Is St. John's Becoming an IMG?
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Anonymous
The poster was clearly just using it as a point of comparison of student bodies. |
Anonymous
I get that but they had to say “at schools many of you love”. It’s safe to say many SJC kids don’t love D3 schools. |
Anonymous
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Not necessarily. There are some great D3 programs that are strong academically. DC plays a Varsity sport at SJC. I would prefer a D3 program at a stronger school than a D1 program.schools like MIT, University of Chicago, Caltech, Williams, Amherst, Carnegie Mellon, Swarthmore, and Johns Hopkins University,etc.
Most athletes are not going pro after college. |
Anonymous
And I assume Harvard or Princeton or another academic D1 would work too and your DC would prefer. Again, it’s safe to say the SJC athletes in football, basketball, baseball, hockey, lax et al would prefer to play at the D1 level if given the chance. It has little to do with going pro but rather getting to compete at the highest level in college. |
Anonymous
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The amount of misinformation and bad faith argument on this thread is pretty shocking... but I guess we're seeing what happens when teenage keyboard warriors become adults?
Regarding sports at SJC: if you weren't aware, SJC football already travels and hosts nationally, and has done so for years. Texas, Georgia, Florida, California... they even hosted a team from Hawaii last year. Nothing substantive is changing on that front, and they are far from the only team at St. John's to do this. Track just went to Tennessee; girl's Basketball went to New Jersey; swimming went to New York. And if you think SJC is the only school in the area doing things like this, you haven't been paying attention to the high school sports landscape for the past decade. |
Anonymous
SJC teams travel too much, particularly in sports for which top-tier competition can be found locally. It makes clear the priority they put on sports over academics. |
Anonymous
I heard from the swim coach that property will be used to put in a swimming pool for SJC. I hope so, the swim teams are getting more competitive every year. |
Anonymous
Track just went to Tennessee over spring break, not missing any school, yet the music department missed several days for a competition in Disney. Are the performing arts "traveling too much"? Did St. John's "prioritize music over academics"? "Too much" is a completely subjective criticism: what's too much for one parent is not enough for another. The reality is that the majority of SJC teams do NOT travel out of the DMV area, and the ones that do typically only do so once per season. St. John's focus is on educating the whole individual, so while I can't agree that the school prioritizes sports OVER academics, I would concede that many stakeholders in the community give them equal footing. That may be an unacceptable equation for families who believe everything else should take a backseat to academics... but considering the number of parents these days who have no problem pulling their kids out of school for club competitions (let alone the number of organizations who feel completely comfortable scheduling their competitions during school days to begin with), it seems like SJC is just meeting families where they are and providing opportunities for their students to excel in a variety of fields, skills, and interests. |
Anonymous
66-75% of the students on the music trip were traveling and performing as an academic requirement for their music elective, not as an extracurricular activity. |
Anonymous
I love how you didn't just say "many of the students", but actually pulled out percentages as if you went and did a survey of all the trip participants. With evidence like that, I think you've got a job opportunity with the current administration- only the best numbers! A music kid who goes on a multi-day trip is not some freshman who just picked up a trumpet for the first time- they're kids who have chosen (see also: "elected", as in "elective") to pursue musical performance as a passion, and many of them are on scholarship to do so. Thus, your point just reinforces my own: that St. John's cares about the development of the whole person and will therefore allow students to miss class for activities deemed beneficial to their personal, creative, moral, or athletic development... sometimes at the expense of the academic. It's obviously up to personal and parental discretion about whether that is the right choice for a college prep school, but it seems to be working for them. |
Anonymous
But in Southern California, the Don Boscos play public schools that have equally competitive programs. St. John’s won’t have much local competition from D.C.-area public or private schools. Southern California has always been a wellspring of top tier football talent, where large public and private schools play in the same conferences. I could see St. John’s become rivals with up-and-coming St. James in Virginia, and that other religious Catholic school in Baltimore, St Frances Academy. |
Anonymous
That’s not true. SJC played Friendship Collegiate a DC charter and only won by like 3 points. The best MD and VA public’s probably would have beaten this past year’s team which was not strong. SJA destroyed good counsel and St Francis destroyed SJA. Both would have likely beaten SJC very badly. The best public local football teams are definitely competitive with WCAC. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Track goes to multiple meets outside the DMV each season. It's lame for club sports to plan events on school days, but at least they are not *schools*. |
Anonymous
No. They wouldn't. Publics schools in the area are not on par with the WCAC schools. And you example doesn't support your argument in the least since SJA and St. Francis are essentially football academies dressed up as high school. You can argue that SJC wants to be IMG but at least those kids actually attend classes = SJA and St. Francis...not so much. |