| The Upper School is wonderful as well. |
| How is SAES on financial aid? |
Varies based on the profile of the kid. |
| Not worth 50k+ |
| Enrollment was DOWN at SAES last year and this is trending at most not big 3-5 schools. They are an ok school but not great. In that area, I would try Bullis first or if girls, one of the all girl school. |
This. Just like I (the AIMS poster) said before. The SAES admissions people need to go to sleep instead of trying to defend the school all of the time. |
What are you talking about? The school had 560 students when we entered in the Lower School and it's at 716 this year. You are either misinformed or you just have some axe to grind. Weird. |
Yeah, the ninth grade class, for example, is 97 rather than the target of 90 because the yield was higher than expected. I don’t know why people want to make stuff up like this. There is high demand at all of the area private schools. |
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SAES upper school is overpriced. It's a decent school, but not worth 50k. Yes, the top students are going to great schools... but the majority of them are going to good schools that you can get into without that price tag. It's a quirky school with no school spirit.
Ultimately, it's up to you. Don't listen to me or anyone else on this thread. Visit the school and determine if your child will fit in. Then determine it's a fit. |
| +1. Make the best choice for YOUR kid. You will not get a straight answer from this thread. For every person that had a great experience, there is someone that had a terrible experience. Making a decision based on a forum is just bad parenting! |
The target is 100 students per class. |
| If you want your kids to have a fun, happy, easy school experience, then go! But if you are looking to rigorous curriculum, nice peer, great teacher, take a second look. |
That is not right. An SAES upper school class is around 90-95 a grade. Number fluctuates a little year to year. Last year the graduating class was 96 if I remember right, which is on the higher side. This year the seniors are also a bigger class in the high 90s. Juniors are on the smaller side. But the school isn’t set up for classes over 100. Numbers in the lower school are more variable and where you have seen the growth in the school with COVID increasing demand and the opening of the new lower school building about 5 years ago, which allowed the school to add spots in lower and middle school. So the enrollment of the school as a whole is quite a bit larger than it was 5-10 years ago as one of the posters above noted. I know some people want to believe that demand for schools other than the most popular schools in DC proper has reduced since public schools went back after COVID. But that isn’t what has happened. SAES and Bullis have both gotten bigger (with lower school expansions primarily) and college placement at both schools has been strong. There is no trend towards smaller classes at least in the Bethesda/Potomac area. I hear the same has been true at the Catholic schools. |
Wrong. SAES has never had 100 students per class. |
Ok, smarty, per grade. |