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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kids are at NCS and it sounds like you want coed so this is not completely relevant [b]but our experience is that all the English and History classes are taught at an exceptionally high level.  The only kids who get As (or A minuses for that matter) are those who are REALLY strong humanities kids.  It actually sucks for the STEM kids because while math classes are differentiated (and English kids take lower levels of math), there is no humanities differentiation. [/b]

As such, the girls who graduate at the top of the class (and go on to Ivies, etc, unhooked) are always the ones who excel in humanities. They might take high math/science classes or they might not (it doesn't really matter). In contrast, the girls who might be exceptionally talented in math/science but who aren't equally talented in English end up with lower GPAs and of course, crummier college placements.

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This is the case at Sidwell too. Our DC is strong in humanities still had to work hard and got new feedback throughout 4 years at Sidwell from English/History teachers. They said each teacher had their own "preferences" for writing (which required learning how to adapt to each one) so they ended up learning many different styles.  I suspect this is harder for STEM kids who aren't as strong at humanities. As this PP said - the humanities path has a higher baseline difficulty than a non-advanced math/science class does. There's no option to take a less intense class.

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