Flint Hill 9-12, opinions, experiences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone share your experience or thoughts on flint hill? DS will be entering 9th next year.

Former Flint Hill teacher here, with experience at basically every type of independent school in the area (supposed "Big 3" pressure cooker, Montessori, parochial, classical education, etc. - done it all). Every experience is what you make of it, and in my opinion FH does a good job providing a broad range of experiences for its students. Elite athlete? Their volleyball team is a national power, and the school sends athletes to college from a variety of sports every year. Want to take a bunch of AP/Honors classes? That's also an option. Your child needs support from a learning specialist? They have a whole team for that. Interested in other pursuits? The robotics team is elite and competes with college teams nationally. Want a diverse, friendly student body? They have that as well.

The flip side is that perhaps Flint Hill tries too hard to be "all things to all men" and comes away without a defined identity of its own. Yes, Flint Hill grads get into plenty of good schools, as has been pointed out on this thread and elsewhere, but if you're gunning for a top-twenty college (to the extent that those rankings aren't a bunch of BS anyways, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish), it's going to be a challenge if your kid isn't in the top 10-20% of their class at FHS, whereas at a place like Sidwell or Maret or St. Alban's/NCS that might be more like the top 40-50%. Still, some people on this forum would have you believe that Flint Hill is populated entirely by knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, which is emphatically not the case. Yes, FHS got its start as a segregation academy in the fifties as a result of Brown v. Board, but as I already mentioned, they are very diverse now and have taken serious steps to be a welcoming place. However, that comes with a caveat. Although they draw their student body from something like a 35-miles radius, most of them come from Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, the epicenter of the anti-mask and anti-LGBTQ backlash that put Glenn Youngkin in the governor's mansion in November (so they're not 100% fully committed to inclusion). At the end of the day, it's a good-not-great school, but has a number of options for your child to chart their own path and have a great experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone share your experience or thoughts on flint hill? DS will be entering 9th next year.

Former Flint Hill teacher here, with experience at basically every type of independent school in the area (supposed "Big 3" pressure cooker, Montessori, parochial, classical education, etc. - done it all). Every experience is what you make of it, and in my opinion FH does a good job providing a broad range of experiences for its students. Elite athlete? Their volleyball team is a national power, and the school sends athletes to college from a variety of sports every year. Want to take a bunch of AP/Honors classes? That's also an option. Your child needs support from a learning specialist? They have a whole team for that. Interested in other pursuits? The robotics team is elite and competes with college teams nationally. Want a diverse, friendly student body? They have that as well.

The flip side is that perhaps Flint Hill tries too hard to be "all things to all men" and comes away without a defined identity of its own. Yes, Flint Hill grads get into plenty of good schools, as has been pointed out on this thread and elsewhere, but if you're gunning for a top-twenty college (to the extent that those rankings aren't a bunch of BS anyways, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish), it's going to be a challenge if your kid isn't in the top 10-20% of their class at FHS, whereas at a place like Sidwell or Maret or St. Alban's/NCS that might be more like the top 40-50%. Still, some people on this forum would have you believe that Flint Hill is populated entirely by knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, which is emphatically not the case. Yes, FHS got its start as a segregation academy in the fifties as a result of Brown v. Board, but as I already mentioned, they are very diverse now and have taken serious steps to be a welcoming place. However, that comes with a caveat. Although they draw their student body from something like a 35-miles radius, most of them come from Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, the epicenter of the anti-mask and anti-LGBTQ backlash that put Glenn Youngkin in the governor's mansion in November (so they're not 100% fully committed to inclusion). At the end of the day, it's a good-not-great school, but has a number of options for your child to chart their own path and have a great experience.

It is at best a "good" school and most definitely not a "great" school.