My family looked at both Norwood and St. Andrews. We fell in love with both schools. Ultimately, we choose Norwood - for may reasons, but one was that we would have to reassess our children for high school. Being at one school for K-12 is really long. Today, also, most students that enter in K don't stay through 12. The number of students in each grade at Norwood was another pull. There are many more students (but small classroom ratios) which opens the door to many kinds of friendship. As you are coming from another country, my only advice to you is to take this site with a grain of salt. There are many people who post false information and make statements to rile people up. Explore both schools closely and follow your gut. You can't go wrong. Just depends on what you ultimately want. If you choose Norwood, welcome to the community!

Anonymous wrote:They are very comparable schools, with SAES being more committed to socioeconomic and racial diversity (as well as international diversity), which our family valued in a suburban school. You can’t go wrong with either, but with SAES being K-12 and opening a brand new lower school facility on the main campus this fall, after opening a new student center two years ago choosing SAES would be a no brained to me...

We went and looked at it this year and ended up not applying. It seemed very white to me, with a free scattered kids of color/ethnicity. I felt uncomfortable for my biracial kids, compared to many of the other schools we looked at. The school itself seemed lovely and very thoughtful about their curriculum.

Anonymous wrote:They are very comparable schools, with SAES being more committed to socioeconomic and racial diversity (as well as international diversity), which our family valued in a suburban school. You can’t go wrong with either, but with SAES being K-12 and opening a brand new lower school facility on the main campus this fall, after opening a new student center two years ago choosing SAES would be a no brained to me...

Where are you getting this information?

They are very comparable schools, with SAES being more committed to socioeconomic and racial diversity (as well as international diversity), which our family valued in a suburban school. You can’t go wrong with either, but with SAES being K-12 and opening a brand new lower school facility on the main campus this fall, after opening a new student center two years ago choosing SAES would be a no brained to me...

I suggest Norwood. Being not from the area you may find that you want a different school down the line. Norwood ending at 8th grade gives you that option. Also SAES is very small in lower school which means a child is with the same small group of kids for a really long time. Can be isolating if your child doesn’t click with the class.

We’ll be living in the potomac/bethesda area. I also think that they’re pretty similar schools. It will be a hard decision to choose for us.

Our student is at St. Andrew's in the upper school. It has many international families and a terrific balance of rigor, activities and time for a kid to be a kid. I agree that if you may be here for HS, not having to go through admissions again is great.

SAES is a wonderful community. You can’t go wrong.

SAE is K-12. Seems like a no brainer to me.

Do you know where you plan to work and / or live? Commuting is horrible here, think about distances to each school.

I can only speak from our experience at Norwood but it’s a wonderful school and we are so happy both with the academics and with the community. Good luck with your decision!

My vote would be Norwood. The facilities, staff and families are all wonderful. It’s also pretty diverse— lots of other families from out of the country. The arts and music programs at Norwood also seem superior imho.
Good luck!

I am sure St. Andrews is a good school but my vote is for Norwood only because we have been through there with two students and found the curriculum, the community and the faculty to be excellent. Norwood ends in 8th grade so again it does depend on what you are looking for. Norwood has excellent high school placement in case you are wondering.

I think they’re pretty comparable schools in many ways - good academics but not known as pressure cookers. Each have beautiful campuses. I would guess your kids could be equally happy at either one. I’d suggest spending a few hours digging into their websites to see if there are any differences in the curriculum that appeal more to you.

Of course, one obvious difference is that Norwood ends after 8th grade, which could be an advantage or disadvantage depending on what you’re looking for.

Joined: 03/02/2019 05:08
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Hi,
We’re moving to DC area from another country.
I have 2 children, myson is 6 and my daughter is 8 years old.
They have been accepted to norwood school and st.andrew’s episcopal school and we’re trying to choose between these schools.
Any comments and recommendations would be highly appreciated since we don’t have any information about the level of academics and the other characteristics of these schools before we make a decision.
Thank you.