White, Average Student - STA or BCC?

[Anonymous]

DS is bright enough to have gotten into STA. But he is clearly only a middling student. We live in the BCC cluster.

I am obsessed about getting DS into a brand name college. There. I said it. I'm sorry I feel this way, but I do.

So, what's the best way to reach this goal - stay at STA, or go to BCC where he presumably will rank at least slightly, if not significantly, higher in the class rank?

[Anonymous]

My uninformed guess is that it's a wash. STA probably has better relationships with admissions offices, but there's probably also a glut of STA students on the Ivy League "market."

My suggestion would be to try to figure out why he's a middling student. Would a different school environment or teaching style challenge him more appropriately or engage his interest? Does he have any passions that are not recognized at school? If you moved him to BCC, could you spend the money saved on enrichment programs that would help him excel in some way?

Also, what does he think about all this? If he's not happy at school, I'd think he's less likely to do well. If he dislikes STA, that in itself might be a good reason to move. If he likes it and will resent being moved to BCC, that might mean trouble.

[Anonymous]

Relationships with teachers (ones that are deep and can result in meaningful reference letters) can be almost as important as grades - would one of these schools offer more opportunity in this respect?

Also, you should probably start adjusting your vision of what "success" means for your ds in terms of college admissions and start thinking in terms of good fit for him rather than your particular desires. You owe him that much, yes? I imagine you realize this at some level hence the insight in your post.

[Anonymous]

Speaking as someone who went to one of the competitive private schools as a child, the children of parents who were pushing hard for the top colleges often suffered from the pressure. There were two kids in my relatively small senior class who attempted suicide. I'm not by any means saying this would happen to your son, just cautioning you to consider what are really his best interests. There are many terrific colleges in this country and at either of these schools he will get into one of them -- so long as he doesn't crumble from the pressure to fit some kind of mold.

[Anonymous]

Check out BCC college placement stats (which get published in the Bethesda magazine each year... not sure which month though.) I've been surprised that they were as good and in the case of some schools, better than Whitman and Churchill. I don't know what the STA stats look like - perhaps though you have access to that info if your son is a student.

I wouldn't assume your child will end up with a higher rank at BCC than St. Alban's in any case - you just can't predict the relative achievement levels of any educational cohort based on overall prestige of the school. And frankly if he's a middling student at STA, he may well be a middling student at BCC as well, simply in terms of his own efforts/interests relative to those of his classmates. However, he will presumably have slightly less competition from classmates at BCC for prestigious schools (e.g., I'd assume that half the STA graduating class applies to every Ivy, etc.) Of course I'd also figure that acceptance rates are higher for STA, if only because of legacies and VIP perks... so really, I think it's impossible to know how it all works out in the wash.

I think you have to look at the overall education, as one of the PPs suggested, as well as the overall experience that your son is likely to have. For example, my husband would love to send our child to STA or one of the equivalents - he looked at Sidwell's syllabi and found it more challenging than those he taught at a very mediocre state school some years ago. For me, even if the private schools were an option financially, I wouldn't send my son there, because I would worry too much about the class issues for a kid who's "only" upper middle class and frankly because it just doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment given the quality of BCC.

I don't mean to suggest that **you** should share those specific preferences, but rather that you need to assess how your son is likely to function educationally, socially, emotionally in either school setting, and choose the one that seems to offer the best balance for his long-term development. Maybe he's turned off by some dimension of STA (some kids just don't thrive in the competitive atmosphere of the exclusive schools), but perhaps he'd thrive at a more 'diverse' school like BCC. Or it may be the opposite: that the small classes and individualized attention of STA have been a huge asset for him, and if sent to BCC he might go from middling to struggling... only you and your son can know what course is best for him. Good luck!