Reply to Looking for an honest assessment of GDS

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Looking for an honest assessment of GDS"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Have had two kids at the GDS HS recently.  Overall a fantastic academic experience, vast majority of teachers have been incredible, and of note, they improve with time (in our experience the 9th grade classes were the weakest, but maybe just chance, because some great teachers do have 9th grade classes).  However, the curriculum/academic expectations are very challenging and this is a school full of achievers and parents who expect their kids to be the best, so the intensity particularly around the end of junior year and beginning of senior year is pretty high, the administration and college counselors do what they can to offset it, but it is a challenge.  I am sure same in all of the very academic high schools, and kids can offset a bit by not choosing a ridiculous set of classes and adjusting easier for harder teachers if necessary. There is a lot of flexibility for kids to adjust their schedules.  The physical facility is great, and lends itself well to the strong community feeling of the school, the forum was a fantastic architectural idea, and it brings students together all day during school and late into the evening. The school is open until 11 every night I believe, and kids are there studying, working on projects, rehearsing for plays, participating in sports events. I don't know of another local school that has this type of open community every weekday. The spectrum socially is pretty broad, from kids focused on sports to kids focused on politics and especially lots of kids focused on arts. The theater program is incredible.  For sports, some are really very strong, boys and girls soccer have quite a bit of recent success, boys winning MAC tournament twice last two years, girls third in top flight of the ISL (AA), and the cross=county and track teams have incredible participation levels and also win a lot (I think MAC twice, and have done well in ISL and local public/private meets).  Girls basketball and volleyball also strong. For a school with a nonsporty reputation they do pretty well, and what is nice that kids involved in sports are not pegged only as "jocks" and seem to participate in a lot of other stuff as well, and not only socialize with other athletes. There is a longstanding fantastic program for kids going to with 4-5 teachers each summer to Ethiopia and Kenya.  Community service programs very active.  It is not a large school, so each grade socially can be wonderful or in some cases plagued by a few cliques, but suspect that is always the case in a class of only 120 kids. However, in HS since grades mix much more and bigger than MS, if there are cliques, they are much less of a problem. The reputation for drugs seems overblown or out of date, not an issue at all in our experience, easy for kids to avoid if they want to. There is a lot done to integrate the new 9th graders into the school, and since it is a very big entry (I think 40-50 kids, versus many fewer at Sidwell and Maret at least) new kids do not feel particularly out of it.  
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics