Reply to St. Andrews Episcopal school and rigor

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think St. Andrew's participates in a consortium with other nearby private schools.  I don't know what schools or what offerings are made available through that process.  Not sure when that started.

Full Disclosure. I went there (more than 15 years ago) and went to a good college, top 50 law school and got a job at 25 in a top tier law firm straight out of school.  Although I was taking all advanced classes at Whitman, I was lost and on a downward slope.  I was just not motivated and even in the advanced classes, they don't make the effort to motivate kids who are bright but losing interest.  St. Andrew's completely changed that.  I loved St. Andrew's.[/quote]

Can you compare the academic rigor at Whitman to SAES?
Thanks for your feedback.[/quote]

I will try but my information may be very dated and obviously for me, Whitman didn't work out so my feelings will be somewhat reflective of that reality.  I finished high school in the early 90s.  Whitman was very track oriented and socially very elitist.  It really was a lot like the original 90210.  Kids were either on the honors/AP track, normal track or the special needs/LD track.  It was uncommon for kids to float between (even if a "normal" kid was consistently getting great grades).  The teachers at Whitman were on cruise control.  Some were very good.  Others were clearly phoning it in but they were career teachers and weren't going anywhere.  Lots of smart kids with smart parents.  Cruddy teachers didn't impact the super smart or self-starters.  They probably let down some middle of the road kids.  I was a straight A student that had some health issues and that caused a loss of motivation.  My grades dropped like a stone and I started skipping.  Even in the honors track, such behavior did not warrant any call to my parents or anything.  They found out what was happening when my grades came home.  They were very involved parents so that was not the issue. There was just no accountability.  I didn't do homework for days or weeks and nothing was done.  I guess I am saying, I could have been the kid who was about to do something really bad and no one did ANYTHING and this is a school with no crime or real drug problems.  I WAS the problem kid and they didn't bother.  And again--this was in the classrooms with the smart kids.  Heaven knows how much kids in the normal track classes were ignored.  Also, sports at Whitman was a big deal.  Maybe not like football in Texas but the athletes did get a little extra attention and were cut slack.  I have family and many friends who graduated from there and that is the basis of my comments.  They do have the zero tolerance policy (that wasn't there when I was a student) and that has probably helped. When I was there, drinking by the soccer team with coaches knowledge was a regular event.  A typical football outing of coaches and male athletes was to hooters in rockville.  All that said, Whitman is a very good public school but it is not the perfect "free private" or ticket to Harvard that some parents think it is.

When I was at St. Andrew's, there were no tracks.  People with LD were in the same classes and were expected to keep up.  They could ask for more time on tests but they didn't get a lighter or less challenging work load.  Everyone was required to do a sport so there were no concessions for athletes versus non-athletes.  Most kids also did another activity (model UN, band, etc.).  APs were available as well.  There was direct accountability and skipping did not exist.  If a homework assignment was skipped, then detention was that day or maybe the next (if there was a doctor appointment or something).  If that meant missing a sports practice, then the student was required to attend the game but would not be able to play.  Those were direct consequences that made skipping an assignment much less desirable.  I found the teachers to be enthusiastic and engaged.  They were available after school and/or during study hall times if extra help was needed.  I think 99% of my class went to college and I think that is probably better than Whitman.  Schools attended by my classmates were Princeton, Colgate, Lehigh, Bates, Gettysburg, Vermont, WIsconsin, Michigan, Maryland, Barnard, Vassar, Richmond, Bucknell, Virginia, Virginia Tech (just typing as they come to mind).  I think that is a good sampling of schools and today so many parents are focused on state schools because of price.

It is really an apples to oranges comparison.  My Whitman class was around 350 kids while my St. Andrew's class was around 70.  St. Andrew's does not have the brand name of some other privates or even like Whitman.  However, it was a very good school for me and Whitman was a disaster.  I would think about your child and his or her needs and temperament and go from there. Good luck.[/quote]

+1. We had EXACT same experience with our DC except more recent than 15 years ago[/quote]

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