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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][size=9] [/size][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your chances of having this choice are very very low.  There are, surprise to no one, more than say 15 really smart gritty go getter girls from the entire DMV looking into Sid and GDS for 9th.  So this fantasy is, as you recognize, a real fantasy.

That being said, we chose a Big 3 over our very excellent punching above its weight college admissions public for the reasons outlined by others but to put a finer point on it.

First, the writing, editing, and analytical development.   I think there are equally good teachers at the good public schools.  But, they have exponentially more students.   A private school English teacher can assign a three page paper and then edit it and provide those edits back. That iterative process can continue.  That is simply not possible with the numbers of students a public school teacher has to deal with. (3 page paper, times 50 kids at best, etc.). Also, say 25 kids on a class; your child will by definition have fewer opportunities to engage in meaningful academic back and forth guided by a teacher.

Also, we liked the lack of grade inflation.  We felt that our child deserved meaningful feedback on their performance. We wanted our child to have some grade challenged in high school when we were there to my guide them. That is much more likely to happen at a private school.

We also see that the classes are harder.  They just are.  People can pretend that they aren’t but my kid does way more homework than his peers at our local public.  I understand this cuts both ways — 3 hours of homework on some nights freshman year is not actually beneficial to my kid.

Finally, and again this will be like throwing gasoline on a fire, we came to the conclusion that college outcomes are better.   Which made sense to us for the reasons outlined above.

[/quote]

Your local public is not Walls, which undermines the relevance of your post. Also, you underestimate the number of children who have these choices.[/quote]

(1).  Our local public is, in my view, superior to Walls.  Regardless, we engaged in the analysis for TJHSST where our child was accepted and also turned down for these reasons and everyone knows that’s “better” than Walls.

(2). Classes at GDS and Sidwell are about 120 in US.  They accept about 30 +/- for 9th entry.   Half of those (yes yes approximately) go to girls.  Hence explain what’s the matter with my math?

(3).  I thought my post was pretty helpful?   Geez.  [/quote]

I think you don’t realize how many addition duties private school teachers have that eat up their time. Yes, they have smaller classes and so should be able to give students more feedback—but often they are busy with other duties that public school teachers do not have and also are often less qualified and paid far less.

The real difference between public and private is the peer group anyway, unless you are talking about a school like TJ or Stuyvesant in NYC.

Also, I would expect my child to learn to edit their own writing and not have their writing feedback be merely “edits.” Sounds like you should have sent your kid to TJ.[/quote]

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