"Not a Meritocracy"
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Anonymous
Maybe there isn’t something the school could do? |
Anonymous
According to some posters on here...just inflate all the grades at the private like is done for the "minimal" effort bringing public students and bang ...all the private school kids are in. |
Anonymous
This is part of why I don’t think it will improve for the private schools. |
Anonymous
Specifically, what is wrong with IU or Michigan State? |
Anonymous
Private school parents have a really hard time accepting this fact. There may be some privates that are tougher than some publics, but on balance, public schools are where the smartest kids are. Dual NIH parents with 3 kids are sending their kids to RMIB, not Sidwell. |
Anonymous
100% not true - from a parent who's had a kid at one of those public high schools and another at a Big 3. My Big 3 kid received a humanities education that was far superior to the public school kid. This is a weird thread. But in my experience there are parents at both top publics and top privates who don't understand how much the college admissions landscape has changed. This area has a high concentration of HYPS+ grads and they remember how their 4.0GPA/99percentile SAT got them into the tippy-top colleges so why isn't their equally accomplished kid getting the same treatment? That's what's going on here. |
Anonymous
A TJ student can take multiple AP classes in any humanity they choose to. The classes are there for the kids who want them. |
Anonymous
Have you considered that it might be the difference in your kids? Like all things in large publics, the opportunities are there but your kid has to look for them and nurture them. I have two kids who attend the same public school. One has had an amazing humanities education and has gotten into some truly eye popping universities. The kid can write and analyze and her teachers have pushed her hard to be better. My other kid is not a humanities kid and does what is needed to pass his classes. It’s like they are going to different schools. But both are getting a good education in my mind. |
Anonymous
They didn't list RMIB |
Anonymous
The HOS and HS admins never deal with the real issues. They deflect and rest on the reputation that keeps up demand, and on the VIPs who have $$ to fund the future building plans. |
Anonymous
They are caught in their own trap. They sent their kids to these schools specifically to give their kids a competitive edge and the "aura" of being better than other kids, especially when it comes to college admissions. You can dress this up any way you want, you can say it's about the whole package of the school, the community, etc. That's fine, but it's just another way of saying the same thing - you pay these outrageously high tuition bills because you think it will make your kid better than other kids, and thus more successful in life, including more successful in the college application race. But the problem is that SIMPLY BY VIRTUE of making that choice, you diminish the quality of the school your child is attending. These schools are filled with kids whose parents were like "I want to give my kid an edge by sending them to the most expensive, prestigious, name brand private school in the area." In other words, filled with kids whose parents were hoping to game the system. Which of course means that these schools are filled with many very average kids who they are trying to make look exceptional by slapping "Sidwell" or "GDS" on their transcript. As has been pointed out in this thread, the private schools are not, themselves, a meritocracy. They could be, just like colleges could be. They could change their admissions systems to really, truly only admit the most high achieving, smartest kids, by whatever metric or metrics they wanted. They could change their financial position to ensure that if a student who could not afford to pay tuition but who was phenomenally qualified got in, they'd award merit scholarships for whatever the gap was. Sure, they do this a bit on the margins with some URM admits, but these admits are brought in more to give a veneer of diversity to the school. But they could make admission a true meritocracy if they wanted to, or as close to one as you can get in the age of test prep and application consultants. But they don't, and the parents know they don't, and actually benefit from it because it means that they can send their average kids there, which is the whole point because they want their average kids to look above average simply by virtue of having attended an elite private school. But everyoe knows these schools are elite becsue of the price tag and often the "ins" you need to gain admission, and not because their academics are so much better or more rigorous than other schools. Everyone knows. Colleges know. You can't trick anyone with this. Some kids at these schools are truly exceptional and they will be more competitive on college applications. Many/most are average and they will still receive the benefit of going to a high quality private instead of a mediocre public, but they will not be automatically treated as more qualified than the many exceptional students attending public schools, especially not the ones attending public schools renowned for their extremely high standards. There's no short cuts, sorry. |
Anonymous
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Private school, especially one built on a set of values, like a Friends school, is just a completely different environment than a STEM and score obsessed public magnet. Believe it or not, many people do not just send their kids to these schools for a "competitive edge."
Unfortunately, if the only world you know is the TJ-type one, you just are living in a different reality. I went from SFS to UVa and was shocked by all of the NoVa kids who seemed caught up in scores and rankings. My high school experience was really different and much more values based. We didn't have class rank or anything like that. If you can't accept that and think every parent (and student) is just focused on "winning," you definitely belong at the public magnet. |
Anonymous
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Lots of insecurity from public school parents here.
1) You'll find super smart kids at both public and private. I don't see any private school parents denying that fact. 2a) Private school is simply expensive and out of reach for many families. This in itself raises the hackles of public school parents who see this as fundamentally unfair and elitist. I don't think any private school parent would disagree. It's something that many private school parents acknowledge, and feel uncomfortable about, but in the end choose private because they can. 2b) Families who live in $1.5M homes in Ward 3 are also highly privileged, in the grand scheme of things. So, it's a bit disingenuous to criticize private school parents when you yourself likely have a HHI well, well above the city median. 3) As a private school parent, I like the fact that my kids are in a safe, small environment where teachers, administrators, and staff know my kids personally. I like that the teachers respond to my emails. I like that they don't have to walk through metal detectors. I like that kids aren't getting arrested at my kids school. I like that there aren't physical fights daily. I like that the there isn't a "Yale-or-Jail" mentality to the kids, which, frankly is the case at Jackson-Reed; and to make it worse, most of the "Yale" kids are White, and most of the "Jail" kids are Black. White JR parents like to tout the diversity of the school, but their kids' friends are almost all White. There is a lot of segregation within the school. While our kids' private school isn't perfect, there are lot more multi-ethnic/racial friendships than what I observe at JR. My sample size is admittedly small, but I don't see the Yale-Jail divide at top private schools they way I see it at JR. And yes, for sure, the top JR kids are getting into top colleges, but that's not the main reason we are sending our kids to private. I know my kid will get into college, probably a pretty good one, even with the grade deflation. |
Anonymous
 What quaker values does a school charging 50k a year to educate a city's elite still retain? The competitive student body present in TJ is mirrored in SFS, it's just quieter. Maybe OP's kid missed the memo that the name on the diploma isn't enough anymore, but other kids working their butts off to be at the top of the class didn't
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Anonymous
nothing for the mere mortals, but it's not good enough after spending $50K year for several years in K-12. |