Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody has that much homework. It’s a lie that parents tell, just like people who claim to work 100 hours a week.

You are very wrong. Four hours of homework per night is very common at Big 3 and somewhat common at many public and private schools. At most non-Big 3 schools, you can get by with less, so only top students work that hard. At Big 3, unless you're unusually efficient, your grades probably suffer a lot of you do only 2 hours per night. It's also not cool to get mediocre grades at Big 3, so many people do the work required to get B or above in all courses, which is a lot.

Most students at Big 3 have more reading and writing than most students at other schools.

4-5 hours per night means your kid didn't use free periods during the day and/or isn't very efficient in doing their work. I disagree that grades suffer if they are doing less.

-Parent of two Big 3 current or former students.

I bet you consider Maret a big three....

Anonymous wrote:Nobody has that much homework. It’s a lie that parents tell, just like people who claim to work 100 hours a week.

Nope, sorry, I went to a big three and I absolutely had four hours of homework a night. The standard the school set was the teachers should aim for 45 minutes a night for a regular class and an hour a half a night for an AP class.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in MS at a "big 3" and has two ECs that give him a lot of pleasure. This thread is making me think that we need to find him another school for high school.

Lol- but I bet you won’t because you got the “golden ticket” according to DCUM. 😏

Here are the important ingredients -
1_Educated parents - educated and informed parents who know the pathway to success and can ensure that children are organized to meet their short, medium and long term goals.
2_Functional family - most important thing for a child is to be mentally healthy and a loving, supportive and functional family is the first thing that determines that success.
3_ Cohort, programming and counselling - if the kid is surrounded by high achieving kids, he will want to do well. If the curriculum is rigorous, the kids will do well. If the kids are guided as to what to do when, they will follow through
4_ Time management, work ethics - the kids need help to be organized and do the work too.
5_Parental involvement - without parents spending quality and quantity time with their kids, most kids do not feel motivated to do well.

Why are parents ok with this. If my kid had this workload I'd consider a change I schools if feasible. Or at least a look into why the work load is so intense

At my top prep school located elsewhere, the good students averaged about 3 hours/night on homework. These were the students strong in reading, writing, and math. Very well organized students with slightly lower grades spent similar amounts of time on homework.

However, Lower performing students routinely averaged 4 or more hours/night taking the same classes.

I would be startled if a similar pattern did not exist with top DC prep schools.

My kid is at a Big3 and does 4+ hours of homework at night. But (to given one example) she is in the most advanced math track. There are kids in 4 different math levels within one grade (so from easy math to super difficult).

So the course level varies quite a bit between students, let alone between schools (some of the Big3 are more difficult than others).

My DD didn't do sports in high school, of her choosing. That freed up the time to get homework done, and time to relax. Her good grades reflect it.

Some kids don't have as many free periods because they choose to take an extra class. My son's friend wanted to take an economics elective and a fine arts elective so he rarely had a free period. Other kids must do the same thing because I've read that students can eat in class if they don't have a free period that day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody has that much homework. It’s a lie that parents tell, just like people who claim to work 100 hours a week.

You are very wrong. Four hours of homework per night is very common at Big 3 and somewhat common at many public and private schools. At most non-Big 3 schools, you can get by with less, so only top students work that hard. At Big 3, unless you're unusually efficient, your grades probably suffer a lot of you do only 2 hours per night. It's also not cool to get mediocre grades at Big 3, so many people do the work required to get B or above in all courses, which is a lot.

Most students at Big 3 have more reading and writing than most students at other schools.

4-5 hours per night means your kid didn't use free periods during the day and/or isn't very efficient in doing their work. I disagree that grades suffer if they are doing less.

-Parent of two Big 3 current or former students.

I know a few Big 3 parents who are also Burke/Field/Sandy Spring parents. Most will say that they prefer Burke/Field/Sandy Spring to Big 3 because the difference between 2-3 hours of homework per night and 4-5 hours per night is very noticeable in terms of kids' happiness and family stress levels.

Anonymous wrote:Nobody has that much homework. It’s a lie that parents tell, just like people who claim to work 100 hours a week.

You are very wrong. Four hours of homework per night is very common at Big 3 and somewhat common at many public and private schools. At most non-Big 3 schools, you can get by with less, so only top students work that hard. At Big 3, unless you're unusually efficient, your grades probably suffer a lot of you do only 2 hours per night. It's also not cool to get mediocre grades at Big 3, so many people do the work required to get B or above in all courses, which is a lot.

Most students at Big 3 have more reading and writing than most students at other schools.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in MS at a "big 3" and has two ECs that give him a lot of pleasure. This thread is making me think that we need to find him another school for high school.

That's a big part of why we left. One activity was encouraged. Two was said to be too much.

Nobody has that much homework. It’s a lie that parents tell, just like people who claim to work 100 hours a week.

Every high school kid has sleep depravation. So does just about every working adult in the country.