Reply to High expectation and no stress-- which high school in mcps is best ?

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[quote=Anonymous]My kids are having a very good experience at Whitman.  I think the teaching is excellent overall, and we have a great principal.  The music, theater, and sports scene all seems great to me as well.

This time last year, I would have told you I didn't see why it's so widely considered to be a pressure-cooker.  Now that my child is almost done (thank goodness) with her junior year, I get it.  She is doing what I consider to be a ridiculous amount of homework most nights and weekends, and constantly fretting about her grades.  She has to be very organized to work in her sports and other extracurriculars, and doesn't end up with much downtime.  I have been wondering most of the year whether we made a mistake sending her here.  In thinking about it though, almost everything that's stressing her out is caused by her assumption that she needs to try to go to an elite college or university.  If she weren't taking 4 or 5 AP classes, the homework burden would be much lighter.  If she weren't studying for SAT subject tests (which only top schools require or recommend) at the same time AP tests were looming, she could have either been enjoying more downtime, or hopefully spending time on non academic things that give her pleasure.  We are preaching the message of that Frank Bruni book pretty heavily to her, and I think she's slowly beginning to understand that there are more important things in life than getting all As.

It's hard not to get caught up in the over-achiever game when so many of your peers are on the same track, but it can be done if the parents and kids are self-aware.  My younger child and his friends care much more about sports and socializing than they do about their classes.  I think for them, Whitman offers something like what the OP is asking about.  They focus more on their schoolwork than they would if they were at a school with fewer academic strivers, but they are not defined by what happens in the classroom.     [/quote]

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