Anonymous
Post 03/08/2019 10:19     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Wow, Nysmith is $32,000? That's crazy. For that price, can't you go somewhere good like Sidwell Friends


It's average for a private school but I think many are more.


Nysmith parent here (6 years and counting). Most private schools in this area are hugely (college level) expensive. One of the things that impressed us when visiting Nysmith is how obvious it is that most of the tuition money goes straight into educating the students. Some of the other private schools have large and expensive campuses, fancy ostentatious buildings full of over-furnished non-classroom impressive spaces designed to impress. Nysmith has clean modern facilities but it's all workaday and child focused type spaces. I'm not saying this is the only factor, and I have a second child at a private school that fits more into the other category here, but the down to earth spending priorities at Nysmith have always impressed me by comparison.
Anonymous
Post 03/08/2019 09:50     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:12:39 here, and my highly gifted kid's grades/test scores are fine (mostly 4s with one or two 3s last grading period), but she stops listening in class and hasn't been turning in some assignments. I am having to monitor her homework, which I never have to do with my high achiever's work. She could benefit from a quieter environment with fewer kids -- 30 kids in a trailer classroom is far from optimal.


That was the reason I pulled my underperforming AAP kid to Nysmith and she is flourishing. I just asked her last night to compare AAP to Nysmith, this was what she said: "Nysmith is harder but more fun!" She is solving single variable inequality. She is not even in the highest math group. She has a classmate doing Algebra 1 in 5th grade, which really motivates her to work harder as she asked me how can she do Algebra 1 next year. I am sure some Nysmith kids were AAP rejects, but certainly not all. The school really works hard to accommodate kids with different ability and yet keeping learning fun.
Anonymous
Post 03/08/2019 09:37     Subject: Re:Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
We have whole grades in a modular building. This works well.
Anonymous
Post 03/08/2019 08:57     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:idk why McNair has the AAP kids in those trailers

Are they supposed to stuff the gen ed kids in the trailers? People already feel like AAP kids get preferential treatment. Putting them in the main school and gen ed kids in trailers would solidify that perception. My kids' school has the same arrangement: AAP kids in trailers and gen ed in the main building. I don't at all disagree with that decision.
Anonymous
Post 03/08/2019 01:30     Subject: Re:Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
My kids are at one of the supposedly "good" centers. The peers are strong students, there are plenty of excellent opportunities, the expectations are high. The teaching is inconsistent, to put it nicely. I am very disappointed. I have no doubt that Nysmith and others do a better job, regardless of whether or not the kids there did or didn't get into AAP. Look, I am sure there aren't a lot of 150 IQ kids at any of the schools. Most "gifted" kids are a little above average kids from households that value education. So a kid scores a 125 vs 140 on the CoGat--big deal. Certainly mine fit into that broad category and AAP is a breeze for them.

There are a number of reasons to choose public over private but I don't doubt that the Nysmith kids are getting a better education.


My two kids are also at a "good" center, and it is overcrowded -- 30 kids per AAP class and many classes are in trailers. It's a much better fit than GenEd, but my highly gifted kid is bored and, ironically, struggling because she checks out and stops trying. She needs a much smaller environment but we can't afford private. My moderately gifted high achiever is thriving.
in the fall of 2020 McNair will be opening the new addition so you won’t have to worry about the trailers.
Hope they are getting a new administration too
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 16:42     Subject: Re:Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:
My kids are at one of the supposedly "good" centers. The peers are strong students, there are plenty of excellent opportunities, the expectations are high. The teaching is inconsistent, to put it nicely. I am very disappointed. I have no doubt that Nysmith and others do a better job, regardless of whether or not the kids there did or didn't get into AAP. Look, I am sure there aren't a lot of 150 IQ kids at any of the schools. Most "gifted" kids are a little above average kids from households that value education. So a kid scores a 125 vs 140 on the CoGat--big deal. Certainly mine fit into that broad category and AAP is a breeze for them.

There are a number of reasons to choose public over private but I don't doubt that the Nysmith kids are getting a better education.


My two kids are also at a "good" center, and it is overcrowded -- 30 kids per AAP class and many classes are in trailers. It's a much better fit than GenEd, but my highly gifted kid is bored and, ironically, struggling because she checks out and stops trying. She needs a much smaller environment but we can't afford private. My moderately gifted high achiever is thriving.
in the fall of 2020 McNair will be opening the new addition so you won’t have to worry about the trailers.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 16:37     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:12:39 here, and my highly gifted kid's grades/test scores are fine (mostly 4s with one or two 3s last grading period), but she stops listening in class and hasn't been turning in some assignments. I am having to monitor her homework, which I never have to do with my high achiever's work. She could benefit from a quieter environment with fewer kids -- 30 kids in a trailer classroom is far from optimal.
idk why McNair has the AAP kids in those trailers
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 16:14     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Wow, Nysmith is $32,000? That's crazy. For that price, can't you go somewhere good like Sidwell Friends

Sidwell Friends is about $41,000. Private schools are really expensive.


I doubt that Catholic schools are that expensive. There are a good number of private schools that don’t cost so much but they don’t have the same cache as Nysmith and Sidwell. People are paying more for the name then anything else.

to each their own.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 15:45     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:Wow, Nysmith is $32,000? That's crazy. For that price, can't you go somewhere good like Sidwell Friends

Sidwell Friends is about $41,000. Private schools are really expensive.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 15:32     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:Wow, Nysmith is $32,000? That's crazy. For that price, can't you go somewhere good like Sidwell Friends


It's average for a private school but I think many are more.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 15:29     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Wow, Nysmith is $32,000? That's crazy. For that price, can't you go somewhere good like Sidwell Friends
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 13:30     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
12:39 here, and my highly gifted kid's grades/test scores are fine (mostly 4s with one or two 3s last grading period), but she stops listening in class and hasn't been turning in some assignments. I am having to monitor her homework, which I never have to do with my high achiever's work. She could benefit from a quieter environment with fewer kids -- 30 kids in a trailer classroom is far from optimal.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 13:12     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Most of the private schools in this area are seriously expensive. But there are also a lot of absurdly wealthy people. The value of $32,000 is relative.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 13:03     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Nysmith isn't JUST for app rejected kids. There are kids like mine that chose to leave AAP to go Nysmith because we can afford it and want the smaller class size and more individualized attention, and I loath the outside tutoring culture in our AAP center.


More power to you but there is a lot of tutoring that can come from $32,000 a year.


PP might not want her kid doing extra hours of tutoring on top of school, though.

For my part, there's a huge difference between "can afford" and "find it trivial to afford" private school. I technically can afford private, but it's wiser for me to just put the extra money into enrichment and college funds. If I were much wealthier and found the tuition trivial, I'd be making different choices. Even if Nysmith were better than AAP, it's not $32,000 better per year per kid for me.


Maybe but that is three times the amount we paid for Day Care/Pre School. I would hope that the kids who go there crush the competition because that is seriously expensive. I trust that people who send their kids there are able to afford it because that is a huge investment.

Not that it is not worth investing in your kids but that is a huge investment.

But yeah, for that amount of money the kids should be winning every competition that they enter into or at least only losing to other very exclusive private schools.

I had always wondered how much Nysmith cost, I drive by it fairly frequently, but had already spaced on looking it up when I got home. My curiosity finally got the best of me. Dang
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2019 12:48     Subject: Gifted kid - APS, FCPS, or Nysmith?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Nysmith isn't JUST for app rejected kids. There are kids like mine that chose to leave AAP to go Nysmith because we can afford it and want the smaller class size and more individualized attention, and I loath the outside tutoring culture in our AAP center.


More power to you but there is a lot of tutoring that can come from $32,000 a year.


PP might not want her kid doing extra hours of tutoring on top of school, though.

For my part, there's a huge difference between "can afford" and "find it trivial to afford" private school. I technically can afford private, but it's wiser for me to just put the extra money into enrichment and college funds. If I were much wealthier and found the tuition trivial, I'd be making different choices. Even if Nysmith were better than AAP, it's not $32,000 better per year per kid for me.