Anonymous wrote:I'm the 2year old's mom lol! I will call them in the fall. Currently right now the elementary school that I am excited about that we can actually afford is Christian Family Montessori. I've driven out to their site and we will go to the open house in the fall. This would be for a fall 2017 slot so my son would be 3 years old and a few months. I'm sure things have changed a bunch in terms of elementary schools but would love to hear what schools you looked at back then (public or private).

Oh my goodness, kindergarten search was almost as bad as college search, I visited 8 schools. Our final decision was between Holy Redeemer (our parish school) and Friends Community School, both in College Park. The styles and atmospheres were very different, and we decided that Holy Redeemer's more traditional approach would give my son the structure that he needed to thrive. I believe we were right, but the other two Abbey students in our car pool had both gone to FCS and they did fine, too. (One of them was valedictorian of the Abbey's middle school.) The Abbey's admissions office can probably put you in touch with families that came from elementary schools you're looking at, so you can talk to them about the transition. Good luck and enjoy these early years when you're the teacher!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I must say I am loving this thread and our son is only 2 lol! But loving hearing all these positives about st. Anslems. We live in NE and will definitely be looking into it for 6th grade. What an absolutely special place this school sounds like.

We also discovered St. Anselm's when my son was 2! My nephew's team played a baseball game there. We loved the campus, and shortly afterward I read that St. Anselm's was at the top of the Washington Post Challenge Index. When we were choosing a kindergarten, I called the St. Anselm's admissions director and asked which elementary schools in our area were good feeders. (Even if our son wasn't going to the Abbey, it was helpful to hear an informed opinion about local elementary schools.)

It's hard to tell in the toddler years what kind of school a child will need, but the Abbey is wonderful for boys who can thrive on academic challenge. It was wonderful for my son.

Thanks. I'm the 2year old's mom lol! I will call them in the fall. Currently right now the elementary school that I am excited about that we can actually afford is Christian Family Montessori. I've driven out to their site and we will go to the open house in the fall. This would be for a fall 2017 slot so my son would be 3 years old and a few months. I'm sure things have changed a bunch in terms of elementary schools but would love to hear what schools you looked at back then (public or private).

Anonymous wrote:I must say I am loving this thread and our son is only 2 lol! But loving hearing all these positives about st. Anslems. We live in NE and will definitely be looking into it for 6th grade. What an absolutely special place this school sounds like.

We also discovered St. Anselm's when my son was 2! My nephew's team played a baseball game there. We loved the campus, and shortly afterward I read that St. Anselm's was at the top of the Washington Post Challenge Index. When we were choosing a kindergarten, I called the St. Anselm's admissions director and asked which elementary schools in our area were good feeders. (Even if our son wasn't going to the Abbey, it was helpful to hear an informed opinion about local elementary schools.)

It's hard to tell in the toddler years what kind of school a child will need, but the Abbey is wonderful for boys who can thrive on academic challenge. It was wonderful for my son.

Anonymous wrote:Does SAAS have a "sister" school?

Not officially. We asked other Abbey parents the same thing after my son started at SAAS for middle school, when we wanted a similar opportunity for his younger sister. We decided that Stone Ridge was closest to St. Anselm's in its combination of academic quality, availability in middle school, and relatively progressive Catholicism. There are differences, too. Stone Ridge is larger and less focused on accelerated academics. Most Stone Ridge girls would say their unofficial "brother" school is Georgetown Prep because Prep is nearby and it's where more of their brothers go.

We did not closely compare Catholic girls' high schools because we wanted a girls' school for grades 6 to 12. We were therefore comparing Stone Ridge to non-Catholic private schools, and we preferred the atmosphere at Stone Ridge. There are numerous options for all-girls Catholic high school, but I don't think any of them is more similar to the Abbey than Stone Ridge. Georgetown Visitation is the alternative that I would guess would be most closely comparable.

SAAS did well on the LotusPrep rankings...

Regarding Ivy admissions, note that many Abbey boys want to study engineering and aren't drawn to liberal arts colleges. Frankly, they've gotten a decent liberal arts education already at the Abbey.

Last I saw, the Abbey had two college counselors for a class of 40 seniors, so there was plenty of help for the students and their families to find and gain admission to great colleges beyond the top 3 on the US News list.

My son is an AA, Catholic , smart, athletic not a nerd and he went to the middle school at the Abby. He didn't stay for HS because he really wanted to play football and the Abbey does not have a football team but he was on the championship basketball team. The Abbey is a wonderful school with many different religious affiliations and some of his best friends were Jewish. He nor I ever never felt discremenated against (not saying it does not exist there) which was great. The work is very challanging and yes their is a lot of homework. My son use to stay up to 12:00 midnight or after studing sometimes. The boys there seem very close because of the small setting and classes. I personnely wish my son was still there for HS because the school pushed him to work extremely hard. What a wonderful school.

Anonymous wrote:What grade is this?

Not the previous poster but I would guess the rising 9th. Many of the difficult boys were invited to look elsewhere for HS. St. Anselm's tends to try to keep kids through middle school hoping that their influence, along with possibly therapy, intervention from parents, etc. will make the difference. It's not ideal when a class ends up with several unpleasant kids, as this year's 8th did, but it can be seen as the Catholic approach to things. I know the monks and the admin struggle to achieve a balance and it's not a perfect system.

Catholic kids -- there is some thought of preference to kids coming from Catholic parish schools. However, generally those kids enter at 6th grade because they need a much more challenging curriculum or at 9th with the backing of their school knowing that they are at the top of their 8th grade class. Plenty of those kids are AA, though not all are necessarily Catholic. The boys are looked at based on whether the school is a good fit for THEM as people, not whether they are Catholic or not. Catholic families do have a better understanding of the point of a Catholic education and are not likely to argue with any element of the religious aspect. On the other hand, many non-Catholic families choose the school for the sense of peace, the academic rigor, small class sizes, etc.

It's a wonderful place though there are some questions that should be brought up over current admin and why bullying and other behavior has been allowed to flourish when that is extremely unlike the school as a whole.

What grade is this?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son fits the stereotype of an Abbey boy, smart, quirky, non-athletic. He did great at first both academically and socially. However, there was quite a lot of bad behavior in his class and the administration did not seem to step up to address it. We left. Friends whose sons remained in the class this year say things have not improved.

Bad behavior like interrupting the teacher, or bullying?

bullying

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son fits the stereotype of an Abbey boy, smart, quirky, non-athletic. He did great at first both academically and socially. However, there was quite a lot of bad behavior in his class and the administration did not seem to step up to address it. We left. Friends whose sons remained in the class this year say things have not improved.

Bad behavior like interrupting the teacher, or bullying?

There is a quote in latin at the entrance to the school that translates into something like "and tomorrow we begin again." Part of the benedictine philosophy is to hold the boys accountable and then move on the next day and start with a clean slate. So yes, like at any school, there will be bad behavior. However, unlike some schools they donot give up on the boys and do their best to help them become outstanding, well-educate, moral men. Occasionally, someone gets expelled for cheating, sometimes for insufficient grades, etc., but after a period of time, they are almost always given a second chance--a chance to come back a better person...and shouldn't they be? Shouldn't they be given an opportunity for self-improvement? Some classes are have more difficult boys than others--one such class graduated a couple of years ago--and while there were challenges, from what I hear, these same boys are doing fabulously at college. Why? Because no one gave up on them because they were difficult. The school is fulfilling its mission and doing it well. Pax in sapientia...peace in understanding.

Anonymous wrote:My son fits the stereotype of an Abbey boy, smart, quirky, non-athletic. He did great at first both academically and socially. However, there was quite a lot of bad behavior in his class and the administration did not seem to step up to address it. We left. Friends whose sons remained in the class this year say things have not improved.

Bad behavior like interrupting the teacher, or bullying?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what the feeder elementary schools are for St. Anselm's?

I know that CFMS sends a handful of boys every year, but the school is so small that it is maybe 2 boys. Still, they seem to have good luck.

What does CFMS stand for?

Christian Family Montessori


I happen to know a lot of the families of the younger families that attend CFMS and they're aren't near as many Catholic families in those grades nor do many do the kids seem to be anything exceptional. Not what I think of for SAAS.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but this seems unnecessarily bitchy. I doubt most boys look like "SAAS material" at 6 or 7. That's kind of the point of a school like SAAS, which has a reputation for understanding middle school boys and turning them into the kind of men you'd expect to find finishing someplace like SAAS.

My son fits the stereotype of an Abbey boy, smart, quirky, non-athletic. He did great at first both academically and socially. However, there was quite a lot of bad behavior in his class and the administration did not seem to step up to address it. We left. Friends whose sons remained in the class this year say things have not improved.

Yeah a boy in my daughters' K-8 is going there. He was the smartest or second smartest kid in the class. He and another girl going to O'Connell always got the highest grade in the class dating back to 3rd grade. I know because they gave an award each year for it and those two always won.