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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]From another thread, Landon vs Potomac School?

I will share some dislikes about Potomac.

1. Black box - They cannot explain what the purpose of their curriculum is nor their academic tracks. Some tracks are just harder, seemingly to show harder courses were offered/attempted so colleges can see. They make arbitrary decisions, such as which science to take for 9th graders, despite no science placement exam (they do placement exams for math and foreign language).

2. College prep - [b]Everything is positioned as "this will help them for college". "Our school is so hard, college will be easy for them." Is this a reason for a school to be hard? I do not understand that. [/b]The school should be at an appropriate level of challenge for each student, not just hard for all. And that in turn is to help the student realize their potential while learning new subjects and skills, not to make it into a certain college. For example, what if a student wanted to apply to a certain college's journalism program, but because the high school was so hard, the student's grades are not as strong (though decent) and hence that journalism program does not accept them. Has the high school done well by the student or not?

3. Transportation system - joke. Nice to have all those buses but for goodness sake, any smart parent knows the value of that time in the car with your student. Talk about school, life, whatever.

4. Black box part 2 - random decisions with no reason giving. The head of school decided to give a day off yesterday May 24th. No reason other than not too many snow days. Great for part of the school (younger kids), but what about the high school kids? They just lost a day of review and meetings with teachers on fairly short notice and now walk into school on Tuesday after Memorial Day right into exams. Another one there, start exams on Wednesday so students can have that last day Tuesday for any last minute prep or questions of teachers. Nice call head of school!

5. Facilities - let's spend tens of millions of dollars on a new sports facility that students already say they do not want to walk across campus to or exclude some sports. Seems like it would have been a good idea to have a pool, but nope. You have one of the best softball teams in the state, maybe a nice field with consistent grass? Nope. Real baseball field at official size? Nope, let's have sparse grass and a shallow right field. This place does not think.

Can you tell this has been a long year at this school? [/quote]

Then leave if you are not happy. hopefully you did not pay your deposit. Nobody is forcing you to pay $40k to go to such a terrible school. [/quote]

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