Anonymous wrote:We did. I was really worried but it was fine and so worth my kid not being miserable for senior year. Teachers from the old school did the college recommendations and the college counselor from the new school handled the college apps. DD got into all but one of her reach schools and it was no issue.

opening up this thread again, and curious if others have had this experience. If so, how do you get the teachers from old school to do the recs? Son currently at public that is clearly not a good fit and has affected his grades (not awful but not fabulous) and his confidence and there are safety issues we would like to leave. Looking at alternative options for senior year. He would be open to it, however I don't want to screw things up for him college acceptance wise. Thoughts on how best to manage that? Do the teachers from old school just upload the recs into the common app? I don't know how it works.
Many thanks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A relative did and she was asked about it at every college interview. She had a very good reason. If you can answer that question with something other than vague disappointment, it would be fine. Just know colleges will wonder and he will be asked.

Ugh. I’m glad you mentioned that. Probably better to stick it out then. Probably no college would find it acceptable to share the real reasons, and we can’t go down that road. How do you politely say the teachers are awful and the environment is racist and some teachers believe in conspiracy theories? You can’t so…


Kid has friends.

Grades are mostly excellent.

I’m on my 4th kid applying to college and none of them has ever had to do an interview. Very few schools require that (Ivys and some highly selective colleges are some.) If your kid is miserable, I would do it. If they are not, it’s probably not worth it. If you are considering switching to another private, we found very few that were willing to accept a senior transfer who was not moving from out of the area.

Anonymous wrote:A relative did and she was asked about it at every college interview. She had a very good reason. If you can answer that question with something other than vague disappointment, it would be fine. Just know colleges will wonder and he will be asked.

Ugh. I’m glad you mentioned that. Probably better to stick it out then. Probably no college would find it acceptable to share the real reasons, and we can’t go down that road. How do you politely say the teachers are awful and the environment is racist and some teachers believe in conspiracy theories? You can’t so…


Kid has friends.

Grades are mostly excellent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this? If so, did it work out.

I feel disappointed with kiddo’s school. I imagine it is a bad idea to switch schools at this point yet still feel tempted.

What kind of disappointment? More importantly how does your child feel? Do they like their school? Do they have friends? If they are happy socially do not switch them. That is cruel.

They hate the school. Oh, we would not do it without their input and approval. I suggested it before junior year and kid said no then, but I was wondering about now.

All schools have some bad teachers but this one seems to have more than most. One was good one year and then stopped teaching, became unreasonable and was fired. Two others were fired for blatant racism.

Some of the teachers have a command and control mentality that assumes all students are thieves or are trying to get out of doing work or skipping school instead. Very much an “accuse before having the facts” environment.

There is a lot of good too but the bad outweighs it.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this? If so, did it work out.

I feel disappointed with kiddo’s school. I imagine it is a bad idea to switch schools at this point yet still feel tempted.

What kind of disappointment? More importantly how does your child feel? Do they like their school? Do they have friends? If they are happy socially do not switch them. That is cruel.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this? If so, did it work out.

I feel disappointed with kiddo’s school. I imagine it is a bad idea to switch schools at this point yet still feel tempted.

I meet too many colleagues who regret which private school their kid(s) went to for grades 9-12. They usually stick it out but the couple that did not, the kid did much better and really took ownership of their last 12 or 24 months. Good luck OP.

A relative did and she was asked about it at every college interview. She had a very good reason. If you can answer that question with something other than vague disappointment, it would be fine. Just know colleges will wonder and he will be asked.

We did. I was really worried but it was fine and so worth my kid not being miserable for senior year. Teachers from the old school did the college recommendations and the college counselor from the new school handled the college apps. DD got into all but one of her reach schools and it was no issue.

I would do this only if it was a very bad situation at current school, not just due to parental "disappointment". Is your child involved at the school? Has friends who are a good influence? Decent grades? Then stay put unless they are asking to leave.

Is your child severely depressed, using drugs, drinking, failing classes, skipping school, etc then switch after mental support even if they want to stay.

Have you applied to other schools? How does your child feel about it? At this stage, I’d mostly defer to them to decide.

Has anyone done this? If so, did it work out.

I feel disappointed with kiddo’s school. I imagine it is a bad idea to switch schools at this point yet still feel tempted.