Experience with Prep Schools?? - Page 9

1) St Andrews is the finest educational institution for Anglican divinity studies.
2) It's location and "historic" aesthetic curry great favour with the wasps of Scotch blood.
3) Relaxed academic environment. With 4 hours of class per week in 3rd and 4th year, it's a country club that awards degrees.
4) A Mecca towards which all golfers inexorably make a Hajj.
5) Leading International Relations department (favourite of Americans, myself included)
6) Prince William effect.
7) Has everything for those who didn't make the cut to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge. (There's a few failed legacies here) Polo, boating, exclusive men's club (Kate Kennedy Club), and corporate networking.

St Andrews is a very well kept secret state side, and the Americans are virtually exclusively private school.

Now, inspect the cultures of each of the prospective schools carefully. Some of my friends make great guy-guy friends, but terrible boyfriends. Which is to say, you get the rich player types who push buttons and show off money, bed the girl, and fuck off. The last thing you want is a culture that overly encourages her to be a cum dumpster for future frat boys. Also to be avoided are the cliques of kids who bitch about the age at which they receive their trust funds. There's nothing like an "oppressed" Park Avenue youth who doesn't get is $25 million until....25. Or listening to the aforementioned Polo snob talking about a white-tie multi-school gala in NYC where they were passed out drunk in a $1,500 per night suite at the Plaza.

There's a golden and debauched side each to the world being entered. Daddy's bankbook and a code of honour (Let us never speak of it again!) are why these excesses remain unseen. However, the gold is worth the price to be paid. I just learned their tricks and benefited from a grandfather who rose to being their co-workers and benefit from his experience. Plan for the long term. Befriend as many people as possible. Figure out who holds you with contempt, and shield yourself from their influence while you're in contact with them. They're better connected and can prove an obstacle. (This does happen, as high school and college is play for the real world for these kids, and they're fairly capable players at that).

uh, sounds wonderful

Just popping in to lol at sciences being some club for Asian dudes.

I spent a year teaching at one of the South's most exclusive " Episcopal Day Schools." I had recently been ordained a young priest and was hired to teach both theology and history. Here are the biggest complaints I have about the experience.

1. And this one is personal. Because I was unmarried and was a priest, I should be paid less than my peers with the same experience.
2. There was an unspoken rule that some kids are better than others due to the kid's parents.
3. Dad's money was able to ensure the kid would get into at least an "A' quality university, never mind their SAT score.
4. Open drug use was ignored by the administration.
5. Many of the parents EXPECTED their kids to receive "A's" on their report cards because they were paying tuition.


Look, I could have stayed there until I died. Could have been one of the "beloved" older faculty members. I would have never been able to marry. ( I had a couple of dates while there and the administration called me in and asked if she was a "good" girl.) I would have never had a family. There have been many times I questioned if I should have been a public school teachers, but now, looking back, I am glad I left.

2-5 are quite common to some degree at many (if not all) private schools. All parents implicitly demand better college acceptance rates and larger scholarship payouts. Parents are buying a "golden ticket" more than an education. Of course, special...exemptions exist for likeable athletes and high donors.

That may be true of private schools in general, but I would not say it is true of the first tier of NE prep schools.

At my alma mater, having rich or famous parents was, if anything, a detriment. The school went out of its way to demonstrate that they didn't care who your parents were, and if a hand-out was going to be given, it would be to the kid on scholarship who *needed* it more.

But just to tick down the list:

2. Was not at all true, with the exception that children of trustees had more latitude than most other kids;
3. Didn't really apply, because anybody who could get into the school could get into a good-quality university (not Ivy, per se, but high-quality);
4. Not at all. First time drug (or alcohol) use on campus was 100% grounds for dismissal and we probably lost 10 - 20 students a year for violations;
5. May have been true of the parents. They definitely didn't get what they wanted - our valedictorian had an A-/B+ average; parents who tried to 'throw their weight around' usually ended up hurting their kids rather than helping them.

I went a "very good" public school, but my college was about 50% public school kids and 50% prep school kids. To be frank, the prep school kids were more polished in many ways, such as dress, etiquette, and especially writing and communication skills. They had advantages all through college, and although everyone I know from college went on to have a lot of success I'd say the prep school kids are even better off.

Long story short, if you can afford it and you're kid's "into school" I'd be all about prep schools. In addition, all the ones you mention are names and will carry some significant weight in the college-application process.

Cheers!

agree with this, I went to a NE private school, and one guy got expelled 2 days before graduation due to drug.

You embody part of what is so wrong with humanity. In prep school, people like you were very easy to pick out. Good god.

Just when I didn't think you could possibly be anymore disgusting. You literally make me sick.

That's a hell of a junior member post. Good show.

No? I found many people in chem, math, physics and engineering were asian, or asian american.

I wonder if there's a big difference in general between private schools and prep schools built on the english model. I went to prep schools, mostly, and I can't say that i ever felt kids from really rich families ever got preference from teachers or for grades. I'm not saying it doesn't happen anywhere, but it certainly wasn't going on at the schools i went to. In fact, at graduation a lot of kids were complaining that grading was too hard and that it put us at a disadvantage for college admissions.

Normally I'd agree with you, but unless I am in private with a handful of close friends, I play the observer and the diplomat rather than the judge, critic, and and righteous snob. You don't get the data (aka juicy story) from someone when you speak the mind's (often unpleasant) truth.

I don't think you realize just how obvious and transparent the intentions of social climbers are. The amount of thought that you've put into it, made evident by several of your posts here, is alarming and in some ways tragic. I hope you don't expose your children to that level of cynicism.