Bishop Ireton vs. SSSAS
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Anonymous
Ireton is third tier at best as far as Catholic high schools. Good choice if in Alexandria. That is all. Not sure they should be throwing stones at others. |
Anonymous
The truth is that SSSAS and BI have similar academics. Same tier academically. Culturally, families at a $45,000 a year private are going to be wealthier than most families choosing a $18,000 school. |
Anonymous
We’ve been on both campuses as supporters of a visiting team. The “cultural” differences seem pretty stark with the SSSA crowd being much more UMC. BI is a typical suburban Catholic high school like O’Connell, Paul VI, and Good Counsel with a much broader assortment of families. |
Anonymous
I completely agree and acknowledge that this is a reflection of the price tag. However, academically these schools are on par with one another. |
Anonymous
What I mean here is that SSSAS has a reputation as one of the least academically rigorous and least prestigious of the independent schools in the DMV. It's for rich families in Arlington/Alexandria who aren't Catholic and whose kids can't get into the "real" private schools in this area but feel the need to escape public schools. Ireton is different; it's a Catholic school for Catholic families interested in Catholic education. It has a mission. SSSAS doesn't, or at least not a good one. |
Anonymous
I think you are overlooking a major appeal of SSSAS for many families. There are lots people who live in Alexandria, can afford a $45-50k tuition and don’t want to drive 30+ minutes a day (each way) into DC for school! This is a big factor for many families. |
Anonymous
SSSAS is 2nd tier. Ireton, 3rd or 4th tier. |
Anonymous
They can’t get into the real ones? I that that was the deacon Flint Hill and Bullis? Those two are now spoken highly of and it looks like SSSAS has taken over that description. |
Anonymous
It's really hard to compare them though, they're so different with different reasons for existing. My DD and her friends from their Catholic parochial K-8 are really excited to apply to Ireton, PVI and O'Connell for next year. But I know we would never apply to SSSAS and we live close by, and I've never heard of anyone from their school even mentioning it. Visitation and Stone Ridge yes, and we would consider them if we could find a way to make the commute work. But not SSSAS. OP, did you go to the Ireton Open House this past weekend? My DD is a lot like yours -- very artsy, not so much a sports person -- and she's putting Ireton as her first choice on the HSPT. |
Anonymous
SSSAS isn’t Catholic |
Anonymous
St. Stephen's parent here. I'll add to this that we looked at schools all over the DMV as we lived in the district at the time and picked SSSAS. It's an excellent school and we wanted to provide a more suburban experience for our kids. All the "real" private schools (as the PP so put it <eye roll>  are urban (including those in Bethesda). We also considered Potomac but McLean wasn't our scene.
Also the trashing of SSSAS on DCUM is really weird. My kid is in the lower school and half their class has parents with Ivy league degrees (and the other half graduated from schools like William and Mary or UVA), a huge number of parents are equity partners at top law firms, and many others have high-profile jobs. I'm not saying these kids definitely would have been admitted to Sidwell or anything but it's not as if they had no chance of being admitted to DC private schools. Most of them openly talk about a) really liking Alexandria, and b) wanting to raise kids outside the district. |
Anonymous
Yes, that’s my point. |
Anonymous
I’m pretty sure PP knows SSSA is not a Catholic school. The graduates of Catholic K8s in NW DC and Montgomery County also rarely apply to secular private schools for high school. They go to Catholic high schools and sometimes public schools. These non-Catholic private schools just aren’t on their radar. And the few that do might be non-Catholics who are going to Catholic K8’s to escape the local public school they are zoned to. Only on this forum do we hear of parents trying to decide between BI and SSSA, Prep vs Landon, Visitation vs Sidwell, etc. These requests for opinions or insights cause many to scratch their heads and wonder, “Who are these people and how did they come up with these alternatives?” |
Anonymous
Excuse me while I laugh. You say that many of the parents are rich and well credentialed. Ok. Now, compare the colleges that the SSSAS graduates themselves are accepted to to the DC and Bethesda ones -- and Potomac -- and they're laughable. You'd do just as well going to Alexandria City High, Ireton, O'Connell, or any of the Arlington public high schools. So all you've done is prove my point that it's a school for rich kids with white flight parents. |
Anonymous
You also have a lot of very smart kids from Alexandria as well as the surrounding portions of Fairfax that are zone for terrible public high school applying to Ireton who could never afford SSSAS. The one that get in have to have stats similar to kids coming to the Big3 from public. |