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[quote=pbraverman][quote=Anonymous]I think it matters more where she finished, not where she started. Looking back most people don't stay close with lower school friends but have ties to where they graduate  for life.

If you really want Holton as your #1 choice, you would be a fool to wait until the last major entry year. [/quote]

This is a sensitive topic for me.

I agree that high school friends will likely be more long-term, but isn't that true of any high school? It's not as if Holton has a monopoly on creating these types of friendships — that's a function of adolescence. (Again, I think very highly of Holton, their staff, and their students. This isn't about them at all.)

I didn't sense the OP was looking to select her daughter's friends from a particular school; she was looking for an educational environment that would fit well, and her daughter will be more capable of contributing meaningfully to the looking when she is in eighth grade. My original post was intended to provide one perspective to the OP by rephrasing her question, from "How to get into XYZ school" to "What's the right time to switch schools if my daughter is happy where she is?"

As children grow up, the lines of authority naturally begin to blur. With a first grade applicant, nearly every parent would make the school decision (accepting that they will listen to their child's view of her experience on a visit and so forth). On the other end, most parents today allow their rising ninth-graders to make the school decision — absent any strong objection, or "veto" of particular schools, by the parents — an acknowledgement of growing maturity and faith in our children's judgment, obviously. In the middle it's a little murky. Some reasonable adults will allow their sixth graders to make those decisions; other reasonable adults retain decision-making authority.

But the word "your" in the quotation above makes me uneasy. In sixth grade it may be "your" decision — i.e., the parents', though it's a little blurry — but in eighth grade the OP's daughter will be able to contribute much more meaningfully. That exercise in itself is enormously beneficial to a teenager's development overall and to her schooling in particular.

I may be reading incorrectly, but the "one-itis" involved in this process for some families (we MUST have our first choice — or we MUST have one of the so-called "Big Three") simply does not help children. It puts the locus for success on the school rather than the student, the outcome rather than the process. Children (all people, in fact) are disempowered when success depends more on things they cannot control than things they can. If a student doesn't get in to one of her parents' choices it signifies a failure — again, in an area where the student has limited control. Even if it's not stated explicitly, children are well aware of the failure involved if the family discussion has involved "Harvard-Yale-Princeton" for a dozen years.

A more effective message is: Wherever you go to college or high school (and that goes triple for this area) you will find more opportunities than you can possibly engage. Your success will depend on how well you take advantage of the opportunities that appeal most to you, how you cope with setbacks and mistakes, how you nurture your passions, how you treat others, and how you use your strengths to compensate for your weaknesses. College, or even high school, is not the "end game." There is a mountain of research on the reasons children benefit from focus on the process rather than the outcome. Po Bronson, Wendy Mogel, and Carol Dweck are among my favorites on the subject, but put as briefly as possible: Praise children for their hard work, not their GPAs or their college acceptance letters.

A bit of a pet issue for me, admittedly, but one I hope parents will continue to consider.

Peter (who graduated from his THIRD-choice college)
_____________________

Disclaimer: The anonymity here makes me uncomfortable; it's easy to be uninformed, personal, or simply mean-spirited if people don't identify themselves. For that reason, I have an account so you know whose words you're reading. I have more than 20 years' experience as a teacher and administrator in independent schools, and I hope I can be helpful to some folks. If you don't like something I've said, you're in good company — there's a long line of past students ahead of you. :) If you want to chat further, please feel free to contact me offline: peter <at> arcpd <dot> com[/quote]

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