Is Maret considered a "pressure cooker" school?

[Anonymous]

It's curriculum had been described as "rigorous"--is that the same as "pressure-cooker." I'm not looking for a pressure-cooker atmosphere (like say NCS, Potomac, Visitation), but I would like one that challenges my children to work to their potential. Would you define Maret as a pressure cooker? I see these terms thrown around all the time; what do they really mean? Rigorous vs. pressure cooker?

[Anonymous]

It is not pressure cooker in the sense of Sidwell or STA/NCS, where the workload is staggering. It does become a pressure cooker in high school, as competition increases between students to elbow everyone else out of the way to land the "Maret slot" at X top college. Maret doesn't place as many kids in X top college as Sidwell or STA/NCS, so it can become very cuthroat and unpleasant.

[Anonymous]

OP here .. I have a student going into HS ... so it is a pressure-cooker environment in HS, yes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here .. I have a student going into HS ... so it is a pressure-cooker environment in HS, yes?

I think it's fair to say that whenever you have a bunch of bright kids (which Maret does) who have a bunch of accomplished and demanding parents (which Maret does) it will be a pressure cooker.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, doesn't sound like what I'm looking for...want to avoid overly heavy workload, highly pressured environment....it hit my radar b/c it's small, and has a nice art program. thank you for your input.

[Anonymous]

Consider a place like Burke or Field.

[Anonymous]

Or if you can go to Maryland, St. Andrews or Bullis can be excellent options.

[Anonymous]

I think it's ridiculous that Maret was founded as a French school, but doesn't teach French anymore in the younger grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Consider a place like Burke or Field.

Or Capitol Hill Day School.

[Anonymous]

To OP, there isn't a private high school that isn't a pressure cooker to some degree. Similarly, for the kids on the college track, there isn't a public school that isn't, either.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting that you consider The Potomac School a pressure cooker school. An educational consultant recommended it to us as a school that was less high pressure than Sidwell, the Cathedral Schools, GDS, and Maret. The LS, at least, is less high pressure, offers more recess and requires less homework, etc. than other schools my kids have attended. Maybe it has changed in the last few years?

There are some very bright students at Maret, but I don't think Maret is as intense as Sidwell, the Cathedral schools, or even GDS. They are known for doing a great job of supporting the more academically challenged kids through the high school years, while other schools tend to counsel them out after 8th grade.

St. Andrew's is another school that seems more supportive than high pressure. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

It is. Yes. My child went there.

[Anonymous]

Would agree with above poster that Potomac is more academically-diverse and less of a competitive/extremely high expectation environment than Sidwell/GDS/Cathedral schools. Several kids my DD went to elementary school with ended up at Maret, and it seems pretty similar to Sidwell/GDS/NCS-StA in terms of the academic expectations/workload/types of colleges kids are targeting.

But really depends so much on your kid's personality, academic and study skills, and family and child expectations about achievement/grades/colleges, that is much likely to determine how much pressure a kid feels than what are going to be relatively minor differences among schools that are full of well-educated kids, well-educated and involved parents, all with quite high expectations. Also the "feel" in our experience can also vary quite a bit from graduating class to graduating class even within a particular school. Same school, same parents, very similar academic strengths and testing outcomes in two different kids in our family resulted in not much pressure/stress in one and quite a lot in the other, due to both personality of the two kids and differences between the make-up of their respective classes.

[Anonymous]

I think that consultants mention Potomac as a less-academically rigorous because it's not in DC. However, Potomac so wants to be a "DC-like" school and they have elevated their academics in the upper grades to be just that. Like most privates, the early grades take an ease-into academics approach.

[Anonymous]

Maret is a wonderful school. AS my coach used ot say, " pressure comes form within " . Of all the private schools in the city, Maret strikes me as one that encouraged individualism, learning for its own sake, creative exploration. Consistant with that, the teachers are asked what subject they feel most passionate about teaching. So, if any school in this town is not about lining a college app, but about helping a young person develop, I'd say that school is Maret. Fact is, a lot of parents in this town don't want that, they want HYP.