after Green Acres

[Anonymous]

Thank you, 9:19. You have it absolutely right. Not every family thinks that the primary goal of education (much less elementary education) is a degree from HYP.

[Anonymous]

I am the OP. I absolutely agree that at Green Acres, families don't focus on getting into "the best" high school and colleges from the very beginning. That's a good thing, and I would include our family among that. But colleges -- even good colleges -- come in many different flavors. For example, Brown is a relatively "hippy" ivy and Reed is a very "offbeat" school, while still being good. In the last four years, no one from Green Acres attended those schools. Why not?

I don't want a school with lots of competition and I absolutely want a school that allows for experiential learning and emotional and social growth. But I also want a school where my kid is surrounded by other smart kids. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

One easy way to see whether kids are smart is to look at what colleges they go to. Green Acres doesn't do so well on that metric. So I'm asking -- are the kids smart, nevertheless? How could someone like me, looking at the school from the outside, know?

[Anonymous]

The kids are smart, both academically and socially. Well rounded and comfortable in lots of situations. Able to work well with others who are different from them. Problem solvers and creative thinkers.

Everyone wants the best for their kids, it's a matter of how you define the best. There's no one right answer. I went to an Ivy and was surronded by more unhappy, uptight, maladjusted grade grubbers than I was kind, well-adjusted people -- so now you know my bias.

[Anonymous]

I'm don't think there's a correlation between the middle school experience and where a kid will go to college or university and beyond. There is just so much developmental change that happens in high school, that I think it's misguided to attribute success or failure of an 18 year old to middle school, especially if the middle school and high school are different places. It seems reasonable to me to look at the high school placement in addition to other factors to evaluate the environment at Green Acres. But I think it's a leap to use college acceptances as a method of evaluating a PK-8 school, and the intellectual power of the kids there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kids are smart, both academically and socially. Well rounded and comfortable in lots of situations. Able to work well with others who are different from them. Problem solvers and creative thinkers.

OP here again. If the above sentence is true, then I'm beyond happy. But, what can I look at at the school to evaluate whether this is true?

[Anonymous]

9:19 again. I am trying very hard to remain polite here. I took a look at the colleges that GA graduates are attending, since I agree with OP that Brown and Reed are both excellent institutions.

I fail to see how the list of colleges were anything but impressive. What possible problem could anyone have with their kids attending Haverford, Amherst .... and on and on.

I really don't think parents that post on this site have any obligation or time to educate you on why a particular group of kids at a particular school are "smart enough" to serve as a cohort for your child.

[Anonymous]

10:56, I don't know how you can evaluate Green Acres to get an un-subjective confirmation of what the kids are like at the school. But that is as true for Sidwell, NCS, GDS, whatever. People's personal perceptions and biases of what "big 3" kids or Green Acres kids or Norwood kids or DCPS are like, and who they "achieve" all you are going to get on this forum.

[Anonymous]

...DCPS kids are like, and how they "achieve"... Sorry

[Anonymous]

OP, the real answer to your question is ... OMG ... a baby owl just flew through my house!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

10:56

Please just stop wasting everyone's time and apply to Beauvoir, Sidwell and GDS. You are throughly convinced that only those schools are the key to success for your child.

Please also remember that a lot of those kids from those schools who move on to HYP are legacies, siblings or very large donors. It is not a level playing field. Plenty of smart kids from those schools will not get into HYP.

As many posters have been trying to tell you, families have different needs and expectations regarding schools.

People chose private for many different reasons. You are getting tiresome because it is coming through loud and clear that your reason is to get on the route to HYP. You refuse to see that some people don't view a successful kid or good school by that metric.

This area has lots of really smart kids. Parents are very educated and to imply that only smart kids go to certain colleges or high schools is really demeaning to many people.

[Anonymous]

Okay, clearly I'm not expressing myself well because I absolutely don't think there's there's only one path to success through HYP or that we should begin preparing kids form HYP at kindergarten. That's why I'm looking at Green Acres in the first place because I think public schools are too test driven.

I think I've gotten the answer I was looking for -- that whatever the reason for the less "prestigious" schools, the people on this board who think they are in a position to be knowledgeable don't think that reason is any lack of intelligence.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you have any second thought about GA, then my advice would be to avoid that school.
That said, the question is, do these kids have as many CHOICES open to them as the kids who leave say Norwood? I think that we all want our children to have choices, there is nothing wrong with that. I am not pro GA because I have heard too many nightmare stories about average kids who leave there and don't fit in either academically or socially elsewhere.
The place is also cultish.

[Anonymous]

EVERY private school in this area is cultish in its own way!

[Anonymous]

Really. Green Acres is no more cultish than, say, St Albans, Sidwell, etc etc. As for fitting in after the school, I have heard just the opposite. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I think I've gotten the answer I was looking for -- that whatever the reason for the less "prestigious" schools, the people on this board who think they are in a position to be knowledgeable don't think that reason is any lack of intelligence.
Thanks.

Anecdotal evidence not dependent on next school placement or colleges: when we toured, and asked about questions, the MS administrator who toured us tried to make it very clear that we couldn't expect a lot of academic rigor (and really really seemed to hate questions that tried to figure out how challenging stuff is).

And from friends whose kids go there, I hear the cohort of kids is not that smart. They went for the less-competitive atmosphere, but find that less competitive means not much challenge, boredom, etc., for the smart ones.