I agree. If the PP is real (and I'm a AA DC resident with kids in private school), then she doesn't have a clue about how this area really works. And that guy in the waiting room?? Do a background check!

OK, now you are starting to sound pretty troll like. If you aren't a troll you are a little wacky.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PG poster here again. Roosevelt is a magnet school that has won some awards over the years. It is very difficult to get into, because it receives a lot of applicants as the best high school PG County has to offer. Serious problem with crime in the area--primarily robberies, auto thefts and burglaries.

I get the big picture. I think I'm on the right track for looking at private schools. I just don't feel like dealing with that kind of drama at all. Now here is a new topic for the board. I was studying the GP admissions web site and it says that an applicant needs a recommendation from somewhere other than a teacher ie. an outside source. My question point blank is like?

maybe a coach, pastor, outside music teacher?

Are you really serious? A coach,pastor or music teacher will do? Not a senator or congressman.? We are talking about GP. On the other hand my pastor did go to all of the Ivies. He might really have a name for himself. You will see him in the news real soon. He is protesting against same sex marriage. He invited Steny Hoyer (congressman) to our church to talk about health care reform. Hoyer said he knows pastor and his wife personally. That's what he said. My husband, son and I were in the Optometrist office in a mall last weekend when my son struck up a conversation with an absolute stranger. It didn't bother me because he was within 10 feet of us. Later that stranger called me outside of the store and said to me, "Your son is striking and I'd like to say that you are really doing a great job. I know he is going many places. I'd like to mentor him". I said, well get in line because his dad is pretty busy helping him with Eagle scout activities". He said, "What? that is great!". He then said, "I work for the Obama administration, I've graduated from Harvard and Yale and I like to see other AA males do what I've done". He said, "here is my card". I said, "there is a school that he is interested in called GP and it needs a recommendation". He said, "Oh yeah, they play against Landon, I'm mentoring a boy at Landon and that's how I know them". He then said, "I am qualified to write the recommendation". He insisted that he write it. He suggested that he and my husband sit down with my son for a couple of dinner dates and we will take it from there. I just need enough info about him to make it sound personal". He sounds like someone we need to help my son get in but he is a total stranger. We still have not contacted him. He says he is a senior economic advisor at the WH. I am still checking him out. I am explaining all of this to say that "Is this a better recommendation?" I mean we talkin' GP here.

Anonymous wrote:" Oh and another thing I have just noticed that there are social groups for moms at GP."


Huh? Am I missing something?

There are mom clubs that support the boys. I'll try to see if I can find it again. Its a really neat concept.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PG poster here again. Roosevelt is a magnet school that has won some awards over the years. It is very difficult to get into, because it receives a lot of applicants as the best high school PG County has to offer. Serious problem with crime in the area--primarily robberies, auto thefts and burglaries.

I get the big picture. I think I'm on the right track for looking at private schools. I just don't feel like dealing with that kind of drama at all. Now here is a new topic for the board. I was studying the GP admissions web site and it says that an applicant needs a recommendation from somewhere other than a teacher ie. an outside source. My question point blank is like?

maybe a coach, pastor, outside music teacher?

" Oh and another thing I have just noticed that there are social groups for moms at GP."


Huh? Am I missing something?

Anonymous wrote:13:48 makes some good points. I think the Jesuit communities in the DC area (Prep, GU) enjoy the reputation the likes that Michigan have fostered. As a side note, the Christian Brothers are what the Jesuits profess to be. Regular acts of kindness are part of the everyday process. Their generosity is global. They are represented in every culture and their human engagement is boundless. Needless to say, I think their great.

I do not see where the Jesuits have even remotely attempted to suggest that they are anything less than intentionally highly educated. Somewhere it said something about taking a vow of poverty but since the inception of the "Society of Jesus", they have declared to be intellectuals, scientists and college professors. Georgetown Prep is within its rights to be the difficult environment it is, if it really is so. The Jesuits are elite. People with obvious noteable flaws and people who tend to stand out are just not welcomed. If you are looking for the real Christian brothers look at De La Salle who educated everybody and the Xavian Brothers ,well, that may be risking some of the elitism associated with traditional Catholic education since they dealt with the learning disabled. Although, I believe "Our Lady of Good Counsel High School" is the bomb! Great football and basketball. In dealing with Georgetown Prep and even Gonzaga expect to be pressed. One would have to be really at the top of his game to play with dem boys. You need to be academic, sports minded and have some measure of spirituality just not too much. Each of us know our sons and know what we have in them. We have known them all of their lives so take a look at who he is and make the decision. Now I totally understand the the need to be around people who have things in common with you. Socioeconomic background is key. I mean you have to hang out with folks you have something in common with but maybe the number one Jesuit school in the country ain't it. Earlier posts suggest Landon,STA and Bullis. Heck I think Gonzaga is a softer blow than GP. Look GP strikes me as a school that you have to fit into like a hand in glove or it will be 4 years of misery. That's pretty much what it all boils down to. If you want to get a Jesuit education and hide into the masses go to Gonzaga if you really beleive in Jesuit stuff. Pretending that GP is compassionate is just asking a lot.

Anonymous wrote:01/05/2010 10:05

Me again. There are some kids that are happy there. I'm not saying everyone is unhappy, but I think it is sad to walk a campus adorned with posters "men on conscience," "integrity" and "compassion" amidst so many unhappy (and often bullied) young men. The kid you mentioned - if he loves sports, is thick skinned, and thrives on acting macho- perhaps he has found the perfect place for his temperment. My gentle, artistic, inquisitive son who isn't particularly sporty feels, well, exactly like another poster put it- "mean girls for guys."

An all boys school just ain't the place for the non sporty. Maybe a school with the same level of education that is coed would be a better choice. Just an opinion.

Hoping not to get too into acadamese here, but on the subject of the Jesuit educators (which is really pertinent to almost every urban area to this day) I went back to a passage I recalled from the pre-eminent historian Jacques Barzun:
Th Jesuits set up schools by the score. In mid-17th. C Europe there were more schools and pupils than in the 19th. C.
. . . all likely youths rich or poor were given the means to attend and the merits of the system were soon seen in the galaxy of brilliant minds that it produced. From Descartes to Voltaire and beyond, a good many philosophers and scientists were educated by the Jesuits.
(Of course, some of their bright pupils went on to use the same academic skills to undermine the dogmas they learned, but isn't this every good teacher's closet delight?)

13:48 makes some good points. I think the Jesuit communities in the DC area (Prep, GU) enjoy the reputation the likes that Michigan have fostered. As a side note, the Christian Brothers are what the Jesuits profess to be. Regular acts of kindness are part of the everyday process. Their generosity is global. They are represented in every culture and their human engagement is boundless. Needless to say, I think their great.

Anonymous wrote:PG poster here again. Roosevelt is a magnet school that has won some awards over the years. It is very difficult to get into, because it receives a lot of applicants as the best high school PG County has to offer. Serious problem with crime in the area--primarily robberies, auto thefts and burglaries.

I get the big picture. I think I'm on the right track for looking at private schools. I just don't feel like dealing with that kind of drama at all. Now here is a new topic for the board. I was studying the GP admissions web site and it says that an applicant needs a recommendation from somewhere other than a teacher ie. an outside source. My question point blank is like?

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the anger against the jesuits either. wow.

Google up the founding facts of the Jesuits. They were founded to educate the wealthy because no orders at that time were so designated (and the order of nuns known as the Madames of the Sacred Heart were founded to do the same). Both still have that ethos, but mix it up with the poor at all times.
That said: the Jesuits are a remarkable group of educators who have not veered thrpough the centuries from their dedication to the system called the Ratio Studiorum (Google that too) and have high schools and universities across the country.
A case in point that addresses the above quote --and others ---very specifically follows:

Take Detroit, Michigan. One of the premier private schools for boys there is the University of Detroit High School where the boys always quipped they had first to say their prayers at night and then review their Latin and their Greek.
Not unuusal at all for a Jesuit high school teacher to have a doctorate.
Back to Detroit.
As the wealthier families moved out of Detroit and it became substantially black, these families begged for decades to have the Jesuits move their school out to a dropdead beautiful retreat called Manresa which is directly along the great Cranbrook Campus )schools and art academy and science institute) since the jesuits owned the acres of Manresa.
The Jesuits steadfastly refused. They said simply that those who wanted to attend UofD as the hugh school is called could come into Detroit to school from toney suburbs. To this day, they maintain the same position.
The University of Detroit with its engineering,law,dental schools simply said the same thing when they were asked to follow their wealthier students. They said also that they were Detroit, period and were going no place.
Gotta admire this gang! If they live the high life, it assuredly has never appeared so to anyone in Detroit. The university has for decades been out among the neighborhoods organizing, helping, educating--same for the High School. The HS boys are in the Detroit projects regularly working for the underprivileged.
Another Jesuit High School for boys is Loyola (google this one up)--all black, superb educations. Elaine Stritch's sister was active here assisting here with a number of my friends.
The "Jebbies"s they are called just stood in place for Detroit when many hightailed it out to greener pastures.

PG poster here again. Roosevelt is a magnet school that has won some awards over the years. It is very difficult to get into, because it receives a lot of applicants as the best high school PG County has to offer. Serious problem with crime in the area--primarily robberies, auto thefts and burglaries.

Anonymous wrote:Please excuse my typo in the last paragraph above. It should read:

"And why is that most of the people who suggest that you live in PG don't live there themselves? It's usually, because the neighborhood that's "good for affluent Blacks" is not that great at all."

Anonymous wrote:I'm the person who posted about PG. My oldest will be in K next year, so we're looking at private schools. We are part of the Charles Flowers school cluster--which is good by PG's (lower) standard but doesn't hold a candle to Montgomery, Fairfax, Howard or Loudon. PG generally ranks 23rd or 24th out of the 24 counties in Maryland for public schools--so they are not an option for us.

Please don't be surprised that Mitchellville/Bowie did not hold its value. In the D.C. area, a neighborhood's value is closely related to the quality of the schools. For example, I have a friend who bought her house in Montgomery County at the same time that I bought mine and for about the same price--$750,000. Her home has maintained its value, because it's in a great public school district, so there will always be demand. In PG, many affluent Blacks are forced to send their children to private school, so the homes don't hold their value very well.

Another piece of friendly advice: Be careful when people tell you that a certain neighborhood is "good for affluent Blacks" as opposed to "for all affluent people". There are some (whether consciously or subconsciously) who believe that Blacks subscribe to a lower standard. If the neighborhood is so great "for Blacks", ask yourself how come other races don't want to live there? Ask yourself why people would pay more for a similarly constructed house if it's located in Montgomery or Fairfax? And why is that most of the people who suggest that you live there don't live in PG don't live there themselves? It's usually, because the neighborhood that's "good for affluent Blacks" is not that great at all.

Great point. For some reason I thought there was a different rule for selecting a neighborhood here than back home. Your advice sounds like something we would follow back home. It just seems more practical to live in a neighborhood with better schools. That is universal. I hope you find a good private school. Here is some freindly advice about that. When you select a private school be sure to study its matriculation practices. Its important to know where they go next. Now here is another question. I keep hearing about Bannaker, School w/out Walls and Roosevelt. What do you know about this math and science at Roosevelt? My son's freinds will apply to every private school around town and Roosevelt as well. So is that a good school? I wouldn't apply because I am really pro private school no matter what in spite of a there being good public schools and I can write a page on my reasons for that but I won't go there today. I would just have too much to say but anyway, Roosevelt?

Please excuse my typo in the last paragraph above. It should read:

"And why is that most of the people who suggest that you live in PG don't live there themselves? It's usually, because the neighborhood that's "good for affluent Blacks" is not that great at all."

Anonymous wrote:I'm the person who posted about PG. My oldest will be in K next year, so we're looking at private schools. We are part of the Charles Flowers school cluster--which is good by PG's (lower) standard but doesn't hold a candle to Montgomery, Fairfax, Howard or Loudon. PG generally ranks 23rd or 24th out of the 24 counties in Maryland for public schools--so they are not an option for us.

Please don't be surprised that Mitchellville/Bowie did not hold its value. In the D.C. area, a neighborhood's value is closely related to the quality of the schools. For example, I have a friend who bought her house in Montgomery County at the same time that I bought mine and for about the same price--$750,000. Her home has maintained its value, because it's in a great public school district, so there will always be demand. In PG, many affluent Blacks are forced to send their children to private school, so the homes don't hold their value very well.

Another piece of friendly advice: Be careful when people tell you that a certain neighborhood is "good for affluent Blacks" as opposed to "for all affluent people". There are some (whether consciously or subconsciously) who believe that Blacks subscribe to a lower standard. If the neighborhood is so great "for Blacks", ask yourself how come other races don't want to live there? Ask yourself why people would pay more for a similarly constructed house if it's located in Montgomery or Fairfax? And why is that most of the people who suggest that you live there don't live in PG don't live there themselves? It's usually, because the neighborhood that's "good for affluent Blacks" is not that great at all.