New STA parent seeking advice, suggestions, or just plain "I wish I had known X" info

[Anonymous]

We have missed a few Form meetings - never got a phone call - just received the packet in the mail a few days later.

[Anonymous]

New to STA - do they publish which kids made honor roll? If so what are the criteria?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have missed a few Form meetings - never got a phone call - just received the packet in the mail a few days later.

Exactly. Never got a phone call just the packet in the mail a few days later.

[Anonymous]

How common is having an outside tutor in the upper school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New to STA - do they publish which kids made honor roll? If so what are the criteria?

For the Upper School, there is not an Honor Roll. Some of the advisors sometimes refer in written comments to a "Head's List" -- meaning all As and Bs -- but apparently that is a vestige of another time and there is not actually a "Head's List" currently in existence. Sort of funny, actually. I don't know what they do in the Lower School, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How common is having an outside tutor in the upper school?

I believe it is fairly common for a couple of STEM subjects (the non-honors upper level math course comes to mind). Less common for the humanities. They have a peer tutoring program that can be good if your son is motivated and paired with someone he works well with, and the teachers are accommodating about giving extra help (often it is the schedule that is the limiting factor from the student's perspective -- particularly if the student is very involved in athletics). I would say if you think a tutor would help your child, don't feel bad about it, but maybe explore the in-house options first?

[Anonymous]

If a boy earns all A's and B's it is prominently noted on his report card. This is for both lower and upper school. It is not a vestige of the past.

[Anonymous]

It is not a vestige of the past to be recognized as making the Headmaster's List. Sorry this is the complete sentence for the above post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is not a vestige of the past to be recognized as making the Headmaster's List. Sorry this is the complete sentence for the above post.

Ask the head of the upper school -- there is no such actual list of names even though advisors will say it in shorthand to mean "all As and Bs." And no, the report card does not say "Head's List" or anything like that. The advisors write a comment and, as noted above, some use the old term but plenty don't--because no such actual list exists.

[Anonymous]

The list exists even though it is not posted for all to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The list exists even though it is not posted for all to see.

I once asked my child's advisor ("Form Master") about the "Head's List," since an advisor in a prior year had referenced it in the cover comments on the report card. The latter year advisor said that each year in the Upper School meetings to talk about student progress there is good natured commentary among the faculty about advisors saying that their advisees are "on the Head's List" because there is not actually such a list. (The advisor assumed it existed at an earlier time, and also said that they'd been told that a Headmaster in the 1950s era would read all of the student grades out, with commentary, in the dining hall ("Refectory").) But advisors use it in faculty meetings as a shorthand for saying "this group of my advisees has all As and Bs." This particular advisor said that they wished people wouldn't mention it to parents because the advisor would get feedback "why didn't you mention my kid was on the Head's List" (which, yes, I was sort of doing at the time! which is why I remember this so clearly) and have to explain that it's a figure of speech and not the equivalent of a formal Dean's List.

No GPA appears on the report card (although of course colleges can compute it from the grades) and St. Albans doesn't rank, but they obviously know internally where students are ranked because there are awards on Prize Day each year for the top 1-2 students in each grade, and then senior year the top 20% (I think?) are inducted into the Cum Laude Society. So the closest thing there ever is to a public list is the Cum Laude Society list which comes out in the spring of senior year.

[Anonymous]

Are you all saying some of the top boys get Bs on occasion? If so, that is good to know. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you all saying some of the top boys get Bs on occasion? If so, that is good to know. Thank you.

A's and B's at St. Albans are good grades. But I think many of the top kids probably do get all grades in the A range, although you can certainly get the STEM star with a B+ in history or the humanities scholar with the B+ in calculus. There's a reasonably wide range of abilities -- a relatively bright kid who works hard will do well there.

[Anonymous]

Lets clarify the prior entry. Some kids at STA do get straight A's, but they need to be very bright and very hard-working to get those results. Other kids get mostly C's and a few B's. There is a normal distribution and there is NO grade inflation. Current kids are compared against the achievement of former graduates, not just thier current classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lets clarify the prior entry. Some kids at STA do get straight A's, but they need to be very bright and very hard-working to get those results. Other kids get mostly C's and a few B's. There is a normal distribution and there is NO grade inflation. Current kids are compared against the achievement of former graduates, not just thier current classmates.

How does NCS compare to this?