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[quote=Anonymous]Two things about my son’s experience at STA upper school that I think are worth mentioning.

First, there is a lot of humor/silliness through my son’s day.  At dinner, he frequently shares the humorous announcements made during lunch and why they are insider funny.  He is also constantly joking and being joked with his peers.  Look, I get this could veer into the land of meanness but it has not.  It’s been joyful.  At least for my son, this has been a benefit of an all boys experience for high school.  He is not mortified of being embarrassed in front of a girl.   I didn’t expect or think about this going in.

Second, I think STA does everything it can to bring out the “best” in every boy.  I believe they think this makes for a happier community as well as the side benefit of extraordinary college results.   These boys are smart and they are driven, so there is a natural competitiveness on the academic side of things.  But my son would not describe his classmates as competitive with him; he shares grade info freely with his peers and they routinely are helping each other/sharing study guides/what not.  I think the reason for this is there is a respect for all different kinds of achievement.  A kid may be in the bottom third, but yet everyone knows he’s the best language kid so no one thinks he’s dumb.  Or, a kid is being recruited by some fancy sports school or league, so my son brags about how amazing kid is at X sport.  Or the kid is on the fancy robotics team that made is very far in some competition somewhere.   My son is incredibly proud of all different kinds do achievements of his classmates.  Therefore while being smart and getting good grades is very respected, it’s more nuanced than just everyone wants to be Top 10 or something.

Good luck with your choice and I hope this was helpful.  [/quote]

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