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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]13:59, thanks from me as well -- you wrote a great and very informative post. Can I ask a clarifying question -- your DD took a mixture of AP and IB classes, but not through the RMIB program -- e.g. at B-CC or similar?

My Eastern 8th grader just got into RMIB and I'm not 100% convinced it's the right choice for her (although it is her choice at the end of the day) but [b]I think she's got so much invested in getting in, especially because the girls at Eastern created so much drama around it, that she won't necessarily think critically about her options.[/b] I know neither your nor my DD can step in the same river  twice, but if you have any other insights into why your DD chose a program other than RMIB, I would very much appreciate hearing them![/quote]

Yes, DC went to a non-RM IB program.

The bold sounds very much like what we experienced, but it wasn't just the girls creating drama.  All the kids in the Eastern magnet are very smart.  They all know the value of the education they have at Eastern and don't want to go back to a boring school (well, most of them).  They also are usually competitive to some extent.  It is very hard to hear everyone around you talking about applying to and getting accepted at a "special" school when you don't have anything to talk about.  I mean as an adult, it's manageable, but to a MS student, it's a bit difficult social thing to navigate.

Our DC was basically in this situation.  I ruled out CAP because I thought of it as a program that was "more of the same" at Eastern.  By this I meant that CAP does a lot of group projects, which was also common at Eastern.  This causes a certain kind of stress about working in groups and having to take the load when other people flake out.  I wanted DC to have the experience before she went to college that she had to do all the work all by herself. (Note: I'm not saying CAP is a bad program, only that I didn't think it was a fit for DC.)

DC and I also had a serious discussion about RM.  It is the same curriculum as IB is the same everywhere.  The difference is the cohort you are with for 4 years -- very bright motivated interesting kids.  But, for us, it was at least an hour and a half of commuting every day.   After some discussion, DC agreed that the commute wasn't worth the trade-off but still wanted to apply to "see if she could get in," i.e. just for self-validation.  So, we had another discussion, and I explained how it wasn't fair to kids who really wanted to go there to take a space and then make others waitlisted.  In the end, DC didn't apply.

Instead she applied to some very prestigious private schools, and she got into some of them.  But, after visiting, she seemed to be turned off in some ways because the tremendous privilege she saw was actually a turn off for her after her experience at Eastern, which was of course much more diverse in terms of race and SES.

So, DC ended up at the home HS, which was very easy to the point of being pathologically boring.  I think I under-estimated the latter point.  Some kids really need intellectual stimulation, and it's not permitted in class to read books or do other stuff even when you already know the material.  Int he beginning, DC would get in trouble for this kind of stuff, until teachers figured out that DC knew the material already and was generally reading novels or the news on her phone and not BuzzFeed or Instagram. But, it was still often painful to sit thru classes where teachers would read the chapter aloud in English, where kids didn't know who won WWII, etc.  Ultimately, DC found her peeps and few teachers who got her and kept her sane.  DC also participated in a sport that took up tons of free time, almost like a full-time job in addition to school.  She would never have been able to do that at RM.  But, in fairness, I probably underestimated the value of the cohort at RM.  For some kids, that cohort is really critical -- for all kinds of different reasons.  And, that cohort is same-age, whereas at a home school, the advanced kids are often scattered in classrooms as older kids, which is tough in 9th grade and when you're new.  DC took a lot of AP classes and advanced math, which meant she was always with kids 1-2 years older and often didn't have a lot of friends in class. Over time that got better, but the first semester of 9th grade was a bit isolating in the classroom.

Nothing is perfect.  Ultimately, IMO, I would leave the choice up to the child after some discussion.  They have to live it for 4 years, so you might as well make them own it.  I did say a few times, "Well, that is the decision you made, nothing is perfect.... there would have been downsides to RM too." [/quote]

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