Reply to Langley School ("Little Langley") vs. Potomac

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[quote=Anonymous]I think you can balance a strong athletic program with strong academics, and I believe schools like Sidwell and Potomac are great examples of top schools doing just that.   You can't really expect to compare them to single sex schools like Landon, Prep, StA, NCS, etc. because, as should be obvious, those schools have a much larger pool of males or females to draw from for their respective teams (ie. coed schools have 1/2 the available player pool than single sex schools for their basketball team).

The very top coed academic schools like Sidwell and Potomac have to balance a strong commitment to athletics with the realization that their academic programs are tough, and they're just not structured to have a "gifted" and "normal" academic track like some schools - if you are accepted, you are expected to keep up with the class.   It's very similar to college - Ivy League schools are just not as competitive with sports as a big state schools.   In certain sports they do very well, but in the big team sports (basketball, football, etc) they lag if you compare them to the big state programs.

All this being said, you just simply need to look at the sports records of schools like Potomac and Sidwell to see that they are quite competitive.  Maybe not every single year in every single sport, but they don't generally field teams that lose consistently.   Here's a sample of successful winning records of Potomac teams both current (playing right now), and from the last few years:

2010 Lacrosse Boys - currently 7-3
2010 Lacrosse Girls - currently 9-5
2010 Boys Baseball - currently 12-2
2010 Girls Softball - currently 8-2
2010 Boys Tennis - currently 15-1
2009 Boys Soccer - 13-5-3 
2009 Boys Lacrosse - 7-3 (MAC Champs)
2009 Girls Soccer - 8-2-2
2009 Football - 7-3
2009 Boys Basketball - 15-9
2008 Boys Basketball - 23-6 (State Champs)
2009 Lacrosse Girls - 13-7
2008 Lacrosse Girls - 15-6 (State Champs)

Always is nice to combat perception with hard facts.   I'm not sure how anyone could look at the above and think that Potomac's sports programs are not generally quite strong, especially when considering they are considered one of the top academic private schools in the country.   If you looked at Sidwell's records, you would see similar patterns.

PP, I'd be interested in knowing which other coed private schools out there do a better job of balancing top academics and top athletics (and arts, social, etc too).  
 [/quote]

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