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[quote=Anonymous]Would have tried Janney for PreK, but didn't get a slot, despite being in-bounds.  The next year, applied to GDS and Sidwell for PreK (fall birthday would have enabled DC to do public PreK a year earlier than private PreK).  Would have applied to Maret, but DC wasn't old enough at that point.

Over the course of the admissions process, loved GDS and hated Sidwell.  So when DD got into GDS, we accepted without looking further because it seemed like such a good match from an academic standpoint (pedagogy more than curriculum) and figured that if it didn't work out, we could always leave.

Also considered but ultimately didn't apply to WIS and Lycee Rochambeau.  Linguist-friend talked us out of both for different reasons.  (Colleagues' kids experiences at WIS vs our own (French) linguistic incompetence wrt Rochambeau.  "How will you feel when DC needs help with an essay and neither of you can provide it?").

No interest in Cathedral schools.  Class hives, need to reapply (at a point when DC might stress about admissions), single-sex upper schools were all turn-offs, although accounts I'd heard from NCS alumns (of the got a good education but I'd never send my kids there variety) were probably the crucial factor.

I think that the whole Big 3 thing makes little sense (except to people who are thinking only about status rather than education).  The three schools have really different vibes and I'd be surprised if there were many people who were attracted to them all.  GDS vs. Maret  or St. Albans vs. Langdon seem like much more logical alternatives than GDS vs. St. Albans/NCS, for example.  Also, these decisions aren't all simultaneous (or forever), so where you apply is a function of when you apply.   And lots of people weigh the public vs. private trade-off.   In short, the decision trees are much more complicated and diverse IRL.  [/quote]

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