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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Baltimore is interesting, many would never consider McDonogh, Garrison, or St. Tims due to location.  They only consider RPCS, Bryn Mawr, Gilman, Loyola, Friends.  Next would be SPSG and boys, and Park.  However, they will go Calvert for k-8, if they get in.  Truly GF, McDonogh and St, Tims are great schools but never in their consideration.[/quote]

McDonogh is probably the most sought after school in Baltimore. [/quote]

Not among the old baltimore crowd[/quote]

Times are changing. You'd be surprised. Whatever passes for old money Baltimore does send kids to McDonogh along to the others. 2023 isn't Baltimore of 1995 nor Baltimore of 1955 nor Baltimore of 1925. Bryn Mawr, for all practical purposes, has no meaningful relationship to the Bryn Mawr of the past. Cultural fault lines have been shifting in recent decades and it's affecting the privates and people now look at different privates depending on how they fall along the cultual fault lines.

If we are going by semantics, McDonogh gets the most applicants and has the lowest admission rate but it does also draw from a bigger region. [/quote]

Mcdonogh peaked in popularity about 5 to 10 years ago with the Calvert crowd, and generally, in terms of being the “hot” school.  For whatever reason, Calvert is now back to sending the majority of its graduates to Gilman/Roland Park/Bryn Mawr.  Saint Paul’s has also become more popular and is attracting kids who might have gone to Mcdonogh in the recent past.

I have no idea who gets the “most” applications and I doubt the poster claiming this has any actual knowledge as no local school reports number of applicants.[/quote]

Not sure what role Calvert plays in this discussion. Re McDonogh, it is the biggest school and admissions mentioned 10 apps for every spot for 9th grade entry. Makes sense it gets the most apps, and they also avoided the enrollment slump that hit BMS and Park, and which Gilman only avoided by ramping up US size and lowering admin standards. A lot of it is certainly driven by geography, taking in HoCo and Carroll Counties and offering the bases that go everywhere in Maryland, it seems. And five day boarding. It’s not a metric to live and die by. [/quote]

It sounds like you don’t know what you are talking about.  Gilman caps enrollment at 1000 and that has been the case for literally decades.  They haven’t ramped up the size of the upper school, the classes are literally the same size as when my husband attended 30 years ago.  Also, there is no enrollment slump at Bryn Mawr, enrollment has grown considerable under the current headmistress.  I don’t have no personal information about Park, but based on your track records, I would guess you are wrong there as well.[/quote]

Most of the privates saw notable enrollment declines following the 2008 crash. It didn't happen overnight but people stopped enrolling in the lower schools, which still remain smaller than 30 years ago. It's now more common to enter 6th or even wait till 9th whereas in the 1990s-2005ish era people were beating down the doors to get into K. RPCS, Friends, BMS, Park are all smaller than their peaks. Friends is at 850, and its peak was 1050. RPCS is now 625, up from the mid-high 500s a few years back but its peak was once as high as 750. BMS is 712, a hundred below peak, though there's been recovery like at RPCS. Gilman kept their overall numbers to just over 1,000 but managed to avoid the slump by increasing US size and dipping further into the app pool. 120 boys per year in US compared to 100/sub-100 per year in the 1990s. Mind you, even schools like Friends, BMS and RPMS keep numbers high by having significantly bigger US with a much bigger 9th grade intake than in the past. Outliers are Boys Latin, which is bigger than ever and I don't know how they managed to pull this off given it was traditionally the weakest of the privates, and SPSG, which expanded rather than contracting, probably by taking county girls who'd previously have gone to RPCS.

McDonogh has always been bigger. Not sure why people upset thinking they get the most apps because it stands to reason they do. It's very popular with a broad demographic ranging from old money to people not native to Baltimore prep schools and wanting a coed school but not a lefty progressive place like Park or wishy washy liberalism like Friends but also not single sex. It draws heavily from HoCo, which has plenty of money. It ticks more boxes for more people and there's nothing wrong with it nor does it cast the other schools in a negative light. [/quote]

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