How difficult is Holton Arms actually?

[Anonymous]

My DD loves it. And is super well rounded with competitive music and sports. It is homework but she enjoys doing it. It is a great place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While there are definitely a number of students that excel and make it a grind, I think a lot of it is marketing. If you look at their college placement it really doesn’t match with how they market themselves as STEM heavy or churning out women leaders.

I'm always curious when people make this comment about college placement from Holton.
Where do you want them to go?
No school is going to send every single kid to one of the 8 Ivy League schools - this year's class has 7 kids going so far, plus 3 to Chicago, 4 to Michigan, 1 to Rice, many to top small colleges, and several to specialized programs like RISD.
What more could you want? Especially at a time when it's actually harder for girls than boys to get into college because so many more apply.

People in the DMV think that only 10 out of the 3500 colleges in this country are acceptable.

But to PP point it’s not that everyone is killing themselves. A lot of grads go to SMU, Syracuse, or similar. Holton marketing makes it look like everyone who goes there are gunners but it’s not like that. A lot of students can have a much easier workload, it’s not just time efficiency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the girls who enjoy Holton are the ones who truly enjoy learning and who have a certain degree of self-confidence. It it not a healthy place for girls who are prone to anxiety or have ADHD or related struggles. It’s an amazing opportunity for those for whom it is a good fit.

Thanks we also got this sense from our neighbors who went there

[Anonymous]

Maybe stick with public OP.

[Anonymous]

I did not go there and neither did my children.

The only thing I can discuss are women that I know IRL who went there - outside counsel, friends, colleagues. None of them are super successful. Just regular worker bees.

[Anonymous]

You mean like Christine Blasey Ford or Julia Louis-Dreyfuss or the half-dozen doctors I know at Georgetown who went there?

[Anonymous]

Christine Lagarde

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While there are definitely a number of students that excel and make it a grind, I think a lot of it is marketing. If you look at their college placement it really doesn’t match with how they market themselves as STEM heavy or churning out women leaders.

I'm always curious when people make this comment about college placement from Holton.
Where do you want them to go?
No school is going to send every single kid to one of the 8 Ivy League schools - this year's class has 7 kids going so far, plus 3 to Chicago, 4 to Michigan, 1 to Rice, many to top small colleges, and several to specialized programs like RISD.
What more could you want? Especially at a time when it's actually harder for girls than boys to get into college because so many more apply.

People in the DMV think that only 10 out of the 3500 colleges in this country are acceptable.

But to PP point it’s not that everyone is killing themselves. A lot of grads go to SMU, Syracuse, or similar. Holton marketing makes it look like everyone who goes there are gunners but it’s not like that. A lot of students can have a much easier workload, it’s not just time efficiency.

Do you have a kid there? I do. And they definitely don’t make it look like everyone is a gunner. Quite the opposite— they offer a range of classes including three levels of math, recognizing that there are different types of learners at the school. Not everyone is gunning for a T10.

[Anonymous]

Not difficult at all. My DD was taking the most difficult math and science classes in 9th had straight As with very little effort. She left after 9th and at her new school she had to work so much harder for the same grades. She also said the top girls at Holton were very competitive and did not want to help each other. At my DD's new school the girls are willing to edit papers and share notes.

[Anonymous]

Why did she leave? Was she unhappy?

[Anonymous]

Holton is a heavy homework school with a schedule that has classes multiple days in a row so they often give homework one day due the next day. There are days they may have all five core classes in the same day.

They don't offer honors English so all English is considered honors and is quite difficult.

Girls are well prepared for college, but it's a grind unless the student doesn't care much about their grades.

Girls that do best are bright, driven, go-getters with strong executive management skills.

Girls are supportive of one another/it isn't cut-throat--there's just a lot of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did she leave? Was she unhappy?

She was happy in LS/MS she found the girls in HS to be much less collaborative. And no it was not because the workload was too much, she was one of the top students. She was able to finish her work in less than an hour. She was so used to being the top student it was humbling for her to be at a school where she was no longer the top kid. She went from being the big fish in a small pond to the small fish in the big pond. And the only reason she was able to succeed was she had to learn to work harder than most of the other kids. Better to learn that in HS than as a freshman in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not difficult at all. My DD was taking the most difficult math and science classes in 9th had straight As with very little effort. She left after 9th and at her new school she had to work so much harder for the same grades. She also said the top girls at Holton were very competitive and did not want to help each other. At my DD's new school the girls are willing to edit papers and share notes.

Which school did she move to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not go there and neither did my children.

The only thing I can discuss are women that I know IRL who went there - outside counsel, friends, colleagues. None of them are super successful. Just regular worker bees.

How old are they? Holton used to be a pretty unimpressive, not very rigorous school for righ girls who couldn’t get into harder schools like Sidwell or ncs. Or didn’t want to work hard enough to go there. Supposedly it has gotten harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the girls who enjoy Holton are the ones who truly enjoy learning and who have a certain degree of self-confidence. It it not a healthy place for girls who are prone to anxiety or have ADHD or related struggles. It’s an amazing opportunity for those for whom it is a good fit.

I have one with anxiety and one with adhd thriving at Holton. The academic rigor + community are superior. Do not believe there is only one “type” of girl who can thrive at Holton.