Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the UVA trick wouldn't be worth it. competition is incredibly stiff. though UVA has several very good state schools, still seems like a strange tactic.

I disagree. If you are at a charter that does not accept seniors, all one parent has to do is move across the river for a year, change driver's licenses, voter registration, etc, and then pay tuition for the kid to go to the DCPCS and you have the in state tuition taken care of, the preferential admissions for in state applicants - if your kid seems likely to get in and be willing to go to UVA, Virginia Tech, or William & Mary, we would do it in a heartbeat. But then we have been bending over backwards and turning our lives upside down for years for the sake of our kids' educations - try having 3 kids in 3 different schools for two years and then come back and talk to me about "strange tactics."

I did it for law school, and UVA's tuition was at the time an incredible bargain for in state residents. So I graduated from college and came home but stayed across the river, and suddenly only had to pay $6k for law school every year and got an edge in the admissions process, and no one considered it cheating.

I know people who have worked for two years to establish residency in California for Berkeley law school, UT Austin, etc. I guess it just sounds strange because it sounds like we are uprooting a child, but we wouldn't have to. You just have to technically uproot a parent. And I really don't consider it cheating. I think the DC Tag program should qualify us for the in state rate everywhere instead of just providing a measly $10k every year, because the lack of a decent college option here is another problem with staying in the district if you are a public school family.

Speaking of no moral compass....

[Anonymous]

Another thing you might want to do is compare the weekly schedule for say, a second or third grader, at your two most likely options. Most schools will readily give this information out to prospective parents, whether they are public or private. Then, you can really compare the amount of specials, time spent on subject beyond math and reading, length and number of recesses, etc. . . You can also find out the general class sizes at both the private and public and whether classes are homogenous for reading and math or heterogenous. Mixed ability level classes tend to work best with small class size, IMO, but a big reading class that has kids all at roughly the same level can be just as good. We are not at the publics you are considering, but one thing that turned us to private was when our class sizes when from 20 to 30, and the school started having three different reading groups in the same class. Anyway, once you have this info, you can make a pretty educated decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the UVA trick wouldn't be worth it. competition is incredibly stiff. though UVA has several very good state schools, still seems like a strange tactic.

I disagree. If you are at a charter that does not accept seniors, all one parent has to do is move across the river for a year, change driver's licenses, voter registration, etc, and then pay tuition for the kid to go to the DCPCS and you have the in state tuition taken care of, the preferential admissions for in state applicants - if your kid seems likely to get in and be willing to go to UVA, Virginia Tech, or William & Mary, we would do it in a heartbeat. But then we have been bending over backwards and turning our lives upside down for years for the sake of our kids' educations - try having 3 kids in 3 different schools for two years and then come back and talk to me about "strange tactics."

I did it for law school, and UVA's tuition was at the time an incredible bargain for in state residents. So I graduated from college and came home but stayed across the river, and suddenly only had to pay $6k for law school every year and got an edge in the admissions process, and no one considered it cheating.

I know people who have worked for two years to establish residency in California for Berkeley law school, UT Austin, etc. I guess it just sounds strange because it sounds like we are uprooting a child, but we wouldn't have to. You just have to technically uproot a parent. And I really don't consider it cheating. I think the DC Tag program should qualify us for the in state rate everywhere instead of just providing a measly $10k every year, because the lack of a decent college option here is another problem with staying in the district if you are a public school family.

UVA cannot accept a student attending a DCPS/Charter as in-state. Similarly, you cannot qualify for instate Virginia tuition AND DC TAG. Well, I suppose you can try, but you will be caught lying on one form or the other.

[Anonymous]

Just curious, is there more than one EOTP charter-attending parent posting, or is it the same poster who is very prolific. All the posts seem to share a common writing style.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another thing you might want to do is compare the weekly schedule for say, a second or third grader, at your two most likely options. Most schools will readily give this information out to prospective parents, whether they are public or private. Then, you can really compare the amount of specials, time spent on subject beyond math and reading, length and number of recesses, etc. . . You can also find out the general class sizes at both the private and public and whether classes are homogenous for reading and math or heterogenous. Mixed ability level classes tend to work best with small class size, IMO, but a big reading class that has kids all at roughly the same level can be just as good. We are not at the publics you are considering, but one thing that turned us to private was when our class sizes when from 20 to 30, and the school started having three different reading groups in the same class. Anyway, once you have this info, you can make a pretty educated decision.

There is usually a big schedule change between 3rd and 4th at most schools, so those might be the better two years to compare.

[Anonymous]

I'm the home-school considering EOTP poster, not the one who thinks going to a charter EOTP can get you the same thing, so there are at least two of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good guess, LOL! Very close.

I, too, worry about happiness and, actually, about education -- in the sense of turning our kids onto the delights of reading, thinking, problem-solving, empathizing, figuring things out...

Not so much an issue (for the kids, at least) at the elementary school level -- though the instrumentalist of many parents is already apparent at that stage. But by HS, even (maybe especially) the kids who love to read and think are under tremendous pressure to just power through crushing workloads with no time to really reflect on what they're learning, much less to pursue interesting tangents. My own childhood and adolescence was filled with such opportunities and when I arrived at college I was like a kid in a candy store.

But had my HS education looked like the Big 3 experience today, I'd have been burnt out and/or needed a gap year

This is what my experience was like. I graduated from a private high school here in the DC area (graduation year 1995), not big three, but probably 'big five' if that exists. (I haven't paid attention to know what the classification being used here is). I was accepted to an Ivy League college but was SO burnt out by the time that I got there that it took me two years to recover. Grades were terrible in freshman and sophomore years of college and then I pulled them up in Junior and Senior years. I was just co completely exhausted by getting into college that all I could do freshman year was zone out and hang out. More importantly, it took me a very long time to enjoy learning again after high school. I loved learning in elementary and middle schools, hated all the pressure around it in high school, and only regained my love of learning in the later years of college.

Also, 17:16's email rang very true with me. At this point we could afford private without much stress because we live well below our means in a condo and we have only one kid. But I really don't think I could ever send my child to have a similar experience to that which I had in school. Besides the academic pressure, there was so much political stuff going on. From 7th to 10th grades, I was best friends with a girl whose family was incredibly politically connected. I spent summers on the Cape with her, hobnobbing with her politico family members. She would have been a great connection in adulthood if I ever would have followed up the connection. Instead, I have avoided her like the plague because, well, I just don't have very good memories of how I felt either at school or in that friendship. I constantly felt like my normal, not politically connected family was inferior and that she was doing me a favor to be friends with me. At the time, this was only a little bit about money and mostly about political connections. There were other bright spots in y life that helped, like the community that I had at my violin studio and the kids I met through my soccer team. But overall, I became more and more miserable at my school as I got older and realized that what everybody cared about was in order of importance: 1) what type of family political connections you had; 2) how much money you had; 3) what car you drove; 4) where you vacationed (or didn't! gasp!) in the summer.

As others have stated, the friends that I like from my private school are not sending their kids to private school -- they have them enrolled in public school.

[Anonymous]

Wow -- must be different schools (or cohorts or both) -- HS DC says 1-4 are really alien to her experience. Sorry you went through that -- sounds awful.

[Anonymous]

All this is BS. The rubber hits the road in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the UVA trick wouldn't be worth it. competition is incredibly stiff. though UVA has several very good state schools, still seems like a strange tactic.

I disagree. If you are at a charter that does not accept seniors, all one parent has to do is move across the river for a year, change driver's licenses, voter registration, etc, and then pay tuition for the kid to go to the DCPCS and you have the in state tuition taken care of, the preferential admissions for in state applicants - if your kid seems likely to get in and be willing to go to UVA, Virginia Tech, or William & Mary, we would do it in a heartbeat. But then we have been bending over backwards and turning our lives upside down for years for the sake of our kids' educations - try having 3 kids in 3 different schools for two years and then come back and talk to me about "strange tactics."

I did it for law school, and UVA's tuition was at the time an incredible bargain for in state residents. So I graduated from college and came home but stayed across the river, and suddenly only had to pay $6k for law school every year and got an edge in the admissions process, and no one considered it cheating.

I know people who have worked for two years to establish residency in California for Berkeley law school, UT Austin, etc. I guess it just sounds strange because it sounds like we are uprooting a child, but we wouldn't have to. You just have to technically uproot a parent. And I really don't consider it cheating. I think the DC Tag program should qualify us for the in state rate everywhere instead of just providing a measly $10k every year, because the lack of a decent college option here is another problem with staying in the district if you are a public school family.

UVA cannot accept a student attending a DCPS/Charter as in-state. Similarly, you cannot qualify for instate Virginia tuition AND DC TAG. Well, I suppose you can try, but you will be caught lying on one form or the other.

UVA can accept a student who is paying out of state tuition to go to a DC charter for the final year, when one parent (hence child) is a Virginia resident. It can be done, people, and we have seriously thought about it because while we don't want to lose our school, we don't want to lose these options for our kids....

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't the child need to reside in Virginia? And doesn't it have to be for several years prior to the year of application?

Which charter are you at that you love so much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a "big 3" private and also plan to avoid private schools for many of the reasons the PP mentioned. I had my people in high school, but the wealth and entitled behavior of some of the kids was pretty awful. Then again, it's probably basically the same type of parents/kids at JKLM these days...

+1 We went to NCS/STA back in the 80s/90s and both my brother and I have chosen to send our own kids to public schools (DC and VA).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good guess, LOL! Very close.

I, too, worry about happiness and, actually, about education -- in the sense of turning our kids onto the delights of reading, thinking, problem-solving, empathizing, figuring things out...

Not so much an issue (for the kids, at least) at the elementary school level -- though the instrumentalist of many parents is already apparent at that stage. But by HS, even (maybe especially) the kids who love to read and think are under tremendous pressure to just power through crushing workloads with no time to really reflect on what they're learning, much less to pursue interesting tangents. My own childhood and adolescence was filled with such opportunities and when I arrived at college I was like a kid in a candy store.

But had my HS education looked like the Big 3 experience today, I'd have been burnt out and/or needed a gap year

This is what my experience was like. I graduated from a private high school here in the DC area (graduation year 1995), not big three, but probably 'big five' if that exists. (I haven't paid attention to know what the classification being used here is). I was accepted to an Ivy League college but was SO burnt out by the time that I got there that it took me two years to recover. Grades were terrible in freshman and sophomore years of college and then I pulled them up in Junior and Senior years. I was just co completely exhausted by getting into college that all I could do freshman year was zone out and hang out. More importantly, it took me a very long time to enjoy learning again after high school. I loved learning in elementary and middle schools, hated all the pressure around it in high school, and only regained my love of learning in the later years of college.

Also, 17:16's email rang very true with me. At this point we could afford private without much stress because we live well below our means in a condo and we have only one kid. But I really don't think I could ever send my child to have a similar experience to that which I had in school. Besides the academic pressure, there was so much political stuff going on. From 7th to 10th grades, I was best friends with a girl whose family was incredibly politically connected. I spent summers on the Cape with her, hobnobbing with her politico family members. She would have been a great connection in adulthood if I ever would have followed up the connection. Instead, I have avoided her like the plague because, well, I just don't have very good memories of how I felt either at school or in that friendship. I constantly felt like my normal, not politically connected family was inferior and that she was doing me a favor to be friends with me. At the time, this was only a little bit about money and mostly about political connections. There were other bright spots in y life that helped, like the community that I had at my violin studio and the kids I met through my soccer team. But overall, I became more and more miserable at my school as I got older and realized that what everybody cared about was in order of importance: 1) what type of family political connections you had; 2) how much money you had; 3) what car you drove; 4) where you vacationed (or didn't! gasp!) in the summer.

As others have stated, the friends that I like from my private school are not sending their kids to private school -- they have them enrolled in public school.

excoriated 17:16 here. THANK YOU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, is there more than one EOTP charter-attending parent posting, or is it the same poster who is very prolific. All the posts seem to share a common writing style.

I'm one. The heading for homeschool is another, and it has sounded to me like there is a third!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't the child need to reside in Virginia? And doesn't it have to be for several years prior to the year of application?

Which charter are you at that you love so much?

if you have joint custody the child resides in Virginia if one parent is a Va resident, especially if you are willing to fork over the money to pay out of state tuition for the DCPCS. Cannot out the charter since many think I have no moral compass, but we have (at least some think) massive residency fraud in the other direction, and this would not be fraud... especially b/c the separation by that point might be real

California required two years when we were doing it for law school, UT Austin also required two, UVA only required that you be a resident by the time your application went in. They called us "one year miracles" and it was completely palatable to everyone because it raised the caliber of the law school class. A lot of people who grew up here don't see these lines or bridges as cut in stone, and damn DC for not giving us full tuition at least if not in state preferences at all state schools, but seriously we know people who live one place and have rental properties in another and have this kind of flexibility - it would just take more of a toll on us.

And no, dc would not live with me during the week and I don't know where I would be most of the time, but many people move out of this city for the schools far earlier and the college benefits are just an added perk. And we would pay out of state tuition for that last year, so I don't consider it fraudulent....