Howard County family considering a few Baltimore privates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calvert Hall and Loyola are good if you want a catholic school or if your alternative is a performing Baltimore public. Neither is going to offer a better education than a Howard county public. The class sizes aren’t going to be smaller.

I disagree. My neighbors lived in Howard County before moving to Baltimore County. Her kids were unprepared for college in the following ways- no idea how to take notes, were allowed retakes in HS whereas they couldn’t do that in college, no idea that deadlines weren’t flexible, couldn’t write. She spent a lot of money on writing tutors for both because they basically had to start from the beginning. One nearly failed out because he wasn’t used to handing in work by a deadline. He was on academic probation. The other one needed a tutor in note taking since she was always provided notes by the teachers.

I mean it sounds like it was her kids, not the schools. I taught there, my kids went there and, yes, it is all taught and there is plenty of rigor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calvert Hall and Loyola are good if you want a catholic school or if your alternative is a performing Baltimore public. Neither is going to offer a better education than a Howard county public. The class sizes aren’t going to be smaller.

I disagree. My neighbors lived in Howard County before moving to Baltimore County. Her kids were unprepared for college in the following ways- no idea how to take notes, were allowed retakes in HS whereas they couldn’t do that in college, no idea that deadlines weren’t flexible, couldn’t write. She spent a lot of money on writing tutors for both because they basically had to start from the beginning. One nearly failed out because he wasn’t used to handing in work by a deadline. He was on academic probation. The other one needed a tutor in note taking since she was always provided notes by the teachers.

I mean it sounds like it was her kids, not the schools. I taught there, my kids went there and, yes, it is all taught and there is plenty of rigor.

I believe both these perspectives and it depends on when your kids attended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here, looks like this exploded, in a direction that I didn't expect, nonetheless. Mcdonogh is still on our radar mostly due to the 5 day boarding program. He's thought about boarding school in general, but that may be a different conversation. Both DH and I are Catholic school grads, but academically we feel our kids can aim higher. We'll see how things go in the fall.

The five day boarding option is a nice in-between. The benefits of boarding during the school week with home life on weekends. It makes a lot of sense.