And of course "Their Eyes Were Watching God" was there in 2014 when you were supposedly misled into applying to Brearley

They did change the math curriculum a bit, but it's the same from 10th onwards, they just realigned it so that instead of skipping ahead the smart kids in 7/8/9 study some extra material on the same subject each year.

Sorry, I don't think this is bearing out your statements.

Class VI

2014: ENGLISH: poetry; stories from Genesis (King James Version); Greek and Roman
myths; Homer’s Odyssey; performance of a Greek or medieval mystery play; analytic
paragraphs; creative writing. Some reading parallels studies in ancient history.

2023: ENGLISH: Trickster: Native American Tales; folktales from around the world;
selections from Monkey King and The Arabian Nights; The Odyssey; analytical and
creative exercises; a class play.

Same basic theme, they replaced Bible stories with stories from around the world - which maybe will offend Classics buffs - but they still read The Odyssey.

Class VII

2014: ENGLISH: poetry; grammar; Great Expectations; Julius Caesar; formal introduc-
tion to poetic terms; critical and creative writing.

2023: ENGLISH: poetry, including by William Blake, Li-Young Lee, Quandra
Prettyman and Elizabeth Bishop; grammar; Great Expectations; A Raisin in the
Sun; formal introduction to poetic terms; critical and creative writing.

Still same theme, still reading Great Expectations, they replaced Julius Caesar with Raisin in the Sun which I guess is the crux of your whole beef with them but this hardly seems like a watering down in the context of the whole course.

Class VIII

2014: ENGLISH: short stories; grammar; Jane Eyre; poetry; Twelfth Night; formal intro-
duction to narrative structure; critical and creative writing.

2023: ENGLISH: short stories by authors including Julia Alvarez, Toni Cade
Bambara, James Baldwin, James Joyce and Edgar Allen Poe; grammar; Maud
Martha; poetry; Twelfth Night; formal introduction to narrative structure;
critical and creative writing.

Again very similar, still reading Jane Eyre and Twelfth Night.

Class IX

2014: ENGLISH: Their Eyes Were Watching God; sonnets; Macbeth; Pride and Prejudice;
personal essays.

2023: ENGLISH: personal essays by writers such as Colson Whitehead, Amy Tan,
Richard Rodriguez, Elyssa Whasuta, Diana Abu-Jaber and Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie; grammar; sonnets by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth,
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Claude McKay and Rhina Espaillat; Macbeth; Pride and
Prejudice; Their Eyes Were Watching God; practice in close reading and analytical
writing; creative assignments.

Again seems similar, they just fleshed out the description with more works.

The only grade in 6-9 with a significant change is 6 and I think it's probably for the better - frankly, Journey To The West is a whole mind-expanding than the frickin' Book of Genesis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applying next year as an unconnected family from a TT private school. Does it help if your child got to round 2 for Hunter?

It doesn’t get you in if that’s what you’re wondering. And I wouldn’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant if Hunter is this year and you’re applying to private next year.

Curious why you said this? To get to Hunter round 2, need 99th% on an IQ test. Seems like could be helpful information to a school that values academic achievement. But can see how it can be viewed as bad taste/irrelevant.

1) TTs trust their own admissions process, which is likely why they are all varied not only in content but format.

2) 99th% on an IQ test at 4 isn’t an academic achievement— it is potential.

3) IQ is not reliably tested at age 4.

I’ve been there and I understand the desire to set your child apart in this wildly stressful process. It wouldn’t be something I mentioned unless both processes were happening concurrently. And even then, it would be for my PSD to mention. A year later? I’d look like all the nuts parents sitting in an interview pontificating about my genius child.

This is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much and agreed. It’s probably also better to speak to other accomplishments (like when child learns to read, etc.) that naturally speak to this and potential. So much to learn, not going through this until next year. Hoping for Hunter then it’s a non issue. Wish you the best of luck!

Yes, this is pretty much my point - among the people you’re comparing your kid to 99s are not all that rare and your kid is not all that special on that particular basis.

Anonymous wrote:99th percentile in my experience is never remotely as rare as 1 in 100 in practice with little kids - my kid routinely got them on various intelligence and achievement assessments in her posh public elementary school and normally like 1/4 of the class would do the same on any given test. So not only is it not reliable but it’s also not that uncommon.

Because it’s 99th percentile vs the total population, not vs the subset of “posh public elementary”. As a graduate of a very much not posh public elementary school back in the day it was more like 1 in 1000 there…

99th percentile in my experience is never remotely as rare as 1 in 100 in practice with little kids - my kid routinely got them on various intelligence and achievement assessments in her posh public elementary school and normally like 1/4 of the class would do the same on any given test. So not only is it not reliable but it’s also not that uncommon.

If I wanted to send my kid to a school that used consultants to the degree Brearley does now, I would have sent her to Avenues. At least it has cool parents.

Also, yes, it is like two of us. Notice how no the other person isn’t like — wait, a second, a kid was bullied or oh no, you are upset about the lack of transparency, etc but instead wants to fight about what they think is a clever point as a way of telling me I am so very WRONG. It’s very indicative of the school culture and the way they treat the girls.

Wasn’t the crux of my argument — just one example of how superficial the humanities program has become compared to what it once was, but thanks for the advice. I am happy to admit when I am wrong. I was wrong to stick it out at a school that isn’t honest with parents and doesn’t care what their alumnae think, wrong to stick it out at a place for an extra year where asking questions or seeking direction on the school’s direction verboten, where my daughter comes home and tells me who can’t get into trouble because their Dad donates so much money, wrong not to notice the absurdly high faculty and admin turnover. will retire, defeated to my study with Lear, perhaps.

ps — the speech Juliet gives her father about how he can’t say he loves her and also that he wasn’t her to marry Paris is one of the best written pieces in all of literature about the moment when a young girl becomes a woman. I truly hope it moves your daughter. It moved me so dearly when I read it at her age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applying next year as an unconnected family from a TT private school. Does it help if your child got to round 2 for Hunter?

It doesn’t get you in if that’s what you’re wondering. And I wouldn’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant if Hunter is this year and you’re applying to private next year.

Curious why you said this? To get to Hunter round 2, need 99th% on an IQ test. Seems like could be helpful information to a school that values academic achievement. But can see how it can be viewed as bad taste/irrelevant.

1) TTs trust their own admissions process, which is likely why they are all varied not only in content but format.

2) 99th% on an IQ test at 4 isn’t an academic achievement— it is potential.

3) IQ is not reliably tested at age 4.

I’ve been there and I understand the desire to set your child apart in this wildly stressful process. It wouldn’t be something I mentioned unless both processes were happening concurrently. And even then, it would be for my PSD to mention. A year later? I’d look like all the nuts parents sitting in an interview pontificating about my genius child.

99% on an IQ test isn't an achievement or potential, it's a neurodiversity. As a parent it is as exhausting as any other neurodiversity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Applying next year as an unconnected family from a TT private school. Does it help if your child got to round 2 for Hunter?

It doesn’t get you in if that’s what you’re wondering. And I wouldn’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant if Hunter is this year and you’re applying to private next year.

Curious why you said this? To get to Hunter round 2, need 99th% on an IQ test. Seems like could be helpful information to a school that values academic achievement. But can see how it can be viewed as bad taste/irrelevant.

1) TTs trust their own admissions process, which is likely why they are all varied not only in content but format.

2) 99th% on an IQ test at 4 isn’t an academic achievement— it is potential.

3) IQ is not reliably tested at age 4.

I’ve been there and I understand the desire to set your child apart in this wildly stressful process. It wouldn’t be something I mentioned unless both processes were happening concurrently. And even then, it would be for my PSD to mention. A year later? I’d look like all the nuts parents sitting in an interview pontificating about my genius child.

This right here.

Anonymous wrote:Reading through this whole thread it seems like there are a lot of us with positive feedback from B. This is making me nervous. I had the impression from our PSD that things were looking good but if there are this many people in one obscure forum with positive feedback… did they just cast a really wide net? We let some other good opportunities go… I’m hoping we didn’t choose wrong. B is our clear first choice for DD). How many others have positive feedback and have been told it’s looking good? 🙋‍♀️

And how many angry B parents are in this forum (and also why?) ✋

We got very positive feedback from Brearley and our PSD said they really like our daughter, and that they had already declined a few other girls at our school.

But I have already posted in this thread about good feedback from Brearley.

I feel like it seems like everyone got good feedback from B but I think most people aren’t mentioning they got bad feedback from B in general. So it’s hard to tell.