Outplacement from Beauvoir

[Anonymous]

I'd love to hear from families who have gone through this process. Was it as stressful as applying to schools for pre-K/K? More so? Less so? How do the kids react now that they know that they are being assessed and either selected or turned down?

[Anonymous]

It was a breeze. Not without stress, but as with anything related to this private school madness, can it ever be without stress?

The outplacement director knows hers stuff and works hard on your behalf.

I suppose in the interest of full disclosure, we only applied to STA. My DS has average scores in relation to other Beauvoir boys as far as I can gather and I would not describe myself or DH as being particularly well connected, so it was risky. But we certainly got the impression that if you are a boy at Beauvoir, you have to work very hard not to get the nod from STA.

[Anonymous]

There is a long thread on this subject here:
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/11133.page#63003

Some of the posts may address your questions.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]I'd love to hear from families who have gone through this process. Was it as stressful as applying to schools for pre-K/K? More so? Less so? How do the kids react now that they know that they are being assessed and either selected or turned down?[/quote]


The problem this time around is the kids are a much more knowing participant in the process. It adds to the stress. No matter how much you try to shield your kid from the process, the incessant chatter of the parents is unavoidable. Their peers also participate in the chatter, usually in casual conversation, often in reassuring ways, but sometimes in mean spirited taunting ways, for example teasing someone that they won't get into STA/NCS or tormenting them after the fact. At least that was our family's experience.

[Anonymous]

yikes, the post above makes the process sound VERY stressful.

[Anonymous]

Your experience is very unfortunate. I am very surprised that other kids acted in that way. Beauvoir has a rule requiring that third graders and third grade parents refrain from discussing outplacement with each other until the process is complete for everybody in April. The school needs to remind everybody of the rule. (When we went through the process we found that most people followed the rule, and our kids did not know where most of their classmates were going till very late in the year.)

Fortunately for us, we did not encounter similar stresses. We were interested in a particular school. The outplacement director independently suggested the same school (and an alternative, which was our second choice, and which we did not pursue). We agreed, and at that point she took over -- we only had to send in some test results and tour the school to which we had applied. We understood that she would be tracking our application at the school and that if any issues arose she would get in touch with us in time for us to apply to other schools. Instead, she called in December to say that everything was progressing well, and that was pretty much the end of it.

[Anonymous]

thank you so much for sharing your experience which sounds GREAT.
sounds like you chose a school other than ncs/sta - did you still go through the ncs/sta process? or, if you knew you/your child wasn't interested, did you just skip it?
also, are the kids who choose not to go to ncs/sta sad when they hear so many of their friends talking about heading on to one of those schools? or are there enough kids going to different schools that it doesn't impact them?
thanks so much!

[Anonymous]

I am sorry, my earlier post must have been unclear. Our first choice school was a Cathedral school. If we had liked the other school more I am not sure whether we would have applied to the Cathedral school. Since the outplacement director had also recommened that we consider the other school we would probably have simply followed her advice on how to proceed.

Regarding you second question, I don't recall a great deal of discussion with DC about other kids' choices. There was one exception, however. One of the boys in DC's class spent almost all of his time playing with girls. DC was worried that this boy would not enjoy being in a single-sex school and was happy for him when his parents placed him in mixed school.

[Anonymous]

I've had two students go through Beauvoir, one to a Cathedral school and another to a non-Cathedral school.

The Cathedral school application wasn't without stress, but it wasn't too bad. My child was right in the mix academically, and it's pretty hard not to get accepted in such a situation -- though definitely not impossible, so there still is definitely an element of anxiety. I certainly don't think many parents do a good job of following the no talking about outplacement "rule," though -- and it's pretty spotty with the kids. Many listen, but a lot don't. Certainly, the kids don't talk freely about it, but most people who are friends seem to know where they're all going well before the official okay is given to discuss things. (To be honest, I myself wasn't a completely ardent follower of the rule.)

The non-Cathedral school application was much more stressful. We had originally applied to Beauvoir thinking we wanted both of our kids in the Cathedral schools PK-12, but with one of our children we realized (as did he) that STA just wasn't the right place. He liked both boys and girls, not big on sports, enjoyed hands-on learning. The process was really quite stressful because we were initially wait-listed at our first choice school. We eventually got in, but there was a wait while he seemed to know that most other kids had schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've had two students go through Beauvoir, one to a Cathedral school and another to a non-Cathedral school.

The Cathedral school application wasn't without stress, but it wasn't too bad. My child was right in the mix academically, and it's pretty hard not to get accepted in such a situation -- though definitely not impossible, so there still is definitely an element of anxiety. I certainly don't think many parents do a good job of following the no talking about outplacement "rule," though -- and it's pretty spotty with the kids. Many listen, but a lot don't. Certainly, the kids don't talk freely about it, but most people who are friends seem to know where they're all going well before the official okay is given to discuss things. (To be honest, I myself wasn't a completely ardent follower of the rule.)

The non-Cathedral school application was much more stressful. We had originally applied to Beauvoir thinking we wanted both of our kids in the Cathedral schools PK-12, but with one of our children we realized (as did he) that STA just wasn't the right place. He liked both boys and girls, not big on sports, enjoyed hands-on learning. The process was really quite stressful because we were initially wait-listed at our first choice school. We eventually got in, but there was a wait while he seemed to know that most other kids had schools.

Which non - Cathedral school did your family apply to for your DS?

[Anonymous]

I'm going to opt not to mention the particular school because I'd just as well prefer that my identity remain anonymous. Mentioning the specific school wouldn't point directly at me since we weren't the only people in the same situation with the that school in recent years, but I'd just as well prefer that people not start making assumptions that may or may not be correct.

I will say that the schools we took a really good look at were Potomac, Maret, GDS, and St. Patrick's.

[Anonymous]

I don't think my son was aware of the process very much (not stressed about going to the schools for tests, but knowing the tests were important, etc). So I think if your son/daughter gets in, there would be no stress related to the process. I just didn't see any of the kids worrying about it (obviously, the parents did).

However, I haven't talked to the kids who did not get in. I know my son would have been heartbroken and it would have been difficult everyday to see kids he knows are going to a school he cannot go to. So in terms of POTENTIAL stress, I'm sure it has to be much much higher than the pre-k/k stress (not only are you feeling it, but now your kid is emotionally involved too).

[Anonymous]

One point of stress for some kids may be that STA in particular often attaches "riders" to their admissions letters... things like, "Your son presented a relative weakness in reading during our testing, and we would like your son to do some reading work over the summer so that he is prepared for comprehending the types of texts he will encounter next year." I think it's a rather dumb idea, but parents tend to show these letters to their kids, riders and all, and I've known some kids who've been affected/upset by them. My son had such a rider in his letter despite his third grade teacher saying he was in the top third in the class in that subject, and it was already a fairly bright class as a whole. We did no summer work, and he's been totally fine. By the way, I chose not to show the letter to DS, but DH and I had a communication lapse and he showed it to him. DS was a bit upset and took a while to overcome the notion that he was "bad at X," which he had previously really enjoyed (and stopped enjoying for a couple of months).