Why do people dislike the Big Three?

[Anonymous]

There is too Santa Claus. I've seen him myself. And I've got the sales figures to prove his existence.

Beauvoir exists but does "the Big 3" exist? You don't have to be jealous or disgruntled to ask. Just skeptical.

It's funny how some people are so invested in these categories that questioning their validity really seems to hit a nerve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The Santa Claus tatement was smug. There is no Santa Claus. There are the big three. And the Ivies. And the people who don't like that (the fact these terms DO INDEED exist... yes Virginia there is a Beauvoir) are either (1) jealous or (2) disgruntled former students/parents.

Get over yourself. Many of us neither like nor dislike "the big three".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The Santa Claus tatement was smug. There is no Santa Claus. There are the big three. And the Ivies. And the people who don't like that (the fact these terms DO INDEED exist... yes Virginia there is a Beauvoir) are either (1) jealous or (2) disgruntled former students/parents.

Get over yourself. Many of us neither like nor dislike "the big three".

Learn to read. I said the people who don't like the fact that these terms exist...that deny the existence of an Ivy League or the Big three, whether or not they like the schools...have issues.
If you are comfortable with your choice, you don't go around screaming "There is no Big 3!!!"

Of course there is a big 3. So what?

[Anonymous]

By the same token,then, there's a Santa Claus.

And you're really in no position to be slamming others for screaming or poor reading comprehension or probably comfort with choices, for that matter.

[Anonymous]

If Santa had a kid in DC, he would send him to Beauvoir and Penn.

[Anonymous]

And then the kid would be molested.

So Santa would try to send him to Sidwell in hopes of schmoozing with the Obamas. But if that didn't work out, he'd enroll the kid at YuYing. After all, even Santa has new markets to conquer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Santa had a kid in DC, he would send him to Beauvoir and Penn.

North Pole's sounding cozier by the minute. I'll bet Santa's gonna stay put.

[Anonymous]

You people really don't have anything else to do, do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

An independent school can give your child an academically and socially rich experience, life-long friends, authentic intellectual and emotional relationships with life-changing mentors, opportunities to explore their own multitudinous interests and talents, and the sense of being known and valued as a part of a dynamic community. This is why you might want to enroll your child.

This is one of the best posts I've seen on DCUM. You've hit the nail squarely on the head and summarized exactly why I want my child to have the benefit of an independent school education. It's not the prestige, or having a little leg up into a good college... rather its the 12-13 years of unique EXPERIENCES like those you describe above that truly set private schools apart. Having gone to both public and private schools growing up - I can confirm that these differences do very much exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

An independent school can give your child an academically and socially rich experience, life-long friends, authentic intellectual and emotional relationships with life-changing mentors, opportunities to explore their own multitudinous interests and talents, and the sense of being known and valued as a part of a dynamic community. This is why you might want to enroll your child.

It's not the prestige, or having a little leg up into a good college... rather its the 12-13 years of unique EXPERIENCES like those you describe above that truly set private schools apart.

Because, of course, a public school could only provide your children with academically and socially impoverished experiences and a series of fair weather friends and other inauthentic intellectual and emotional relationships that will preclude them from ever recognizing their own talents or feeling valued.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't Santa home school? (because the public schools - at least at the N. Pole -- are factories of intellectual mediocrity nd the private schools are full of spoiled brats)

[Anonymous]

Santa would DEFINITELY do public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Because, of course, a public school could only provide your children with academically and socially impoverished experiences and a series of fair weather friends and other inauthentic intellectual and emotional relationships that will preclude them from ever recognizing their own talents or feeling valued.

Not to quibble, but I can recall things like environmental science trips where a group of ten kids spent three days and two nights canoing in the NJ Pine Barrens as one of hundreds of examples that the other poster alludes to. I never had anything like that in my public school years, but my independent school years had scores of such tangential opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Agree that a good private school can provide some very nice and often unique experiences that are valuable to a child. Our public elementary is large and has a high turnover rate because a significant number of military kids come and go regularly. This says nothing bad about the school or the military kids! But enduring, long-term friendships add a lot to one's early education experience, as does the feeling of being known and cared about by a small community of teachers AND parents. I was fortunate to have that environment growing up in a small town public school ... sometimes a private school is needed to provide the same in this area.

[Anonymous]

6:11: I didn't mean to suggest that rich academic and social experiences are only found at private schools -- only that we sent our kids to private schools for those experiences and not for, as someone else notes, the fantasy of prestige or ivy entree. Those rich experiences can certainly be found at more than three private schools in our area and countless public schools -- and at hundreds of colleges, too, for that matter!