any school that is 50-60k per year, and the majority full-pay families, will skew really rich which is correlated with country club membership. The city schools may have slightly fewer country club families, given more families will live in DC proper, but a lot of those people find their "tribe" on Nantucket in the summer so I don't see that as much different.

I have two girls at SR, we are not members of any country club and they have been invited to birthday parties or swim dates at Congressional, Chevy Chase, Kenwood, Bethesda, Army Navy, etc. I don’t know if you would call this a country club scene but there are lots of classmates who are members, in our experience they are still pretty welcoming of us poors who are not members. We’ll see if this continues as they get older.

This would depend on the class. You can not make a blanket statement for any school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCS has a few country club girls but it's not a prevailing culture at all. Even most of the wealthiest families in my girls' grades do not belong to a club.

Most of the country club set leave in middle school or by 9th grade. For example, in the current 9th grade, almost all of the country club girls left for Stone Ridge for high school.

Why do they leave? Was NCS too academically rigorous for them?

Yes, it's not fun in high school and it great for social girls who want a balanced life. they leave, especially those who have an older sibling who went through. They're replaced by girls from Loudoun county who grind out the 3-4 hours of homework per night.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCS has a few country club girls but it's not a prevailing culture at all. Even most of the wealthiest families in my girls' grades do not belong to a club.

Most of the country club set leave in middle school or by 9th grade. For example, in the current 9th grade, almost all of the country club girls left for Stone Ridge for high school.

Does SR have this culture?

More so than NCS but I'm sure it varies by class and I know many non-club girls who are happy.

I don't think it's an overwhelming issue at any of these schools. Lthe club families who start at NCS almost all leave by high school. NCS is too liberal and is too much of a grind by high school for these families.

country clubs are for golf, swimming and tennis. It's not goimg to be different than if girls were on a swim team at just a pool or a tennis center. Theyre not hanging out there.

Anonymous wrote:NCS has a few country club girls but it's not a prevailing culture at all. Even most of the wealthiest families in my girls' grades do not belong to a club.

Most of the country club set leave in middle school or by 9th grade. For example, in the current 9th grade, almost all of the country club girls left for Stone Ridge for high school.

Why do they leave? Was NCS too academically rigorous for them?

Anonymous wrote:NCS has a few country club girls but it's not a prevailing culture at all. Even most of the wealthiest families in my girls' grades do not belong to a club.

Most of the country club set leave in middle school or by 9th grade. For example, in the current 9th grade, almost all of the country club girls left for Stone Ridge for high school.

Does SR have this culture?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holton? Um yes there’s a scene
The least all girls cc scene is prob madeira

I think there are plenty of Madeira parents who are members of clubs. But half of them are not local and those who are don't revolve their social life around it. Plus, starting at 9th grade makes social life far less parent-influenced.

The starting in 9th grade factor was not something I considered. That's very interesting in terms of mitigating against some other social dynamics

I went to one of the Big 5 schools. If you’d asked me years ago, I would have acknowledged a country club scene and said that it affected me negatively, as my family did not have a membership anywhere. However, now I view it differently. The key in any community is to find your tribe. People have outside-of-school social connections from a bunch of different things. It could be they live in the same neighborhood, ride horses at the same barn, play on a travel team together, share a summer swim team, or worship together. The country club stuff only feels like a problem if you haven’t found your own way to interact with other families and build community.

Our CC has a ton of visi/Gonzaga kids.

Anonymous wrote:Holton? Um yes there’s a scene
The least all girls cc scene is prob madeira

I think there are plenty of Madeira parents who are members of clubs. But half of them are not local and those who are don't revolve their social life around it. Plus, starting at 9th grade makes social life far less parent-influenced.

Holton? Um yes there’s a scene
The least all girls cc scene is prob madeira

Our daughter goes to Holton. Do some people go to country clubs? Yes, and that will be true at every single private school.

But does it feel like a “country club scene”? Not at all. Girls from all over the DMV attend via an extensive bus network and even those who go to clubs go to a wide range such that it’s not all concentrated in one club where everyone hangs out.

Do any schools not have this? We are hoping to avoid those dynamics but are interested in all girls.

Thanks