Burke or Hardy for middle school

[Anonymous]

Hardy is free and closer.
Very academic, independent kid. He liked Burke when he visited. Like the idea of Hardy as he would know kids in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hardy is free and closer.
Very academic, independent kid. He liked Burke when he visited. Like the idea of Hardy as he would know kids in the neighborhood.

Burke caters to independent thinkers and has very strong academics. Hardy's advanced math kids scored well on PARCC, so he will likely have some challenge there too.

So many students at Hardy are OOB, hard to say how many neighborhood kids he would know, much less whether he would have anything in common with them.

Has he done a visit to Hardy? Maybe the principal would facilitate that.

What ES has he been in?

[Anonymous]

Burke was described to me as the private school for parents who hate private school. A lot of the kids went public through elementary and went private after looking at their public options. Burke parents tend to be over-represented as former PTA presidents, LSAT members and so on at their public schools. I know four Burke families who went to the same neighborhood elementary as my kids and among them they have three former LSAT members and one PTA president. Many of the Burke kids are IB for Hardy, a few even spent some time at Hardy and bailed out.

A fun Burke fact: of the four feeder school reps on the last Hardy principal selection committee, two are now Burke parents.

Burke's a good school. Undeniably, it's also $35K or so a year more expensive than Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Hardy. We found the MS academics at Burke anemic, and the quality of teaching pretty low too. In my book, that's not worth close to 40K.

[Anonymous]

Does Hardy have tours? The website did not say

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hardy. We found the MS academics at Burke anemic, and the quality of teaching pretty low too. In my book, that's not worth close to 40K.

Did your kid leave Burke and go to Hardy? If not I'm not sure you can make the comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy. We found the MS academics at Burke anemic, and the quality of teaching pretty low too. In my book, that's not worth close to 40K.

Did your kid leave Burke and go to Hardy? If not I'm not sure you can make the comparison.

Np. Are you goong to ask all of the posters of they have been to both schools? I think that will be a rare find.

[Anonymous]

Hardy

[Anonymous]

These are obviously two very different options - one a free public school, the other an expensive private.

My child went to Hardy and thrived -so I would say Hardy.

Another thing to keep in mind - once you go private, you probably are not going back to public (I know that in theory you could, but realistically, nobody does). But you can start at Hardy and if you are unhappy, move to Burke or elsewhere for private mid-year or in 7th grade. Or you can go private for high school, which a good number of Hardy families do.

So given all that, why not start at Hardy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does Hardy have tours? The website did not say

Of course it does. Just call or email Principal Pride to set one up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hardy. We found the MS academics at Burke anemic, and the quality of teaching pretty low too. In my book, that's not worth close to 40K.

Can you tell me more about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are obviously two very different options - one a free public school, the other an expensive private.

My child went to Hardy and thrived -so I would say Hardy.

Another thing to keep in mind - once you go private, you probably are not going back to public (I know that in theory you could, but realistically, nobody does). But you can start at Hardy and if you are unhappy, move to Burke or elsewhere for private mid-year or in 7th grade. Or you can go private for high school, which a good number of Hardy families do.

So given all that, why not start at Hardy?

Can you say more about the academics at Hardy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy. We found the MS academics at Burke anemic, and the quality of teaching pretty low too. In my book, that's not worth close to 40K.

Can you tell me more about this?

My DC did not complete MS there- we pulled DC out. He was way behind when he went to another private MS and needed tutoring to catch up.
The teachers were very poor in all core subjects and highly disorganized, with the exception of art and music. The classes seemed chaotic- kids calling out, sitting on the floor, not much order. And for a small school, they never seemed knowledgeable about my DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are obviously two very different options - one a free public school, the other an expensive private.

My child went to Hardy and thrived -so I would say Hardy.

Another thing to keep in mind - once you go private, you probably are not going back to public (I know that in theory you could, but realistically, nobody does). But you can start at Hardy and if you are unhappy, move to Burke or elsewhere for private mid-year or in 7th grade. Or you can go private for high school, which a good number of Hardy families do.

So given all that, why not start at Hardy?

Can you say more about the academics at Hardy?

They have accelerated math options (can take Geometry in 8th grade if the child is advanced enough), and the equivalent of honors classes for other subjects. They also have the gifted and talented program that pulls kids out for special classes and programs. The kids I know what went to Hardy walked into high school (some private, some at School Without Walls, some at Wilson) and were ready to succeed at those schools.

[CharleighM]

HARDY!!!! i went to hardy and they hands down offer a super education!!!!! Lots of classes you wont find at a neighborhood school.