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Reply to "St. Andrews Episcopal school and rigor"
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[quote=Anonymous] I think the St. Andrew’s alum provides a very good overview of a culture at St. Andrew’s that remains well engrained today. I am another current SAES parent and will try to answer a few questions from earlier posts about the status of things today at St. Andrews and offer our own experience with another private school as well. We moved to SAES from a feeder school that also feeds the independent schools in DC ( GDS, Maret, Sidwell, Burke, etc.) during middle school years, and we found St. Andrew’s overall a reasonable, step up in rigor/expectations, etc. in middle school. Both my children (who moved separately) found the transition remarkably easy. When discussing rigor many of the usual metrics are of less value at SAES because SAES is different by design then some of the downtown schools -- it was founded on the premise of being an alternative to St. Albans or NCS – a coed school that would be welcoming to a broader range of learners. There are many stories like the one told by the alum above at St. Andrews. There are also many other students there who were doing well at another school – often a school that ends after primary or middle school – and affirmatively have chosen St. Andrew’s for any number of reasons. I would imagine that the welcoming environment, strong creative teachers, and the emphasis on balance are probably the most popular reasons families like the school. The rigor and academic cohort questions. It is true that the culture of St. Andrew’s is to resist “tracking.” It is also true, however, that the range of student abilities and interests is sufficiently varied that as they move up through high school there is a certain more natural self-selection of courses based on interests and ability. Because this is done gradually and the students all participate together in other required activities (sports teams, art classes, etc.) as well as clubs, the social cohorts that are formed are not based solely on academic profiles. But in response to one concern noted in a prior post, the students who excel most in academics do tend to find and support one another at SAES– they find that academic “cohort” if you will – but I would want to emphasize that St. Andrew’s remains a place where very different kids come together as friends Having 16 or so kids in a given AP class provides a sufficient, healthy sized cohort on the academic front. In middle school, all students take the same classes except that some students are separated by math placement and the speed with which they acquire foreign languages. In high school, students select (faculty recommend) placement in regular or accelerated classes in math and some sciences, and by 10th grade, students have the option of the regular high school history classes or AP classes. (AP European Hist was added in 2011-12 for 10th grade). I assume there are some students do not take any AP or accelerated classes, while others may take one, two or three APs during their junior/senior years plus accelerated courses in other subjects, and I think there may be an occasionally student who takes four APs, but that would be very unusual. The curriculum guide on the web shows now a total of 17 AP or equivalent college level classes if I counted right (12 APs on campus, 2 college equiv’s on campus, and 3 AP Consortium courses for seniors). Seniors in the consortium classes are in the same classes with kids from Holton, Stone Ridge, etc. As for the question about math/science, St. Andrew’s offers AP bio, Chem II (college level class), Physics (II) (college level class), AP calc. AB, AP statistics and multivariable calculus. Kids who finish AB calc. can take multivariable calc. at the consortium. I think the lack of a Calc BC class has more to do with the historic view of the school not to track students too young or pushing them too fast in middle school, but that should not be seen as an overall measure of rigor at the school. Now that it’s a K-12 school, I wouldn’t be surprised to see calc BC added at some point, but as far as I know this is not been an area of much concern even among the parents of the pre-engineering/math/science types. Colleges. As for colleges, the alum posted the link to the school web site where you can see acceptances and matriculations over the past 5 years. The list is very diverse since the kids are so different. Obviously, a smaller school that is open to a wider range of students in the first place will not send a quarter of the class to the ivy league. While the list doesn’t tell you how many kids attended each school, I would guess a good chunk of the each class (but less than 50%) ends up at schools that accept fewer than 30% of all applicants, including each year on average a couple going to an ivy league school (which ones vary each year) and many competitive liberal arts schools. In 2012, for example, graduates attended schools like UPenn, Duke (2), Bowdoin, Middlebury, Davidson, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Carnegie Melon, Colby, Kenyon, etc. Then there is another group of students that attend large schools like USC, Wake Forest, U. MD, U of Miami, Wisconsin, etc. , in addition to many other liberal arts schools that may be the right fit for particular students, as well as the occasional arts/music programs. Some students have also chosen private schools that may be a notch below where they could have landed to take advantage of merit scholarship offers. Honor rolls. Y es, St. Andrew’s has four of them: a regular academic and high academic, and a regular effort and high effort honor role. Students who do well in their classes (whether or not they are accelerated) can make honor roles. It is part of the culture of affirming the value of every student there. Honors days (3x per year) are wonderful times when the student body comes together and celebrates one another academically. They do similar assemblies on different days each year for athletics and arts awards. The school tries to be true to its core beliefs about working hard to foster an atmosphere that downplays internal competition while motivating them to push themselves to do their best, while still requiring all students to take a certain number of courses the arts, religion, community service etc., and most students participate in interscholastic sports. [/quote]
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