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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's a much healthier atmosphere academically than the other schools.

Yes, you can have a rigorous academic experoience if you choose but won't get counseled out if you, gasp, get a C.[/quote]

Broader gap from top to bottom -- courses include remedial level courses which all passes.  Good teaching.  Classes at the top cover less material at slightly less advanced level than comparable highest level classes at strongest privates.  Plenty of good students, fewer great students than at some of the strongest privates.  Good diversity, including Chinese students from abroad.  Much more willing to make accommodations for sports (no SSAT required, acceptance of senior transfers, redshirting by "reclassifying" students) than strongest privates.[/quote]

I agree with all of this except the "reclassify" statement.[b] All the schools have kids that are redshirted. Every single one[/b].

I know a kid who went to Bullis because it was one of the few that did not ask him to repeat 8th grade. (his grades are A/B at a academically rigorous school, his puberty was behind the curve though)
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I would not agree with your conclusion.

First, we are not talking about what people sometimes call "redshirting" -- holding kids (often boys) back from school so they'll be a year or two older and get a developmental or athletic advantage.  "Reclassifying," at least as used around here in the sports leagues, means a student who is already in high school repeating a grade when he goes to his new school.  Bullis does this a significant amount, seemingly most in basketball and lacrosse.  Bullis is not alone in this, true -- interestingly, Maret seems to be going in for this in a big way recently -- but not every school does it.  Sidwell does not do it (their big basketball star came in his "true" grade), St. Albans does not do it, I have not heard of GDS doing it, I have not heard of Potomac doing it.

As others have noted, Bullis's recent practice of recruiting students to spend just their senior year at Bullis -- all big athletes -- is very unusual and is far from the norm.  In fact, I do not know of any other IAC/MAC/ISL school that admits students as seniors.  Bullis got a little bit of a black eye this year for admitting a star baseball player after his senior year had already begun, and for having a star football player go back to his old high school after football season ended.

Lastly, Bullis aggressively recruits students at other league schools.  I have seen some of this first-hand, as their coaches contact players who go to other schools or schmooze younger players on opposing teams after games.  Lately they've been raiding the talent pools of Prep and Landon most often.

The WCAC recruits and is highly aggressive, but is also much more highly regulated than the "gentlemen's" league of the IAC, so, to be fair Bullis is not violating any league rules by reclassifying its students or accepting seniors (and they appear to use go-betweens to evade the letter of the law of the "no first contact" recruiting rule when recruiting players off other league teams).

They are outside the mainstream in how they're running their sports right now.  Everyone else may join them; the rules may tighten up; they may get tossed from the league; or the league may just wait it out until the next admin cycle and someone is brought in to "rein in" athletics.

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