Experience switching to all-girls school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We regret going all girls--the education was great, missing out on the interaction with boys in HS was not great for our daughter. She's at college now and has never had a date. Isn't used to having groups of boys on her dorm floor, etc. I just think it was a huge gap in her social development.

Did your DD’s school have a brother school? I found that made a difference for me. We did plays with our brother school and some classes in upper levels were combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We regret going all girls--the education was great, missing out on the interaction with boys in HS was not great for our daughter. She's at college now and has never had a date. Isn't used to having groups of boys on her dorm floor, etc. I just think it was a huge gap in her social development.

Did your DD’s school have a brother school? I found that made a difference for me. We did plays with our brother school and some classes in upper levels were combined.

Our girls school does have a brother school, but has little interaction if you don’t participate in after school drama/musicals. They share a couple of partial school days per year, but that’s about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We regret going all girls--the education was great, missing out on the interaction with boys in HS was not great for our daughter. She's at college now and has never had a date. Isn't used to having groups of boys on her dorm floor, etc. I just think it was a huge gap in her social development.

Did your DD’s school have a brother school? I found that made a difference for me. We did plays with our brother school and some classes in upper levels were combined.

Same for our daughter. The brother school shared some athletic facilities and does plays with the girls school. They used to have combined classes but for some reason they stopped that a few years ago. They also do dances and social events together on the boy's campus and the girls go to football games as if they are their own.

DD loved the all girls education. Sure, there were some mean girl groups but her friend group was great. She's in college now and dating a kid from the brother school although they never dated in HS.

[Anonymous]

Does she like her K thru 8? If so, I'd stick around there for middle school and then consider all girls for 9 to 12. I switched to an all girls school for middle school and socially it was hard. 9 thru 12 was much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We regret going all girls--the education was great, missing out on the interaction with boys in HS was not great for our daughter. She's at college now and has never had a date. Isn't used to having groups of boys on her dorm floor, etc. I just think it was a huge gap in her social development.

Eh, I didn't find this to be a serious gap. I mean, what is the actual value of dating in HS - practice? You have time.

I went to an all girls HS and didn't date. I made guy friends in college, dated guys my junior and senior years of college and in grad school and after grad school. Married a guy I met once I started working. Took jobs in majority-male fields and have no trouble holding my own, in part because of my experience speaking up in (all girls) HS.

[Anonymous]

My daughter started all girls in 9th (now in 10th). She had no interest in applying or in the school until visiting day. After spending a day on campus, I asked her what she liked best and she said “it’s interesting how much they get done in one hour when they are no boys calling out the wrong answer on purpose.”

I was floored.

In retrospect, she says she wishes she had switched in 7th or 8th bc she found that boys became more distracting/disruptive to the classroom experience.

She’s incredibly happy.

[Anonymous]

Why do people care whether their high school or college aged girls are dating? Maybe boys are different now than they were when I was a teen but boys can be pretty dangerous at that age. I’d be glad if my DD doesn’t date. I’d seriously like to understand what is bad about not dating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We regret going all girls--the education was great, missing out on the interaction with boys in HS was not great for our daughter. She's at college now and has never had a date. Isn't used to having groups of boys on her dorm floor, etc. I just think it was a huge gap in her social development.

Eh, I didn't find this to be a serious gap. I mean, what is the actual value of dating in HS - practice? You have time.


Yes you have time. Not sure what the urgency is. I think your DD probably just
has social issues in general.
I went to an all girls HS and didn't date. I made guy friends in college, dated guys my junior and senior years of college and in grad school and after grad school. Married a guy I met once I started working. Took jobs in majority-male fields and have no trouble holding my own, in part because of my experience speaking up in (all girls) HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people care whether their high school or college aged girls are dating? Maybe boys are different now than they were when I was a teen but boys can be pretty dangerous at that age. I’d be glad if my DD doesn’t date. I’d seriously like to understand what is bad about not dating?

This. Your DD at an all girls school will end up more confident in the all girls environment. I can’t think of anything a teen big would add to make this a more rewarding educational experience. If anything, it may lower her confidence/self esteem. Girls act different when boys are their academic peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people care whether their high school or college aged girls are dating? Maybe boys are different now than they were when I was a teen but boys can be pretty dangerous at that age. I’d be glad if my DD doesn’t date. I’d seriously like to understand what is bad about not dating?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter started all girls in 9th (now in 10th). She had no interest in applying or in the school until visiting day. After spending a day on campus, I asked her what she liked best and she said “it’s interesting how much they get done in one hour when they are no boys calling out the wrong answer on purpose.”

I was floored.

In retrospect, she says she wishes she had switched in 7th or 8th bc she found that boys became more distracting/disruptive to the classroom experience.

She’s incredibly happy.

Op here and that’s what my DD experience on a visit say to the girls school last year. She listed everything they did and I asked if it was a special schedule for the visiting girls because it seemed packed. She had the same response as this PP’s DD- they just got so much done without the constant need for teachers to interrupt boys’ behavior or redirect them.

She likes her prek-8th school well enough but it’s small and there is a lot of social rigidity. So even though there are 2 classrooms per grade and 20 kids per gender, there are only 19 potential friends because girls and boys who play together get accused of being boyfriend/girlfriend or having crushes or get excluded by the kids of their own gender. DD’s hope is that even small grades at girls’ schools would have more potential friends.

DD does a coed sport and has lots of friends who are boys outside of school (including classmates who she has to hang out with in secret- they won’t even acknowledge each other at school). So I’m not super worried about her causal relationships, more about whether she’ll learn to work alongside boys in the future.