The problem w Landon - from an alum
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Anonymous
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Landon alum here - 90s era. The problem with the school can be summarized in this excerpt from an update email newsletter they sent to alums today:
"College Results — The Class of 2013 has had wonderful college news so far, with more than 60 acceptances through early decision, early action and rolling admissions for the 78 boys in the class. Almost half of the boys have made their final choices, including nine who will play Division I lacrosse next year." I love that the school has a strong sports program. However, to tout the # of D-1 lacrosse acceptances in their college acceptances email to alums is nuts. The school continues to play into the stereotype. There are so many wonderful teachers there - still there after all these years. But with an administration who treats the school like a training ground for college lacrosse, there remains little hope for improvement. |
Anonymous
| Wow. I've seen lots of touting of college placement over the years (actually, no I haven't. I know most schools have their lists on-line but I don't think I've ever gotten an email from my kids' various schools) but I've certainly never seen sports, in general certainly not one sport, touted like that. They're just playing into the stereotype. |
Anonymous
OP, I was a Div 1 full scholarship athlete in different circumstances ( public school in another state) . In my graduating class there were a dozen or more girls and boys who got full rides to Div 1 schools for various sports, including one who went to teh US Olympic trials. There were also 7 National Merit Finalists, and 20 % of the grad class went Ivy. Shining a light on student athletic accompishments as well as academic accomplishmnets in no way indicated an overemphasis on athletics though at my Public HS It also doesn't seem from the wording of the Lanond letter to Alums that is the case at Landon either. Certainly, if 60/78 are accepted early decision those are strong academic kids, with only 9 of those 60 being AA admits, right. So, what is your beef ? It seems the weight, per the letter to Alums is touting a 60/9 sucess balance learning sharply towards academics academics. |
Anonymous
+ 1000 |
Anonymous
| Yea. The update email was fine. I wouldn't look for things to criticize. |
Anonymous
| I just got an alum update (not from Landon) that mentioned the kids that signed to play on signing day as well. It just happened so it is a current event for the school and I would think most schools are proud of athletic achievement as well as academic. I'm not seeing the problem unless you think they only mentioned lacrosse even though there were other kids to sign on signing day who were not lax players and they failed to mention them. |
Anonymous
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granted, at my public HS the full ride Div 1 scholarships were pretty evenly spread out: Track, Swimming, Tennis, Baseball, Football, Fencing ( don't think there were any big Div1 Lacorsse programs back then, but lots of kids went on to Div II or Div III for Lacrosee, albeit with no scholarship money.
If I were to be critical with Landon, I would ask : how are they doing with full ride Div I scholarships in other sports apart from Lacrosse ? If none, why none? That is room for improvement. |
Anonymous
| I think they could have balanced with other sports information or some academic information - anyone get a full ride for academics? Any other athletes? As someone with a DD at Holton - and a DS I won't be sending to Landon any time soon - I do think this indicates a serious focus on LAX, which neither of my DCs play (nor every will... ) |
Anonymous
| What is an "AA admit?" |
Anonymous
| Landon needs to focus more on the academics and less on the athletics. But with the current administration and board in place it will be a cold day in hell before that happens. |
Anonymous
+100 Wake up, Landon! We alums aren't going to send our boys to a school that remains stuck in the past. Evolve or continue to lose money and applicants. Your choice. |
Anonymous
OP here. I totally agree with you two. Seems like there is a vocal opposing view to ours I have nothing against athletes and played 2 varsity sports myself at Landon. That is not the point. The point is that the school unusually and inappropriately promoted Lacrosse in a newsletter to its alumni base. And for some reason lacrosse is singled out above all other sports and all other achievements of these boys who got accepted to colleges early. Implication - they were recruits and not admitted based on merits even if that is far from true By the way, the list of early acceptance colleges is below. I will leave it to others to opine on the quality of these schools relative to other top area private school admissions (as of 1/25/13): Allegheny (2) Northwestern Brown Oberlin Charleston (2) Oglethorpe Colgate Ohio State Colorado (3) Ohio Wesleyan (2) Cornell (3) Penn (4) Davidson Penn State (2) Delaware (2) Princeton Duke Purdue Elon (2) Sewanee Fairfield Southern Methodist (2) Fordham Stetson Furman (3) Syracuse Georgia Tech Tulane (2) High Point University of Illinois Hillsdale UNC-Wilmington Kenyon UVA (5) Lafayette Vermont MIT Wake Forest Northeastern Williams |
Anonymous
Wondering the same thing. I assumed that PP meant: the private school cap of "9" AA admits was covered in this situation, too, thus all is good. |
Anonymous
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No connection to landon here, but the list of colleges is quite impressive to me. MIT, Princeton, etc.
Good schools are so hard to get in these days that many parents would be delighted if their kids ended up at many of the schools on this list. |
Anonymous
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What about these two recent email topics?
1. "News Alert: Landon Alums Premier Film At Sundance..." 2. "Landon Students Shine at 15 National Science Bowl. 15 Landon boys competed in the regional qualifying competition for the National Science Bowl at the Rockville campus of Montgomery College...." |