Reply to Is Georgetown Day's Reputation Merited?

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[quote=Anonymous]I disagree that it's great preparation for college (and I'm a former college prof); I think it's overkill.

Then again, it probably depends on how you think about college.  If the goal is to get through college with good grades and on to the professional school of your choice and a good job, then maybe it's good preparation.  Certainly a kid who gets good grades at GDS will be able to do well at a academically-competitive college.  (Of course that begs the question of whether, with a more sane/humane education in HS, the same kid would do just as well in college).

AFAICT, looking at DC's cohort, comparative stress levels are a function of the interplay of personality and environment -- not about who's most focused on college admissions.  I think that the stress comes from workload pressure and seemingly limitless expectations, on top of fairly intense extracurricular commitments.  (And I agree that the last of these three is probably not that different from other local HS serving similar demographics.)  For lifers, the relatively late introduction of grades may be another factor.

What I see is that, for a certain type of kid who is driven to be really good at everything s/he sets out to do, the stress can be tremendous.  And so much of HS life consists of externally-imposed pressures that there's not much opportunity to develop one's own priorities -- unless you're willing to blow things off.  So it's not a matter of what you want to devote extra time to -- it's a matter of what you can afford to care less about.

To me, this is a recipe for burn out.  I think people (especially kids) need a certain amount of free time to explore and develop interests.  For years, two successive headmasters have promised to have each HS teacher shadow a student for a week.  Still hasn't happened, but I think it would be eye-opening.  
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