Private High School Parents - do your children get the classes they need for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did your DD avoid taking physics? Usually everybody in private required to take it at some point.

LOL not true at all.

Not all privates are close to equal.

Religious ones are some of the least educated centers.

Not quite.

My daughter’s Catholic high school offers more APs than the public school where I work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Physics is required in my kids' high school and everyone takes it the same year. It's impossible not to take it.

+1

[Anonymous]

Could you identify what school doesn’t require physics? What were her 4 years of science then? Is this actually an issue of not taking calculus-based physics (it seems that many of the girls schools have physics freshmen year so not physics-c - is that the issue?). Asking bc my freshmen daughter in physics would not necessarily take calculus-based physics her senior year (she would probably take an adv chem or bio class) and wondering if it is necessary for some college science tracks. Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately your daughter has had poor pre-college guidance, OP. It seems like finding an online class is her best option at this point.

Is this NCS? That’s the only school I’ve heard recent complaints about not having enough sections of core science classes for seniors to get the classes they want, and while I don’t know current graduation requirements, when I was there back in the Stone Age you could graduate with no physics.

PP again. I was curious so I looked up the requirements for NCS and they do require physics. In fact it’s the only one they require, although they recommend all three: “ To meet the science requirement for graduation, students must take two full-year courses, one of which must be a year of physics. The department recommends that students take a full year of physics, chemistry, and biology.”

So OP’s DD is not at NCS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately your daughter has had poor pre-college guidance, OP. It seems like finding an online class is her best option at this point.

Is this NCS? That’s the only school I’ve heard recent complaints about not having enough sections of core science classes for seniors to get the classes they want, and while I don’t know current graduation requirements, when I was there back in the Stone Age you could graduate with no physics.

PP again. I was curious so I looked up the requirements for NCS and they do require physics. In fact it’s the only one they require, although they recommend all three: “ To meet the science requirement for graduation, students must take two full-year courses, one of which must be a year of physics. The department recommends that students take a full year of physics, chemistry, and biology.”

So OP’s DD is not at NCS.

SJC has an issue this year with a wait list of at least 10 kids wanting to get into AP Physics. Students are being told by counselor to enroll in on-line programs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did your DD avoid taking physics? Usually everybody in private required to take it at some point.

LOL not true at all.

Not all privates are close to equal.

Religious ones are some of the least educated centers.

Yeah, Sidwell and the Cathedral schools are just uneducated cesspools, amiright?

Since when does anyone consider NCS/STA and Sidwell religious? I think the poster was referring to Catholics. And no they aren’t great comparatively

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid wants to take physics and they can't find a spot for her, that school sucks.

I suspect this isn’t an issue of wanting basic physics but an issue of not having space in a higher level version. Or - as noted above - kid reached senior year and realized they wanted to add Physics after not taking it Jr year and not registering for it in registration for Senior year - and is now asking for a change - after all priority slots for seniors were considered and doled out.

That’s not a failure of the school scheduling - but mismanagement of student planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid wants to take physics and they can't find a spot for her, that school sucks.

I suspect this isn’t an issue of wanting basic physics but an issue of not having space in a higher level version. Or - as noted above - kid reached senior year and realized they wanted to add Physics after not taking it Jr year and not registering for it in registration for Senior year - and is now asking for a change - after all priority slots for seniors were considered and doled out.

That’s not a failure of the school scheduling - but mismanagement of student planning.

I’ll add - still sorry it’s not working out for the student - but fingers pointed at school seem misdirected. Student should find an online course and drop a course in day to take it - and have school indicate in college process the student couldn’t get course at school so went other route to comply with admissions

I know of another case where a school genuinely didn’t run a top level math course and student took online and school made this note in college admissions process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is on the "wait list" for a science class they need for their planned major for college. In the spring when they registered, they did not realized they needed this science class and selected a different science class.

They recognized their error in early May as they started looking more at colleges and have been on the wait list since then.

The school has a waitlist of at least 10 students for this class. I was hoping the school would create another section - but as of now, they are telling the students to find an online class and take it and drop a class from their schedule.

Is this typical? I would expect this from DCPS - but surprised it is coming from a Private HS

You are kidding right?

Private HS are no where near as academic as public. Most do not have even close to the same offerings.

Only parochial schools. Topntier privates have MUCH more to offer for college bound kids - I say this because our school does not offer shop or driver's ed the way my public school did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did your DD avoid taking physics? Usually everybody in private required to take it at some point.

LOL not true at all.

Not all privates are close to equal.

Religious ones are some of the least educated centers.

Yeah, Sidwell and the Cathedral schools are just uneducated cesspools, amiright?

Since when does anyone consider NCS/STA and Sidwell religious? I think the poster was referring to Catholics. And no they aren’t great comparatively

I don’t know about Sidwell, but NCS and STA have required cathedral and chapel services every week and religion classes are required. They are very much rooted in their Episcopal identity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did your DD avoid taking physics? Usually everybody in private required to take it at some point.

LOL not true at all.

Not all privates are close to equal.

Religious ones are some of the least educated centers.

Yeah, Sidwell and the Cathedral schools are just uneducated cesspools, amiright?

Since when does anyone consider NCS/STA and Sidwell religious? I think the poster was referring to Catholics. And no they aren’t great comparatively

I don’t know about Sidwell, but NCS and STA have required cathedral and chapel services every week and religion classes are required. They are very much rooted in their Episcopal identity.

And Sidwell has meeting for worship weekly and starts all meetings with silence. And they certainly use Quaker values as their excuse often to say no or the Quaker process as an excuse to slow change/things down on a huge range of topics. Sure, it’s not like the conversation/recruitment agendas sometimes seen among evangelical, Christian colonialism, or Latter Day Saints (just as an incomplete list of examples) - so maybe it feels less religious to some? But Sidwell is still using religion to make relevant school policy decisions. Honestly anything that made no sense to us used Quaker as the reason - yet Quaker applied to scenario A if they didn’t want to do it but not to exact same scenario B if they didn’t want to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is on the "wait list" for a science class they need for their planned major for college. In the spring when they registered, they did not realized they needed this science class and selected a different science class.

They recognized their error in early May as they started looking more at colleges and have been on the wait list since then.

The school has a waitlist of at least 10 students for this class. I was hoping the school would create another section - but as of now, they are telling the students to find an online class and take it and drop a class from their schedule.

Is this typical? I would expect this from DCPS - but surprised it is coming from a Private HS

You are kidding right?

Private HS are no where near as academic as public. Most do not have even close to the same offerings.

Only parochial schools. Topntier privates have MUCH more to offer for college bound kids - I say this because our school does not offer shop or driver's ed the way my public school did.

There are no parochial high schools in the DC area.

If you are using parochial as a pejorative for independent Catholic schools, I will say that St. Anselms can compete head on with any private school in the region for rigor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did your DD avoid taking physics? Usually everybody in private required to take it at some point.

LOL not true at all.

Not all privates are close to equal.

Religious ones are some of the least educated centers.

Yeah, Sidwell and the Cathedral schools are just uneducated cesspools, amiright?

Since when does anyone consider NCS/STA and Sidwell religious? I think the poster was referring to Catholics. And no they aren’t great comparatively

The IRS thinks they’re religious.

[Anonymous]

LOL imagine paying $50k for private school and being told there isn’t room in the physics class, take it online

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did your DD avoid taking physics? Usually everybody in private required to take it at some point.

LOL not true at all.

Not all privates are close to equal.

Religious ones are some of the least educated centers.

Yeah, Sidwell and the Cathedral schools are just uneducated cesspools, amiright?

Since when does anyone consider NCS/STA and Sidwell religious? I think the poster was referring to Catholics. And no they aren’t great comparatively

I don’t know about Sidwell, but NCS and STA have required cathedral and chapel services every week and religion classes are required. They are very much rooted in their Episcopal identity.

The religion classes are academic and do not focus on Episcopalianism. Also, from what I understand, chapel services include those focusing on different religious holidays, though the services, themselves, are still inherently Christian.