St. John's and Good Counsel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of SJC kids get into the Scholar's Program?

About 50 students each year. The prerequisite is usually scoring a 95% or higher on the HSPT.

So, maybe 15-20 percent of each class? And if you're not in the program are you cut out of certain classes? I'd hate to send my kid there knowing from the get go that they're essentially handicapped from ever being in the top 15-20 percent . . .

[Anonymous]

Scholars have an honors religion class freshman year and an honors seminar and independent research project senior year. Every other class is available to every student at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no experience with Good Counsel, but we generally like SJC. The biggest complaint is that the SJC Scholars program is pretty unfair to kids who aren't in the program. Only Scholars can take honors religion freshman year, which gives them a GPA bump over the rest of the students. If honors religion was harder than regular freshman religion, then perhaps that would be fair. Honors freshman religion isn't any more difficult than regular freshman religion though, which means the Scholars get an artificial GPA bump. The senior seminar that Scholars take is also not a particularly difficult class, but they get a GPA bump for that class as well.

It's also ridiculous that only Scholars can automatically get two teacher recommendations for the college applications. Other students are only allowed one teacher recommendation, unless they can show that a college requires more than one rec.

My child is a Scholar, so she benefits from the program, but I still think it's completely unfair to the rest of the kids.

My non-scholar student automatically got two teacher recs last year and a third for applications that required a third. I don’t think your info is correct on that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am I wrong for having the impression that SJC is considered more prestigious?

Oh yes, of course it’s “more prestigious.” Not because of any measurable academic rigor, mind you, but because it has perfected the rare art of recruiting from the highly specialized gene pool of Upper Northwest D.C. parents whose self-worth is directly indexed to whether or not the head of school waves at them in the carpool line. These are people who treat open house day like the Iowa caucuses, but with more Vineyard Vines fleeces and fewer functioning moral compasses.

The prestige isn’t in the curriculum. It’s in the wine-and-cheese admissions mixers, the hushed tones about “fit,” and the unspoken contest of who can drop “Bethesda” and “Ambassador” most casually in the same sentence. Prestige, in this context, is basically a group hallucination shared by people who spent $3,000 last month on violin lessons their kid openly resents.

So yes, technically it’s “prestigious.” But only if you define prestige as the collective anxieties of insecure Northwest D.C. strivers, repackaged into a tuition bill the size of a small mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I wrong for having the impression that SJC is considered more prestigious?

Oh yes, of course it’s “more prestigious.” Not because of any measurable academic rigor, mind you, but because it has perfected the rare art of recruiting from the highly specialized gene pool of Upper Northwest D.C. parents whose self-worth is directly indexed to whether or not the head of school waves at them in the carpool line. These are people who treat open house day like the Iowa caucuses, but with more Vineyard Vines fleeces and fewer functioning moral compasses.

The prestige isn’t in the curriculum. It’s in the wine-and-cheese admissions mixers, the hushed tones about “fit,” and the unspoken contest of who can drop “Bethesda” and “Ambassador” most casually in the same sentence. Prestige, in this context, is basically a group hallucination shared by people who spent $3,000 last month on violin lessons their kid openly resents.

So yes, technically it’s “prestigious.” But only if you define prestige as the collective anxieties of insecure Northwest D.C. strivers, repackaged into a tuition bill the size of a small mortgage.

This sounds a little crazy considering schools like Sidwell, STA, Landon, Prep, GDS are considered prestigious by the group you describe above.

All the Upper NW families I know picking SJC are doing it to either continue with Catholic school and don’t want single sex or have a recruiter athlete or don’t want to spend $60k for Sidwell and the like but won’t go public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Scholars have an honors religion class freshman year and an honors seminar and independent research project senior year. Every other class is available to every student at the school.

Do the Scholars kick the general population's asses on the college admissions front?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I wrong for having the impression that SJC is considered more prestigious?

Oh yes, of course it’s “more prestigious.” Not because of any measurable academic rigor, mind you, but because it has perfected the rare art of recruiting from the highly specialized gene pool of Upper Northwest D.C. parents whose self-worth is directly indexed to whether or not the head of school waves at them in the carpool line. These are people who treat open house day like the Iowa caucuses, but with more Vineyard Vines fleeces and fewer functioning moral compasses.

The prestige isn’t in the curriculum. It’s in the wine-and-cheese admissions mixers, the hushed tones about “fit,” and the unspoken contest of who can drop “Bethesda” and “Ambassador” most casually in the same sentence. Prestige, in this context, is basically a group hallucination shared by people who spent $3,000 last month on violin lessons their kid openly resents.

So yes, technically it’s “prestigious.” But only if you define prestige as the collective anxieties of insecure Northwest D.C. strivers, repackaged into a tuition bill the size of a small mortgage.

This sounds a little crazy considering schools like Sidwell, STA, Landon, Prep, GDS are considered prestigious by the group you describe above.

All the Upper NW families I know picking SJC are doing it to either continue with Catholic school and don’t want single sex or have a recruiter athlete or don’t want to spend $60k for Sidwell and the like but won’t go public.

It does sound crazy until you realize that poster doesn’t know what they are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I wrong for having the impression that SJC is considered more prestigious?

Oh yes, of course it’s “more prestigious.” Not because of any measurable academic rigor, mind you, but because it has perfected the rare art of recruiting from the highly specialized gene pool of Upper Northwest D.C. parents whose self-worth is directly indexed to whether or not the head of school waves at them in the carpool line. These are people who treat open house day like the Iowa caucuses, but with more Vineyard Vines fleeces and fewer functioning moral compasses.

The prestige isn’t in the curriculum. It’s in the wine-and-cheese admissions mixers, the hushed tones about “fit,” and the unspoken contest of who can drop “Bethesda” and “Ambassador” most casually in the same sentence. Prestige, in this context, is basically a group hallucination shared by people who spent $3,000 last month on violin lessons their kid openly resents.

So yes, technically it’s “prestigious.” But only if you define prestige as the collective anxieties of insecure Northwest D.C. strivers, repackaged into a tuition bill the size of a small mortgage.

What the heck!?!? Do you know anything about the mix of kids who attend SJC? The school is pretty good at sticking to its Lasallian mission, but I have a feeling that you know that and you just have an ax to grind. It’s not that deep. Relax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of SJC kids get into the Scholar's Program?

About 50 students each year. The prerequisite is usually scoring a 95% or higher on the HSPT.

I think the percentile on HSPT fluctuates each year. I’ve heard as high as 98% is the floor and as low as 95%. My child who was in the program scored 97% and a friend scored 94-95% was not accepted. In addition to the HSPT, there’s a separate essay and an interview. The HSPT is a major part. The program director is great and should host sessions during open houses to answer all of your questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not well thought out? It’s been less than a week.

Typical block scheduling does not equal what SJC is implementing.
SJC - There are 5 blocks a day all of equal length (60 minutes)
1 block is lunch for 9th and 10th graders
1 block is lunch for 11th and 12th graders

The school is not set up to support this lunch structure and it was willful ignorance to think it could work as there is no place for the students to go when they are "flexing" when the other grade is eating - so you have 1 grade wondering around trying find a place to hang for 30 minutes.
Many students buy lunch - and 30 minutes is not enough time for everyone to get through the line and eat their food

It is a mess - the school knew it was going to be a mess - and they did not care

That block schedule sounds like what we had at Holy Cross back in the day, and it worked fine.

SJC probably just needs to work out the kinks and everyone will adjust.

[Anonymous]

Last spring, my husband and I were browsing the Instagram pages of private high schools in the area to see where their students were going to college. We noticed that Landon was sending most of its students to the country’s top universities, with SJC coming in a close second. Looking more closely at SJC, we discovered that it is a Christian Brothers school and is known for being very rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Are there lots of fights at either school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there lots of fights at either school?

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there lots of fights at either school?

There was one at SJC last year that was handled quickly. The students involved were expelled, and, according to rumors, the administrators who were let go mid year did not respond appropriately in trying to manage the situation.

These are Catholic schools so they have tools to deal with the kids who don’t want to be there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last spring, my husband and I were browsing the Instagram pages of private high schools in the area to see where their students were going to college. We noticed that Landon was sending most of its students to the country’s top universities, with SJC coming in a close second. Looking more closely at SJC, we discovered that it is a Christian Brothers school and is known for being very rigorous.

Strange comment…if you looked at Sidwell or GDS or Maret you would have seen far more impressive results on average if that’s your benchmark.