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Great private schools that aren't hard to get into
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Anonymous
| This is a really useful list. I would add St Patricks. Regarding WIS, the French immersion program is relatively easy to get into, but the Spanish program is next to impossible for new families. |
Anonymous
|
Ok- so from everyone's comments the only hard schools to get into in the DC area are... (now I've skimmed the thread so I might have missed something...)
Maret Sidwell GDS Beauvoir Potomac (maybe not for older grades) Little Langley WIS Spanish Immersion I guess that means my children are "rejects" because they attend one of the "easy" schools to get into according to this esteemed panel of judges. Awesome. |
Anonymous
|
Avalon and Brookwood
http://avalonschools.org/ http://www.brookewood.org/ |
Anonymous
Where is Little Langley? |
Anonymous
Geez, what's your problem? No one is making a list of schools that are hard to get into. And, in fact, the whole premise of this thread is that the quality of the education provided is not inherently a function of how many applicants a school rejects. If your kids are going to one of the schools mentioned on the thread, then the claim being made is that your kids are getting a great education -- that's why certain schools are being identified. No one is interested in knowing about mediocre schools that aren't difficult to get into. Sounds like you've got way too much ego invested in claiming that your kids cleared some important hurdle in getting admitted to a school and very little interest in recommending that school to others based on its academics. Sometimes I get the distinct impression that the antipathy toward "big 3" rhetoric here has nothing to do with a rejection of elitism but the desire for a larger group of people to claim elite status for the institutions they're involved in. There's a really childish "nanny nanny, I've got something you don't" mentality and shockingly little concern with what constitutes a good education. |
Anonymous
| This seems like a bit of an over-reaction -- 17:37 wasn't saying her kids cleared some hurdle, in fact quite the contrary. And does your last paragraph really mean, as I read it, that antipathy towards the top schools is driven by jealousy and one-upsmanship? |
Anonymous
Well said PP. There are a lot of "me too" wannabe's on this board. |
Anonymous
The Langley School. Mclean, VA. PK-8 |
Anonymous
|
I'm the one who put the list with Congressional on it together and I really spent some time thinking about the title of this thread which is "Great private schools that aren't hard to get into".
If 17:37's kids are in one of these schools, that's wonderful b/c they're in a great school without all the hoopla. |
Anonymous
The whole thread is meant to identify "great private schools that aren't hard to get into." No one has suggested anything negative about kids attending any of the schools listed here ... except for you. If you want to think of your kids as "rejects," that's on you. |
Anonymous
|
In response to the 14:39 poster's comments, I will say that BFCDS and SSSAS (along with some other Alexandria privates) experienced significant increases in applications this year. SSSAS was especially competitive with very few openings and large number of apps. In fact, most DC area privates experienced major increases in applications this year - some as much as 30%. Common thought was that this would be an easier year, but it was the opposite. As much as some families decided to go public, there were many others scared of school budget cuts and overcrowding and thus opted for private.
One factor that no one has yet mentioned, I think, is the effect created when a school is going through a transition that creates uncertainty and thus can result in a significant number of families leaving within a grade or two. With many openings to fill, it can appear that a school is being less selective when in fact, they simply have alot of openings to fill. I know a number of Alexandria families who applied to all of the Alexandria private schools and were not accepted this year. |
Anonymous
| In response to PP 16:45, I would beg to differ. The year my son was accepted at St. Pats, the AD told us that only ~15% of children who applied were accepted. That is not what I would call easy to get into. ` |
Anonymous
|
I finally realized why this thread is going nowhere. OP and a few others are looking for good programs that are not so competitive on admissions (a perfectly reasonable and laudable goal). Several people however do not like the idea of their own kids' schools being labeled "easy" on admissions because it might imply the school/kids are less good or minimize what those parent went through on admission (also a perfectly understandable view). The tension between those two ideas means this thread is just spoiling for a fight.
"No duh," you say? Well forgive me for taking so long to get it. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. |
Anonymous
| 9:15 again. It's probably not right to say the thread is "going nowhere." More accurate to say it keeps going off-topic with disputes and conflict. I think it's a good thread, so I've just been disappointed that it's not even more constructive. |
Anonymous
| It's going somewhere in the sense that it's demonstrating that DCUM can't have this kind of discussion without that kind of static. |