St. Anselm's Abbey High School

[Anonymous]

The perennial fixation on where these boys go to college and whether the school is as good as other area schools pervades DCUM threads on this topic.

Why is this? Sometimes I wonder if these threads have the same 5 people talking to each other.

If this is a school you are interested in, check it out and decide for yourself IRL. Good advice, in fact, for any school in the area.

[Anonymous]

Apparently not, so please explain.

College outcomes are not the only (or even primary) reason to select a private school. But, the “only for the most rigorous, intellectually curious boys” is incongruous with the schools with the most matriculation from SAAS: (specifically, Pitt, Rochester Institute of Technology, Drexel, UMD, Fordham and Virginia Tech - not UVA, but Tech, which is more expensive for the presumably in-state attendees). Those are the most attended colleges according to the SAAS site.

All are totally fine schools. But, they’re not better or even in the same zip code as other privates in DC and it’s not only because of financial aid and humbleness.

SAAS might be a great school, but for some reason, colleges don’t see it in the same light as others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some folks rave about the rigor and deem it underrated academically relatively to more prominent peers. Others argue that it has a justified inferiority complex based on less well-rounded students and meh college outcomes.

Sounds to me like if your kid is a bit quirky and nerdy, it night be nirvana. If they are athletic or seeking a more traditional high school experience, they may be better off elsewhere.

I don't get the less well rounded comment. Not true at all. Actually, more so than other schools they are required to engage in well-rounded activities.

Exactly. I find the boys to be more well rounded than at other peer schools. As for college outcomes, don’t mistake it for other schools where the students get in based on being athletic recruits or legacy or other hook. Kids at SAAS get into great schools, but many boys choose merit money over prestigious schools.

This is the part where the SAAS crowd loses credibility. In today’s world, kids who need financial aid get it at the most prestigious schools. Many top tier universities offer free admission to students whose parents earn less than a fairly high amount. Saint Anselms may be a great, rigorous, challenging school that the rest simply don’t understand. But, the college outcomes are mediocre and not because parents choose Fordham or Providence College for financial reasons when they were also accepted at Columbia and Yale.

I guess you don’t understand what it’s like to be a doughnut family.

I understand there actually was a student who turned down Columbia last year to go to a school you might think beneath them for a number of reasons. These days the Ivies are culture and political battle zones, and some students want to have a healthier and happier college experience.

There are several students, every year, who turn down more ”prestigious” schools for cost reasons. This happens more frequently than at the Big 3. Keep in mind the tuition is 20k cheaper at the Abbey to begin with, so you would expect some doughnut hole families to weigh cost and fit for college choice just as they did for the choice of high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of legitimate reasons for someone to decide not to go to Columbia or even Harvard. But, typically, they’d select another extremely highly regarded school that was more in sync with their ideals, whatever they might be.

Some of the SAAS students clearly selected those schools, many others were not in the same universe. Was it actually a choice between an ivy or ivy-adjacent and an otherwise unremarkable school? Maybe, but probably not.

Some top students don’t apply to privates without merit aid — or apply to mainly publics — in the first place. In those cases, yes, it was such a choice, but the choice was made at application time. In other cases (the Columbia example is not one of them; your facts are wrong) a cheaper alternative is picked over a “prestigious” school.

Parents are telling you this is the case. But you are not listening…

[Anonymous]

To the extent that it matters, and it does to some, and to others, less so, the school website has identified the "most popular destinations" from graduates from the last few years:

Chicago
William & Mary
Notre Dame
Boston College
Georgetown
Fordham
UVA
Virginia Tech
Georgia Tech
Cornell
Pitt
Case Western
Northeastern
NYU
Wake Forest
Gettysburg
RPI
UMD
Villanova
Loyola MD

It sounds like each of these schools has received 3 or more graduates in recent years. It's probably fair to say that close to half of students in recent years have wound up at these 20 schools, given that graduating classes are 30-40 students. I would think this is a list to take pride in, regardless of anyone's definition of "good college outcomes."