Please tell me everything about St. Andrew’s Episcopal

[weekendready]

We know a family that has 2 upper school students and is very satisfied. Both parents well-informed and considered other schools, including MCPS. One of their sons is involved with music, the other swim team. We attended the orientation and I was impressed by the class sizes and the impromptu interactions I had with faculty, who seem motivated to refine their teaching methods. It also felt like a warm, friendly environment. The kids used actual textbooks in several classes, which I think is good.

However, I got the sense that additional support for kids with ADHD would cost more out of pocket, making the school not feasible for us. We ended up choosing another high school for price and location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, so the education was poor quality, you got a low GPA in HS but you were prepared to succeed in college. How is your peer group doing post college? Especially since none of you went Ivy League.

I'm not sure she could know where every one of her peers went to college. I went to Brown and kept it low key. I mean I told the minimal amount of people. Many of my college friends did, too.

They published a list of colleges students would attend in our schools magazine. The most “prestigious” school anyone was accepted to was Georgetown lol. I knew where every student was going…we had fewer than 80 kids in my grade

There was two Hispanic kids in the entire school (younger than me) and they were accepted to some Ivy League schools. But maybe affirmative action helped idk, and they didn’t graduate my year. And some really smart Jewish kid went to Yale (I saw in the alumni magazine…not my class tho)

You are contradicting your earlier statements. FYI: makes you less credible.

There really is contradiction in every post, not sure PP realizes this.

[Anonymous]

weekendready wrote:We know a family that has 2 upper school students and is very satisfied. Both parents well-informed and considered other schools, including MCPS. One of their sons is involved with music, the other swim team. We attended the orientation and I was impressed by the class sizes and the impromptu interactions I had with faculty, who seem motivated to refine their teaching methods. It also felt like a warm, friendly environment. The kids used actual textbooks in several classes, which I think is good.

However, I got the sense that additional support for kids with ADHD would cost more out of pocket, making the school not feasible for us. We ended up choosing another high school for price and location.

Is not a special needs school so anything beyond testing accommodations I assume you would have to cover. Did the school you chose offer ADHD support beyond extra time for test?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol I’m not a mom, but I attended St. Andrews before the new building was constructed. The quality of education is extremely poor and literally zero kids from my grade went to Ivy League schools. I graduated from University with close to a 4.0 gpa though…..so the rigor of private schools does help prepare students for college. My roommates who had 4.2 GPAs from public high schools and sub-par SAT scores failed multiple classes and graduated with below 3.0 gpas. My SAT score was also in the 93rd percentile, but my high school gpa was abysmal lol. I was a very lazy student tbh and disliked most of the teachers.

Also, they pumped all our tuition money in to constructing the new building for future students. We used to sit on the floor like dogs during free periods while people would step over our legs in the hallways. It was so ridiculous. Sooo not worth the money. Pubic schools had way nicer resources, much much easier to get high GPAs, and shitty students were accepted to way more prestigious universities with lower SAT scores.

I have a sister who graduated from NCS and the school had nicer facilities, but not many acceptances to top universities. Very competitive with many Asian and Indian students. Meanwhile, my brother attended St Albans and he went to Columbia (Ivy league) and sooo many of his classmates went to Ivy League schools too. The bullying is apparently terrible though, since we had many smart guys transfer to St Andrews to escape it. And my brother got a black eye one time after he fought with a kid.

Sorry you have such bad memories. If that was the case, it’s a 180 now.

Well it was less than ten years ago…so idk how much could have changed tbh

This is bs. The new building and campus was bought and built in the last 90s, early 2000s. So if this PP is saying she went there in the old building and also less than 10 years ago, it’s just a bs post.

I went there. It was always the coed, less intense sibling to the cathedral schools. It was founded to be an alternative to those schools so the fact that it is different is a feature, not a bug. My class (30 years ago) had multiple Ivies, tons of competitive SLACs and top public’s as well as less “prestigious” schools. Again, not every kid from any school is going to the top schools in the country especially when “top school” is such a subjective factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol I’m not a mom, but I attended St. Andrews before the new building was constructed. The quality of education is extremely poor and literally zero kids from my grade went to Ivy League schools. I graduated from University with close to a 4.0 gpa though…..so the rigor of private schools does help prepare students for college. My roommates who had 4.2 GPAs from public high schools and sub-par SAT scores failed multiple classes and graduated with below 3.0 gpas. My SAT score was also in the 93rd percentile, but my high school gpa was abysmal lol. I was a very lazy student tbh and disliked most of the teachers.

Also, they pumped all our tuition money in to constructing the new building for future students. We used to sit on the floor like dogs during free periods while people would step over our legs in the hallways. It was so ridiculous. Sooo not worth the money. Pubic schools had way nicer resources, much much easier to get high GPAs, and shitty students were accepted to way more prestigious universities with lower SAT scores.

I have a sister who graduated from NCS and the school had nicer facilities, but not many acceptances to top universities. Very competitive with many Asian and Indian students. Meanwhile, my brother attended St Albans and he went to Columbia (Ivy league) and sooo many of his classmates went to Ivy League schools too. The bullying is apparently terrible though, since we had many smart guys transfer to St Andrews to escape it. And my brother got a black eye one time after he fought with a kid.

Sorry you have such bad memories. If that was the case, it’s a 180 now.

Well it was less than ten years ago…so idk how much could have changed tbh

This is bs. The new building and campus was bought and built in the last 90s, early 2000s. So if this PP is saying she went there in the old building and also less than 10 years ago, it’s just a bs post.

I went there. It was always the coed, less intense sibling to the cathedral schools. It was founded to be an alternative to those schools so the fact that it is different is a feature, not a bug. My class (30 years ago) had multiple Ivies, tons of competitive SLACs and top public’s as well as less “prestigious” schools. Again, not every kid from any school is going to the top schools in the country especially when “top school” is such a subjective factor.

Bingo. I came to say just this. Weird that someone is putting forth effort to post false stories and so clearly false. Alum from the old building were much earlier than under a decade ago, clear lies. And the description of colleges attended by classmates is another obvious lie, since there is a lengthy history of stellar schools (including Ivy League) for top performing St. Andrew's students.
Maybe it's the active Bullis boosters that have been spamming DCUM with outplacement posts, seeking to 'sink' a competitor with sloppy lies and trolling??

[Anonymous]

The troll’s posts are not only inconsistent with themselves, but also are very different from what we hear from current SAES families.

[Anonymous]

Current parent and very happy with SAES for upper school. Not a pressure cooker school like we hear about some of the schools on the board, but certainly if a student wants challenging courses and like-minded students, there is every opportunity. Comments about SAES being full of just average students is just wrong (of course who knows what that even means). My DD has received 5s on AP exams and plenty of extremely challenging courses with wonderful teachers who are readily accessible in our experience. As far as the social scene, overall it seems like everyone is friendly with each other even though there are definitely friend groups. It is a nice group of parents as well. Overall, a very warm and inclusive culture, and a wonderful environment in our opinion. I note we have a DC at another school frequently discussed on this board and I would not make such comments about the culture and environment at that school.

[weekendready]

Anonymous wrote:

weekendready wrote:We know a family that has 2 upper school students and is very satisfied. Both parents well-informed and considered other schools, including MCPS. One of their sons is involved with music, the other swim team. We attended the orientation and I was impressed by the class sizes and the impromptu interactions I had with faculty, who seem motivated to refine their teaching methods. It also felt like a warm, friendly environment. The kids used actual textbooks in several classes, which I think is good.

However, I got the sense that additional support for kids with ADHD would cost more out of pocket, making the school not feasible for us. We ended up choosing another high school for price and location.

Is not a special needs school so anything beyond testing accommodations I assume you would have to cover. Did the school you chose offer ADHD support beyond extra time for test?

Yes the school we chose offers additional support beyond extra time for test. I am not sure if I'd consider ADHD to be "special needs" considering almost 10 percent of young people have it.

[Anonymous]

weekendready wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

weekendready wrote:We know a family that has 2 upper school students and is very satisfied. Both parents well-informed and considered other schools, including MCPS. One of their sons is involved with music, the other swim team. We attended the orientation and I was impressed by the class sizes and the impromptu interactions I had with faculty, who seem motivated to refine their teaching methods. It also felt like a warm, friendly environment. The kids used actual textbooks in several classes, which I think is good.

However, I got the sense that additional support for kids with ADHD would cost more out of pocket, making the school not feasible for us. We ended up choosing another high school for price and location.

Is not a special needs school so anything beyond testing accommodations I assume you would have to cover. Did the school you chose offer ADHD support beyond extra time for test?

Yes the school we chose offers additional support beyond extra time for test. I am not sure if I'd consider ADHD to be "special needs" considering almost 10 percent of young people have it.

Do you mean you’re paying for after-school tutors?

[Anonymous]

OP - “Tell me everything.” Seriously? Your post is sophmoric. Do your research by going to the open houses and admitted family events, speaking to current faculty/staff and current parents, and make your own assessment. An anonymous forum isn’t a reliable venue for the feedback you seek.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure how you define “average,” but the school places students in very competitive colleges. And numerous AP offerings where students routinely get 5s based on my DD’s experience. The academic rigor is great.

The comment you are responding to is from a parent archetype St. Andrews parents are trying to avoid when choosing St. Andrews. The gauche, kid status-obsessed self promoters end up at other places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - “Tell me everything.” Seriously? Your post is sophmoric. Do your research by going to the open houses and admitted family events, speaking to current faculty/staff and current parents, and make your own assessment. An anonymous forum isn’t a reliable venue for the feedback you seek.

Couldn't this forum be done in condition with the above? Obviously you mean well but you come off as pretentious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - “Tell me everything.” Seriously? Your post is sophmoric. Do your research by going to the open houses and admitted family events, speaking to current faculty/staff and current parents, and make your own assessment. An anonymous forum isn’t a reliable venue for the feedback you seek.

Couldn't this forum be done in condition with the above? Obviously you mean well but you come off as pretentious.

NP. Yes, people post “tell me everything” in a lot of forums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We toured the school and everyone was very nice. The facilities are obviously, impressive. They have a very researched based psychological approach to teaching that sounded interesting, but I couldn’t help but get a Dharma Initiative vibe. I can’t quite put my finger on it. We spent three hours there and the one thing they didn’t mention was, St. Andrew or anything about religion. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

The Dharma Initiative!!! That is perfect! I love your sense of humor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does everyone think about this for the 2023-24 year?
Tell me everything

Good middle of the road school. Not outstanding, but not bad. It works for average students.