and I would lump them together and put them on the same level. Friends is more eclectic and Park is more Jewish. Both great for the creative thinker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about Park and Friends?

They're great schools. My family has attended both and I would lump them together and put them on the same level. Friends is more eclectic and Park is more Jewish. Both great for the creative thinker.

I don't think Park is as "Jewish" as it was in the past. It's decidedly a progressive left private school more than the Jewish private school it once was.

I'd classify Park as more eclectic. It always was! Friends is a fine school but has lost a bit of academic clout in the last 20 years. Just a reflection of the changing world of private schools in Baltimore than anything Friends did.