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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread seems to be primarily about GDS. Is Sidwell similar or STA/NCS?

Also, how does GDS address the needs of families who are seeking need based and merit aid? Do they allow those families to apply more broadly?  DC is on considerable FA at another school and I would not be ok if DC had to limit options for matching with a school with adequate funding because of arbitrary school rules.[/quote]

The NCS process is much more transparent and you have access to more data. That does not mean everyone at NCS is thrilled with their outcomes or with the process, but having been through it at both schools, we found the NCS approach less stressful. There are very few scenarios where having less information is better than having more information. [/quote]

You may have more data at NCS but there are plenty of unhappy parents and students regarding college outcomes at NCS.
Yes, the education is outstanding but it is hard for students not to question why they worked so hard in HS to end up at a school like Bates or Wisconsin.
Not throwing shade at these schools. They are excellent but lots of kids who had a more chill HS experience also end up at the same place. How is the stress and crazy amount of work at top high schools like GDS and NCS worth it? 
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Bates parent here from a highly regarded DMV public school. Your mindset is 1990s. The median GPA for my kid's HS for Bates was 4.6w. Wisconsin is a similarly tough admit nowadays. None of the kids who go to these schools from the DC area had a "chill HS experience." Sorry that your kid has to slum with mine, we're very glad that we chose not to put our kids in overpriced mediocre privates only to end up in the exact same place as hardworking public school kids. Hope your kid didn't inherit your sense of entitlement.[/quote]

Is your highly regarded public school in MoCo? because if it is, everyone is aware now of the unlimited retakes, the C + B = A as the final grade, and equity-driven GPA outcomes.   I'm not saying your kid isn't deserving.  I am saying that any moderately intelligent kid attending at MoCo HS will emerge with a 4.2w or better just by breathing.

This is not the case at GDS, NCS, STA and especially Sidwell, where two English teachers will not give As.  To anyone. [/quote]

I don’t understand why you are being rude. C +B = B in MCPS. It does not equal an A. I agree that there is grade inflation in MCPS but the kids work hard. If you have a problem with the English teachers at Sidwell, you should try to address it at your school rather than trying to feel better by insulting MCPS. Some of the MCPS teachers are also pretty stingy with As. [/quote]

Unless you've had a kid at GDS, NCS, etc, you can't say they're comparable. They're not. My kid is on a sports team with all MCPS kids who take the hardest classes, very high GPAs, etc, and they don't work even half as hard as their counterparts in top privates. Not saying they're not smart, but their high school experience is absolutely chill in comparison.[/quote]

My kid went to Jackson Reed and is now at an Ivy. She took 6 APs junior year and almost had a breakdown because there was so much work. She was up until 2am every night. She also had multiple intensive activities that required a lot of time. I’m not saying that JR is as good as GDS but there are some dynamite kids there and I’m sure MCPS is the same. JR still does rankings and my daughter was not even top 5. Every school, public and private, has some amazing kids. And they are all competing for the same schools[/quote]

Yes, my kids came out of DCPS and many of their friends are at JR and some are very impressive.  However, being up well past midnight is par for the course for the baseline (not AP) course in even 9th and 10th grade at some of these Big3 schools. Then 6 APs would be impossible.  My kids' schools give 1.5 hours a night per AP course.  That ends would be 9 hours of homework nightly if a kid took 6 APs.

I think what the frustration is, is that the Big private school kids are doing the equivalent of your daughter's JR course load every year for 4 years, getting a mixture of As and Bs (because many teachers simply don't give As) and then have no chance in hell of the Ivies or (as of 2023) any school in the top 40.

If I had to do this again, I may not have moved them and we would have stuck with JR.  Their high school years have trained them to be phenomenal students but their options for college have really narrowed by our choice to move them from DCPS to private. [/quote]

You just had unrealistic expectations from the beginning. The locus of Ivy-bound kids in this area has always been TJ and the MCPS magnets/RMIB. If your kid wasn’t going to get in there, they weren’t going to get into an Ivy. When you pay for private school you do not actually pay for the strivers and the “smartest” - those kids have always been in public. What you pay for is getting into a namebrand SLAC of some sort, especially if your child is less impressive. In some ways your kid working hard at the private was a waste. They could have coasted with the same result - that is actually what you paid for![/quote]

Yes, when we moved my eldest in 9th we honestly were not thinking about college at all.  Really.  We did not attend top 50 universities ourselves and that world (elite universities) had never been on our radar.   You mention TJ and MCPS (neither were a possibility as we live in DC).

We moved because my kids were among the top students in DCPS (all top As, algebra 2 in 8th) and were just sort of treading water.  They couldn't write worth crap, they barely knew more than some random nouns after 3 years of foreign language, they weren't self-starters who we could anticipate would challenge themselves to learn more outside of school. 
So we moved them.  And it's been incredibly from an academic stand-point.  They have learned to write beautifully!  They finally really learned grammar in foreign language classes.  They learned math at a deeper level (not just able to the superficial level stuff that DCPS taught them) but really to puzzle out
and think through the unexpected at a deep level.  
So for all those reasons I don't believe (at all) that these years (and the money) were wasted.  The college piece is frustrating because they're at least twice as well prepared as they would be had we left them in DCPS.  And yet their options are about half of what they would have been. 
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If you'd bought a house in Virginia the public high school options and in state college options would have been different.[/quote]

Who wants to live out in the suburbs? No thanks.[/quote]

Arlington is within the historical DC diamond. Parts of it are closer to downtown than upper parts of DC.[/quote]

Same with Alexandria.[/quote]

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