Not really, PP.

If you want to get into an Ivy these days (a real Ivy, not a little or pseudo- Ivy) you need spend a lot of time on the homework.

It's definitely arguable that LSATs are at all a measure of intelligence, but even if we grant you that, your score says far more about how you perform on a standardized test on a particular day than what you learned in school or how smart you may or may not be.

To the pp who asked if a parent was concerned that a DC spent more time on athletics than homework, i think most kids will ultimately learn far more that is important in life if they spend a lot of time on an outside activity they love, and much less time on homework that the 3-4 hours per night reported. Like the immediately previous pp, I didn't spend nearly that much time on homework in college, and still got into the then number 2 ranked law school in the country. O, and I got an almost perfect LSAT score in one try. I like to think that what I learned succeeding and failing in outside activities educated me far better for ultimate success than book knowledge ever could.

I have two kids at a highly competitive high school who spend way more time doing homework than I recall doing in college (about 4 hrs a night and 6-7 hours per weekend). The key is whether the grades align with the effort. My older child, for instance, spent freshman year with her head buried in a science textbook to earn a B, whereas my younger child, also not a future MIT grad, discovered a peer tutoring program at the school that has proven far more efficient and effective.

Anonymous wrote:OP should have asked for a fourth item: GPA. I would like to see the relationship between number of hours spent on homework and grades. However, there is the inaccuracy of self-reporting. And this is self-reporting by a parent, not the student doing the homework.

Too many "confounding factors." GPA varies widely by schools -- some have more or less inflated grades. Some kids with high GPAs fly through their homework, some are pluggers. Some kids with low GPAs spend no time on homework, others have trouble working efficiently and spend hours on homework but it doesn't translate into success on tests.

OP should have asked for a fourth item: GPA. I would like to see the relationship between number of hours spent on homework and grades. However, there is the inaccuracy of self-reporting. And this is self-reporting by a parent, not the student doing the homework.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child averages more time per week on sporting activities than homework. This is typical for private school students.

Isn't this imbalanced time allocation concerning to the parents?

I think many of the students who spend the most time on sports do so because they are playing for their school and for an outside club. Students who are involved in club sports at the high school level often hope that they will be able to play their sport in college, and will have an advantage in admissions (and maybe even get some scholarship money, but usually the boost at admissions is the greater prize). So they do the juggling and yes, the student does generally average more time per week in sports than homework.

In other cases, even where there is no school/club double-whammy, you just have a student who plays for a coach/program that requires a large time investment (say: practice, plus film sessions, plus weight room work) and/or the student is more interested in sports than academics.

I would venture to say that if you ask educators at the local private schools, they would agree that the sports/school balance has tipped too far towards the sports side, but it is a difficult juggernaut to slow down given the larger cultural obsession with sports.

Anonymous wrote:My child averages more time per week on sporting activities than homework. This is typical for private school students.

Isn't this imbalanced time allocation concerning to the parents?

My child averages more time per week on sporting activities than homework. This is typical for private school students.

What about Maret? Field? WIS?

11th
NCS
3 hrs weeknights
4-5 hrs weekends

Side question -- how many academic courses is your DC taking and how many times/week do they meet?

Was surprised to see that the answer was 3x/week for GDS (with a few advanced math/science courses that were double that).

11th
normal: 2 on weeknights, 6-7 total each weekend; paper due/big tests: 3-4 on weeknights, 10-12 total on weekend
Sidwell

11th
Visitation
3-4 per night
6-7 on weekends
Occasional weekday night with little homework - maybe once every 2-3 weeks. DD is taking 3 APs (mentioned because course selection makes a difference in the amount of homework).

a. 10
b. 3-4 per school nite; 5-6 weekend total
c. NCS

(a) grade
(b) approximate time spent on homework per day or week
(c) school

Thank you.