Stone ridge

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll address those comments one at a time. Daughter and other relatives recently graduated (all but one started in LS).
Competitive socially and academically: Yes. It is a very good school in the DC area, so of course it is competitive academically. But that is at the top of the class. If you are taking less rigorous schedule, it is not crazy competitive. Socially, I observed quite a few big personalities and it was competitive.
Inflexible admin: Not that I observed
Athletes privilege: Well, yes, in lacrosse.
Donors’ children favored: Not that we observed
Not LGBTQ inclusive: Not true, but that is based on limited sample size. Of course, I am sure you would find more inclusivity at some of the non-Catholic schools.
High teacher turnover: Not in our experience, although there were a lot of older teachers retiring.
Lack of services for children with disabilities: no information
Internationally diverse and transient: school seemed fairly diverse internationally. Not as many AA students as Bullis, but some. Did not find it transient.
Pristine campus: With the new building, the campus is much better.
It is a very good school but can be rough socially for certain girls.

Agree it’s for a certain type of girl. If you aren’t that type, it is rough. And the admin is no help.

You shouldn’t make these kinds of comments without being more clear. I have a daughter at the school and have no clue what you’re hinting at when you say a “certain type of girl”?

Athletic, socially saavy, neurotypical, no LDs. Range of academics but mostly bright girls. Less diverse than some other schools.

It’s rough for girls who aren’t as socially “competitive.” Esp if entering at MS or HS not from a Catholic k-8. Some teachers are more sympathetic and helpful but the admin is not. Our DD was looking forward to going but this has been our experience, unfortunately.

Also, girls with learning differences because the school doesn’t offer much beyond standard supports.

My daughter is pretty much the opposite of what you described, and she has been fine socially. You’re right that the support for LDs isn’t great, so you will be frustrated at times if your daughter has LDs. It’s not insurmountable if your daughter can keep up academically despite LDs, but it’s definitely a growth area for the school. Beyond that, I tend to disagree with the rest of what you described, but I’ll concede everyone’s experience is different.

[Anonymous]

Can PPs who talked about mean girl behaviors—either from girls or moms—give more details about this? I know people don’t want to out themselves because schools are small but it would be helpful to have more detail so we could understand how it compares to what we’ve experienced at our current school. I am really beginning to think that these behaviors are less about the school than the area where we live. I also know that some on DCUM just love to smear certain schools so I’m hoping someone can provide a little more context. We are looking to apply for 6th next year.

[Anonymous]

Come on people. Mean girls exist in public, private, all-girls, and coed. They aren’t only at Stone Ridge. Some change with self-work and some turn into mean women.

[Anonymous]

Neighbors' kids go there for several years now. No mean kids mention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come on people. Mean girls exist in public, private, all-girls, and coed. They aren’t only at Stone Ridge. Some change with self-work and some turn into mean women.

I’m PP who asked for details bc it’s easy to throw the mean girl comment out there to smear a school. The interactions we’ve had with actual SR families have been very pleasant and have not heard about mean girl experiences. Obviously I’m sure there’s some of that, but the DCUM mom narrative would have you believe it’s rampant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are deciding to apply to stone ridge?
Any pro and cons from family that are in lower school?

According to the other thread, JD Vance toured. The thought of dealing with his family while attending for the next 4 years is enough for a turnoff to me that our daughter won't be applying

Just because the family toured? Most families tour multiple schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are deciding to apply to stone ridge?
Any pro and cons from family that are in lower school?

According to the other thread, JD Vance toured. The thought of dealing with his family while attending for the next 4 years is enough for a turnoff to me that our daughter won't be applying

Even assuming your child is in the same class as a Vance child, you are overestimating how often you’d see the adults. I went to school with a Gore daughter in my class and my parents were not hobnobbing with Al and Tipper on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

In our experience (2 daughters in US, neither went to SR MS), both daughters noticed some girl on girl drama freshman year - girls who were popular in MS were dropped from a group, friend groups formed and girls were excluded, groups split up and rebranded, etc. typical stuff. Never heard of anything bad or mean. Zero drama after that. My DDs have strong friend groups with a mix of girls; the only homogeneous group (bear with me…) is the lacrosse group - pretty much all lacrosse players and a few others. The other groups are mixed. Also keep in mind that there may be inside groups and outside groups. One DD is close with a number of girls AT SCHOOL but doesn’t see most of them on the weekends (she and her closest friends hang together on weekends but other girls in the group do other things).

Academic drama - no cheating or backstabbing or stealing notes or stuff like that, but girls talk about grades a lot which causes stress.

Athletics - lacrosse girls seem to get special treatment. Sports are very competitive across the board. If your DD isn’t an athlete she might feel a little left out. One of ours is a rec player and has done well on the JV team but prob won’t make varsity as a junior.

Parents - I don’t socialize much but get the sense that most of the stronger parent connections were made before US (sports, country clubs, lower schools). So there’s definitely a split among the parents, if you care about those things. My advice is if you aren’t friends with SR parents now, don’t count on making friends once your DD is there. At least if your DD starts SR in upper school.

Admin has been pretty good, but we haven’t had any issues. One DD has some symptoms of LD but not diagnosed. We spoke with the school and they responded admirably. The AD is kind of a doofus; zero backbone and puts up with sub-par coaches (on and off field behavior) who seem to forget they are coaching high school girls.

Overall, we’ve been very happy. You get what you pay for. Our DDs would not have done well at a Big 3 and are appropriately challenged at SR.

[Anonymous]

Most of our social connections while our DD was at SR came out of interactions related to her sports. If you start in US and your DD isn’t sporty, it may be very difficult to connect with other parents. That’s not necessarily a dig on SR as I think that’s the case for high schools generally.

Re the comment above about the quality of coaches, I would say that we had no issues there, but obviously some are stronger than others. I recognize how difficult it is to find skilled coaches who are willing to work for peanuts and who are available at the times needed because you aren’t making a living coaching X sport at a private school (ie you have another job!). We saw some eyebrow raising behavior from parents directed at coaches that I believe was swept under the rug by the AD. Saw a bit of that unsavory parent/sports behavior at DS’s school, but the AD’s response was firm and noticeable.

Our DD’s experience sounds similar to PP socially and academically. She found her people slowly because of Covid hybrid learning arrangements her freshman year, but no major drama with other girls. Academically it was competitive BUT there was quite a range of abilities with some girls taking very demanding course loads and others taking a less strenuous path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stone Ridge has always been known as a kind of dumpy "mean girl" school with a bullying problem, despite being much lower tier than NCS or Holton. Not really a ton of advantages to make up for the issues

I am hoping a teenager wrote this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our experience (2 daughters in US, neither went to SR MS), both daughters noticed some girl on girl drama freshman year - girls who were popular in MS were dropped from a group, friend groups formed and girls were excluded, groups split up and rebranded, etc. typical stuff. Never heard of anything bad or mean. Zero drama after that. My DDs have strong friend groups with a mix of girls; the only homogeneous group (bear with me…) is the lacrosse group - pretty much all lacrosse players and a few others. The other groups are mixed. Also keep in mind that there may be inside groups and outside groups. One DD is close with a number of girls AT SCHOOL but doesn’t see most of them on the weekends (she and her closest friends hang together on weekends but other girls in the group do other things).

Academic drama - no cheating or backstabbing or stealing notes or stuff like that, but girls talk about grades a lot which causes stress.

Athletics - lacrosse girls seem to get special treatment. Sports are very competitive across the board. If your DD isn’t an athlete she might feel a little left out. One of ours is a rec player and has done well on the JV team but prob won’t make varsity as a junior.

Parents - I don’t socialize much but get the sense that most of the stronger parent connections were made before US (sports, country clubs, lower schools). So there’s definitely a split among the parents, if you care about those things. My advice is if you aren’t friends with SR parents now, don’t count on making friends once your DD is there. At least if your DD starts SR in upper school.

Admin has been pretty good, but we haven’t had any issues. One DD has some symptoms of LD but not diagnosed. We spoke with the school and they responded admirably. The AD is kind of a doofus; zero backbone and puts up with sub-par coaches (on and off field behavior) who seem to forget they are coaching high school girls.

Overall, we’ve been very happy. You get what you pay for. Our DDs would not have done well at a Big 3 and are appropriately challenged at SR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stone Ridge has always been known as a kind of dumpy "mean girl" school with a bullying problem, despite being much lower tier than NCS or Holton. Not really a ton of advantages to make up for the issues

I am hoping a teenager wrote this.

It sounds like Donald Trump wrote it.

[Anonymous]

SR is not much lower tier than NCS or Holton and I can assure you mean girls exist at every school.

[Anonymous]

Sr had had 3 major admin departures in last couple of weeks. What's up with this? Is this normal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sr had had 3 major admin departures in last couple of weeks. What's up with this? Is this normal?

Who left SR in last couple of weeks? What admin roles were they in? That seems kind of unusual for such a small school.