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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm very familiar with the Baltimore schools.

If we're talking about Gilman, Friends and Park, this is how they're positioned on the scale of personality, from preppy to artsy/liberal: Gilman (all boys, historically prestigious, the #1 school for Baltimore's establishment), Friends (middle of the road, popular among JHU academics, progressive but grounded) and then Park (strong curriculum, faculty called by their first name, very liberal and progressive, perhaps too much, historically the #1 school for elite Jews in Baltimore although that's weakened somewhat with many now sending kids to Gilman/Bryn Mawr).

I've heard more than a few people say that Friends is the best public school education money can buy, and there's truth to it. The atmosphere at Friends is comparable to the atmosphere at good public schools in affluent in-town suburbs with a high percentage of educated parents in the academics / medicine / non profits. As such Friends is popular with parents who find the traditional prep school atmosphere off-putting because they went to public schools themselves, but who find Park too unstructured/hippy.

On the flip side, other parents might question why paying 30k for something that may not feel inherently special or unique. Friends is a happy school with good academics, but may feel like it's missing that special touch one might expect from a private school, and which Park and Gilman have albeit for quite different reasons.

Academically, in terms of college placements, Gilman and Park have the edge. Friends used to be comparable but has weakened in the last decade, not because of any decline in faculty or teaching but slight changes to the student body demographics. But a bright kid won't be hurt.

It's well worth visiting all three schools and paying close attention to the campus vibes and students. Faculty are great at all three. Based on what you've said about your son I would suspect he'd lean towards Park and Friends over Gilman, but definitely don't rule Gilman out. [/quote]

OP, take this with a grain of salt. The parents I know who think Park is "too liberal" like places like Calvert, where the girls have to wear teeny tiny skirts in 50 degree weather and the school has its own handwriting script. I visited both because I heard Calvert is very strong in academics. At Calvert, I saw a lot of first and second graders doing worksheets and listening to someone lecture. Our tour guide was a fifth grader who reported that he'd grown a lot as an actor due to his role as a Gingerbread Man or whatever. Beautiful old school, sort of has a Harry Potter-ish vibe, but the spiel about the Calvert brand was a bit over the top.

At Park I met teachers who were really passionate about the material -- how to teach math concepts, what makes a good science experiment, how to engage students to think about community rules. I saw incredible examples of student work: fourth graders who had built amazingly detailed medieval structures from different places (obviously a lot of math and engineering thought went into it) and written elaborate guides to the music, culture, art, geography, etc. of the place. I'm not sure how this worked, maybe student teachers from local areas, but they looked like they had one teacher/ reading specialist for every 2-3 children in first grade. Park has strong ties with Hopkins. Most of the faculty I know send their kids to Park, not Friends. There's a research trip to the Arctic circle to measure things related to global warming in high school. The progressive element is not about political ideology -- it comes from empirical research about how children learn best at different ages. For example, when the third graders learn about indigenous native tribes, they go out into the woods on campus and build the structures they lived in. When the K students learn about birds, they examine the shapes of their beaks and figure out what kind of food they can eat. It's a very thorough, immersive, and meticulously thought-out curriculum. What I really liked most about it is that they don't emphasize mastery of the right answers. They teach students how to think critically about how to approach different questions, and why certain answers make more sense than others. Look at their results relative to other schools in the Maryland Mathematical League. They're usually 1 or 2 in Baltimore.

Don't know much about Gilman. My friend who went through the private school system as a girl was at Gilman's sister school, though, and she said the boys were all known to be cocky and arrogant. Strong emphasis on sports. [/quote]

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