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[quote=Anonymous]We stayed.  We had lots of options: accepted to walls, inbound wilson, private would be covered, and would move temporarily if it was the best decision.  Instead, we stayed.

I think it was the right decision.  It was the very clear winner when making the decision.  But, there has been a lot of second guessing, mostly because a lot of non-basis friends went from various middle schools to Walls, and so far they all love it.

The high school is small.  There actually weren’t too many people who left, but high school classes are just generally bigger.  When combined with the fact that the senior class isn’t really there and serves more of a mentoring role, it feels incredibly small for a high school.  On the other hand, that seems to be a plus in our case.  The cohort is tight, and all the kids that I know (which is many) are amazing.  Super smart, interesting, funny, well-rounded kids who work hard but make sure to have fun while doing it.  It is an incredible group and by far the biggest seller for us.   So my first question would be, how does your kid get along with their classmates and do you want to dive deeper in with them or branch out as branching isn’t an option at basis.

Despite the size, there have been ample opportunities for interesting classes.  My high schooler is very excited about many of the subjects.  There is much more writing.  But the teachers are young and don’t have enough time, so there isn’t a great deal of feedback on the writing. There is a ton of work, but not that much more than 8th grade, other than the writing.  Overall, it is academically solid if your child isn’t afraid of hard work, can muddle through some busy work with friends, and is self motivated.  But the teachers are not great; they can’t be given the set up (underpaid, undersupported, too many kids per inexperienced teacher to do all grading required).  I anticipate my kid will get into a good college, have to do a bit to work on writing, will overall have less work than high school, and will be super excited by small discussions with great teachers, which doesn’t happen at all at Basis.  On the other hand, the kids know many of the teachers quite well and they are great people; flip side, when they leave, it hurts harder,

Extracurriculars.  Your kid is in middle school, so you should know by now whether the school has the extracurriculars your kid needs and likes.  Unlike at many other high schools, they get smaller and the high school students have a mentoring role.  The intensity is dependent on the child.  It isn’t a normal system where you will have deep layers of skill sets.  Instead, there is a community and each student has their own role.   Many students also pursue outside extracurriculars.

The senior experience is also very unique.  I would love to hear from more people who have gone all the way through, though I think it will be different now that the cohorts are bigger.

I think it is an amazing experience for my high schooler.  It is interesting how different things look from high school than middle school even though it is all the same players.  I now get why it is hard to explain the differences.  [/quote]

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