If you’re from DC/ East Coast

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re from DC or the northeast, so you still find Chicago to be a great city? Do you find New Trier and the Glenbrooks to truly be on par with TJ or Stuyvesant for example, or are they just top schools for Illinois (which has terrible schools overall)? What would be the DC/NOVA/MD equivalent to Maine South?

I’m asking because all I hear is about how pressure cooker NT is, but my experience in Illinois so far is that these are not the sharpest people I’ve met around. I’m wondering if New Trier families and students have a lot of wealth but in terms of education are more on par with say Marshall or Wilson High rather than Langley.

You're right. Illinois is a sh*t hole. You should go back to DC to be among your own kind. We truly don't deserve your brilliance.

[Anonymous]

We’ve lived all across the country and Chicago’s North Shore was the best. New Trier is a fabulous school but it is huge with over 4000 kids - way to big for us. Our kids went to Lake Forest HS and it was excellent with less than half the students as NT. Two of our four went to Ivy’s and they weren’t great athletes or legacies, just very good students. We’ve lived in NY area, CA and DC and our happiest years were north of Chicago. Yes, the winters are long but the summer is wonderful. And the people were much friendlier than in the other areas we lived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another NT grad here who took 4 and 5 level classes. Most of the kids in my classes were quite bright. The folks who got mediocre grades in them tended to be very bright kids who didn't apply themselves. The kids who worked very hard, but perhaps weren't innately intelligent, were rarely in these classes. I went to a private liberal arts undergrad with a full tuition scholarship; while not a top ten school, still quite good, and wow, classes were almost always easy after NT. I think I got two Bs in four years. I did attend a top-5 law school, and I'd say the level of intelligence and competitiveness was comparable to my NT experience.

+1 to this. Was a 4 & 5-level student at NT and then went to a very good private university (not HYPS, but the next tier down). Had a much higher percentage of A's than I did at NT and graduated PBK - definitely easier than NT. Went to a top-2 law school, which was comparable to my NT years in terms of rigor. Also, the valedictorian of my class at NT did not have straight A's in HS but did as a STEM major at HYPS.

Also, as others have pointed out, it's apples-to-oranges to compare an open-enrollment suburban HS to a big-city magnet HS. Of course the kids at the bottom of an open-enrollment school are going to be weaker than the kids at a selective-enrollment school. Duh.

TL;DR: OP is a snob and a fine exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is going down hill. Talented people are leaving and more illegal immigrants are coming. This will increase a need to raise taxes and businesses would leave as well.

Go away, you MAGA troll. You just hate Chicago because it's blue and it keeps Illinois blue. Chicago is a great city. It's not losing population.

Chicago and Illinois are indeed losing population. Whether one looks at IRS figures or moving company statistics, it is losing population. Significantly there is a gap of 20k in income between those leaving and those arriving. I have deep roots in Illinois - can’t imagine any deeper - and the math in Illinois is simply bad. Trump has zero to do with the State’s and City’s terrific pension woes. The City has more pension debt than 43 states combined. So no matter one’s politics, the focus must be on how to draw down the pension debt. Contributions have recently increased but the debt keeps growing. Per household pension debt in the City is $45000. But this is misleading. Those making the average income of $55,000 or so shouldn’t be expected to contribute much. In fact they can’t as they are working hard to survive. Those who can pay are looking at hundreds of thousands in contribution above and beyond already high taxes. Rather than fixating on Trump, what is the right way to fix pensions? They must be paid in full under the State Constitution. Any population loss is not helpful, particularly high income earners. What would cause you to doubt the urgency of the issue? There effectively is no competing party in Illinois. There are a number of Democrats who “get” the urgency. The pain however will be unpopular.

One thing you may not know is the practical consequences when the funds have no assets. This puts the payment obligations on a pay as you go status. This would crush almost any budget and have a domino impact on other funds. This is far from a garden variety budget problem - MAGA or whatever sunk emotional cost you have in being anti-Trump has nothing to do with this real problem. It started over 25 years ago.

I am not sure why people are leaving the state. Could be for better weather (although surrounding states are not experiencing the same loss), could be because of really high property taxes, or the regulatory environment. Under typical circumstances (no monster pension debt) population loss could be managed. But these are not ordinary circumstances.

The City has a poor credit rating (the schools the worst in the country) but many of the borrowing instruments have imposed liens on the City - such as liens on sales tax receipts from the State. So bankruptcy could be very dicey. Maybe even asset less. Pensioners as a class are mere unsecured creditors and the financial institutions are secured. Judges obviously have some sympathy for pensioners (as I do) but they can’t ignore property rights.

To think this is some sort of maga problem is delusional. Again, you should do the math- it doesn’t care about politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve lived all across the country and Chicago’s North Shore was the best. New Trier is a fabulous school but it is huge with over 4000 kids - way to big for us. Our kids went to Lake Forest HS and it was excellent with less than half the students as NT. Two of our four went to Ivy’s and they weren’t great athletes or legacies, just very good students. We’ve lived in NY area, CA and DC and our happiest years were north of Chicago. Yes, the winters are long but the summer is wonderful. And the people were much friendlier than in the other areas we lived.

What time period was this? There are articles out over the past 5-7 years about how Illinois kids aren’t going to Ivies. Well, with the exception of kids from top privates in Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Wait we need the articles stating kids aren’t going to ivies! That’s insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re from DC or the northeast, so you still find Chicago to be a great city? Do you find New Trier and the Glenbrooks to truly be on par with TJ or Stuyvesant for example, or are they just top schools for Illinois (which has terrible schools overall)? What would be the DC/NOVA/MD equivalent to Maine South?

I’m asking because all I hear is about how pressure cooker NT is, but my experience in Illinois so far is that these are not the sharpest people I’ve met around. I’m wondering if New Trier families and students have a lot of wealth but in terms of education are more on par with say Marshall or Wilson High rather than Langley.

Please don't compare. They are sharp for their area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re from DC or the northeast, so you still find Chicago to be a great city? Do you find New Trier and the Glenbrooks to truly be on par with TJ or Stuyvesant for example, or are they just top schools for Illinois (which has terrible schools overall)? What would be the DC/NOVA/MD equivalent to Maine South?

I’m asking because all I hear is about how pressure cooker NT is, but my experience in Illinois so far is that these are not the sharpest people I’ve met around. I’m wondering if New Trier families and students have a lot of wealth but in terms of education are more on par with say Marshall or Wilson High rather than Langley.

Please don't compare. They are sharp for their area.

This poster is out of his mind. There is no non-magnet public school anywhere near the quality of New Trier. Now, to be clear, there is no diversity to speak of at North Shore schools but they are excellent.

I went to a competitor of New Trier and the education was fantastic. We had people going everywhere the DCUM crowd likes, except substitute Illinois or Purdue for Maryland. Again no diversity though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re from DC or the northeast, so you still find Chicago to be a great city? Do you find New Trier and the Glenbrooks to truly be on par with TJ or Stuyvesant for example, or are they just top schools for Illinois (which has terrible schools overall)? What would be the DC/NOVA/MD equivalent to Maine South?

I’m asking because all I hear is about how pressure cooker NT is, but my experience in Illinois so far is that these are not the sharpest people I’ve met around. I’m wondering if New Trier families and students have a lot of wealth but in terms of education are more on par with say Marshall or Wilson High rather than Langley.

Please don't compare. They are sharp for their area.

This poster is out of his mind. There is no non-magnet public school anywhere near the quality of New Trier. Now, to be clear, there is no diversity to speak of at North Shore schools but they are excellent.

I went to a competitor of New Trier and the education was fantastic. We had people going everywhere the DCUM crowd likes, except substitute Illinois or Purdue for Maryland. Again no diversity though.

Not much intellectual curiosity and not politically informed. But I guess you can’t expect people to car about politics and news to the extent they do in DC. One interesting thing is only about 1-2 people per year in Illinois asked me about what I do for work. Pretty much 100% of people I meet in DC ask what I do for work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing that I forgot to say in the last posting: Chicago is the best city in the world for three months out of the year.

I am a GBS grad and could not agree with your post more. I absolutely find the Midwest esp Chicago folks smarter and nicer than many attorneys who are boring and arrogant here. I could not believe that nobody in my preK community had dads who knew how to play poker. I am actually a mom of 2 and most of my friends boys and girls know the game. Not that poker is meaningful but you know - how do not know how to play poker???! I don't care if you went to UVA in my book you are not the sharpest on the block!

I realize this is old but I have to say DC is snobbish and somehow dumb because my kid's prek classmates parents don't know how to play poker is the best encapsulation of DCUM ever. Put it on the subhead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re from DC or the northeast, so you still find Chicago to be a great city? Do you find New Trier and the Glenbrooks to truly be on par with TJ or Stuyvesant for example, or are they just top schools for Illinois (which has terrible schools overall)? What would be the DC/NOVA/MD equivalent to Maine South?

I’m asking because all I hear is about how pressure cooker NT is, but my experience in Illinois so far is that these are not the sharpest people I’ve met around. I’m wondering if New Trier families and students have a lot of wealth but in terms of education are more on par with say Marshall or Wilson High rather than Langley.

Please don't compare. They are sharp for their area.

This poster is out of his mind. There is no non-magnet public school anywhere near the quality of New Trier. Now, to be clear, there is no diversity to speak of at North Shore schools but they are excellent.

I went to a competitor of New Trier and the education was fantastic. We had people going everywhere the DCUM crowd likes, except substitute Illinois or Purdue for Maryland. Again no diversity though.

Not much intellectual curiosity and not politically informed. But I guess you can’t expect people to car about politics and news to the extent they do in DC. One interesting thing is only about 1-2 people per year in Illinois asked me about what I do for work. Pretty much 100% of people I meet in DC ask what I do for work.

You are out of your mind. New Trier, Stevenson, Deerfield, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Barrington and a number of schools in DuPage are better than the non-magnet public schools in the DMV area. Heck, I was a good but not great student (from Deerfield) and went to two top ten schools that DCUM'ers drool over. There is no diversity though at these schools. I was incredibly well prepared for college and professional school, did very very well and as the rare poor kid from my high school, found the high school the key to social mobility. Great for athletics too - team and individual state champion. My twin was a professor at UVA and then a giant in finance. You could not last three minutes with him intellectually, and his penchant for intellectual inquiry was like our classmates off the charts. His Phd thesis was on game theory and he attributed his performance to our midwest high school.

The real problem is with the rest of the non-performing schools in the state.

Politics in Illinois are toxic. A one party state with more debt per capita (by far) than any other state. Chicago is even worse ($54 billion in pension debt alone). People do not like talking about it because it is so depressing. Illinois is losing talent - 50 percent of college students leave the State and upper middle income people are leaving too. So yes politics are not discussed as often but not for the reasons you think. There is a guy on YouTube called Chris Harden who does video tours and he has an extensive collection of visits too Chicago and a number of cities, It is depressing as can be to watch - some of it is due to a failure to respond to international competition but an equal dose belongs to politics. Taxes are suffocating. If you are talking about the people from these areas, perhaps your Hunger Games stereotypes hold some water. But certainly not in the better school districts.