Transitioning from Catholic school to competitive privates (like STA/NCS/Sidwell) - advice needed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the uninformed, who are "the big 3"?

Also, I think the Catholics do sacrifice writing instruction for HSPT prep. Our middle school has been drilling on vocab for the last 3 years but barely any emphasis on writing beyond a paragraph. It's frustrating.

Big 3 typically refers to STA/NCS, Sidwell and Basis Independent McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if some of the "step up" in rigor is also just the step up that would occur at a lot of places between MS and HS. Like do Catholic high schools also get more rigorous than Catholic MS?

Yes I think this is part of it. There’s a step up going from 8th to 9th. And a smaller step from 9th to 10th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the uninformed, who are "the big 3"?

Also, I think the Catholics do sacrifice writing instruction for HSPT prep. Our middle school has been drilling on vocab for the last 3 years but barely any emphasis on writing beyond a paragraph. It's frustrating.

Big 3 typically refers to STA/NCS, Sidwell and Basis Independent McLean.

And there's another BASIS parent trying to jam the school into the Big 3, which it is not, sorry.

[Anonymous]

There is an American in England message board that you might find interesting. Lots of been there done that you can use.

https://talk.uk-yankee.com

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the uninformed, who are "the big 3"?

Also, I think the Catholics do sacrifice writing instruction for HSPT prep. Our middle school has been drilling on vocab for the last 3 years but barely any emphasis on writing beyond a paragraph. It's frustrating.

Big 3 typically refers to STA/NCS, Sidwell and Basis Independent McLean.

And there's another BASIS parent trying to jam the school into the Big 3, which it is not, sorry.

That is funny...no one has every heard of Basis..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the uninformed, who are "the big 3"?

Also, I think the Catholics do sacrifice writing instruction for HSPT prep. Our middle school has been drilling on vocab for the last 3 years but barely any emphasis on writing beyond a paragraph. It's frustrating.

There’s literally a pinned post at the top of the forum responding to this question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if there’s a decent gap between most catholic k-8 and top independents, is the gulf even bigger between “top” public and the top independents?

No. Generally, top publics > most catholic k-8

Interesting. We have parents and kids who transfer from their local public in FCPS (Vienna) to our K-8 Catholic because of the dissatisfaction with the academics which had made us stay longer than we would have expected. Our plan was to move towards 5th to 6th grade but planning on staying in Catholic until 8th and then switching so they can have both experiences. We want the faith formation and low tech but also good aCaden is. Any thoughts on the rigor ? Or hindsight looking back?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A college friend who went from being top of her class at a Catholic high school to an ivy league college said the hardest part of the transition was learning that memorization wasn't sufficient -- the level of expected analysis was much greater. I don't know if that has changed in a generation.

That has changed significantly for all schools in a generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if some of the "step up" in rigor is also just the step up that would occur at a lot of places between MS and HS. Like do Catholic high schools also get more rigorous than Catholic MS?

Yes. This is what a lot of people fail to consider in most transitions. Of course the next step up is going to be harder and, of course, you haven't learned yet what they will expect of you. Otherwise, all the lifer parents would complain that the middle school is no different from the elementary school, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the uninformed, who are "the big 3"?

Also, I think the Catholics do sacrifice writing instruction for HSPT prep. Our middle school has been drilling on vocab for the last 3 years but barely any emphasis on writing beyond a paragraph. It's frustrating.

There’s literally a pinned post at the top of the forum responding to this question.

And it's basically the old school money institutions that have traditional prestige based on parentage -- nothing to do with academics really, as you can find many schools with rigorous academics (this is the uber competitive DMV after all).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if there’s a decent gap between most catholic k-8 and top independents, is the gulf even bigger between “top” public and the top independents?

No. Generally, top publics > most catholic k-8

Interesting. We have parents and kids who transfer from their local public in FCPS (Vienna) to our K-8 Catholic because of the dissatisfaction with the academics which had made us stay longer than we would have expected. Our plan was to move towards 5th to 6th grade but planning on staying in Catholic until 8th and then switching so they can have both experiences. We want the faith formation and low tech but also good aCaden is. Any thoughts on the rigor ? Or hindsight looking back?

If you’re not in AAP, olgc or st marks is prob better, and def more hw. For AAP, the difference would probably be in the amount of tech and also for elementary, mostly short passage reading for ELA bc of Benchmark vs reading full books. (Assuming they read full books in Catholic) Catholic prob does regular grammar instruction vs in aap/FCPS you’d get it through Lexia, how effective that is = debatable. Anyway, we are in Vienna but leaving FCPS in elementary bc of too much tech (among other things) but will go back for high school.