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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think most people aren't talking about bullying at all anymore, but about the environment once the college pressures get extreme.  The school apparently isn't good at helping the girls deal with the pressure cooker atmosphere.

Here is the takeaway I've gotten from this thread.  There are mean girls everywhere.  There is academic pressure everywhere.  But other schools are not solely occupied by perfectionist girls with overachieving parents. They need more support at school than they get from the uncaring administration.[/quote]

+1  Bingo.

Its not about bullying or mean girls.  Its about an environment that pits girls against each other, rather than having them support each other and an administration that doesn't care about the emotional health of the students.[/quote]

Bingo?  I wrote that first post, and I say nothing about pitting girls against each other.

I have read this thread quite attentively, and it seems to me that you - and any other person claiming to be an unhappy parent of an unhappy daughter - have unrealistic expectations of what high school is.  Intense academic pressure, which clearly affects some people more than others, is endemic at ALL top high schools.  There is no school where the kids are magically exempt from these pressures.  NCS girls do tend to be high-achieving kids of high-achieving parents, which gives another dimension to the insane pressure.  Can the school do more?  Undoubtedly.  I think it would be great for all involved if the school made it more of a priority, but it won't suddenly make all the girls not feel pressure to be academic successes.

For goodness' sake, the same complaints are made about public schools around here.  Surely I am not the only person who listened to the NPR report on this very topic yesterday morning.[/quote]

I'm the bingo parent and yours is another post from an outside ho has no idea what we're talking about.

My DD was a great student, fantastic grades.  Her problem wasn't the academic pressure.  I have another DC at another area private and I know for a fact that the atmosphere at NCS is not typical.  It is toxic because of the way girls are pitted against each other, especially the closer they get to college apps, the way they are taught that ALL that matters is what they can put on a college application, the way they are discouraged from being supportive of each other (this is what I found particularly weird.  Its not so much that there are bullies but that when a girl runs into any trouble, whether social, emotional or academic, the other girls just walk away -- there's no mutually supportive spirit).  You can have a highly demanding curriculum without these elements.  Basically if you don't fit the mold, you are ostracized.

I don't understand the need of some of you who don't have girls at the school to defend it.  I am not arguing with the NCS parents whose girls are having a positive experience.  They are expressing their direct experience.  What I find odd is that so many outsiders are questioning whether those of us whose daughters had bad experiences are even for real.  There are quite a few of us with similar themes (and not the same "mean girls" meme that outsiders throw around about NCS).  If you don't have a daughter there, why are you so threatened by what we have to say?[/quote]

Very funny.  You said earlier that I could have no credibility because my dd is not yet in 10, 11 or 12.  But I am in fact and NCS parent, and in a year I will have an US girl.[/quote]

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