<p>Yesterday, I attended the revisit day at Peddie, which previously I loved. However, this revisit day is making me have second thoughts. Perhaps it was just the classes I was in, but they really did not seem rigorous. All the kids were talking about how hard it is to transition from public to private school workload - but in 8th grade I already have 3-4 hours a night. Apparently, at Peddie there is 2-4, so about the same. The classes I attended seemed easier than my PS classes, and the kids did not seem any more motivated. (Again, this is just what I saw - I'm sure there are some). The whole foundations courses seemed redunadant since I already do theater, music, and art with different medias. I don't know what to do. I'm a big advocate for Peddie, but perhaps there revisit day did not show the school in its best light.</p>
<p>I am having regrets not applying to schools such as L'vile, Andover, etc. Perhaps the courseload woild have been more fulfilling at those schools. I guess I did not think I was good enough to apply. I wanted fit, not name. But perhaps those schools would fit me better. My only other option at this point is Episcopal, whose classes seemed even less challenging. Unfortunately, Concord gave me no FA, so that was out.</p>
<p>I am feeling hopeless. What should I do? All this hard work I thought paid off...By the way, please don't let my post deter you from Peddie. Go to a revist day and see for yourself!</p>
<p>I would discuss your concerns with either someone from admissions or with the dean of academics. Ask how much flexibility there is in course placement. Also, keep in mind that you only saw one day in one student’s school year. You may not even be placed into the same classes. Take a good look at the course catalog and see if there are pre-requisites to the courses that are at a higher level. Often “or by permission of the department” is included to allow for kids with a richer backgroud to bypass the foundation level courses. I don’t know of any prep school that will allow a student to take classes that are below his/her level. </p>
<p>Your concerns are VALID, so they need to be addressed.</p>
<p>One advantage of most boarding schools (and I don’t know anything about Peddie) is that you are often placed in an appropriately challenging class. So, my daughter went into a language class in 9th grade with many upperclassmen, and took the AP after sophmore year. Some other kids were in math classes freshman year that she is in now as an 11th grader. So the classes you went to were probably right for the students in them even if not for you.</p>
<p>I like neato’s suggestion, but I’d also say that Episcopal and Peddie have strong reputations and I suspect that after a term or two, you will be surprised at just how challenged you will be. Don’t jump to a conclusion after attending one student’s schedule, use some critical thinking, resourcefulness and logic! :)</p>
<p>First of all, even in the most rigorous schools, not all students - depending on what background they are from (e.g. very rigorous private schools and some international schools in particular) would feel “overwhelmed” by the workload, especially in the first year, but it’s getting tougher as one takes on more challenging courses and more extracurricular activities. In schools with the resources, you can always find ways to challenge yourself.</p>
<p>That said, attending classes is indeed one important way to find out if the school is the right learning environment for you. It doesn’t have much to do with what class you attend. All you need is to evaluate how the class is taught, whether the students are engaged and how the teachers and students are interacting. My C had “shadow days” with two day schools back to back, going to classes at both schools, and it became immediately clear that one school was more rigorous than the other, the teacher taught better and the students were more engaged…</p>
<p>Considering you attended a few instead of one class, I think you are getting a good feel of what you are getting into. Don’t rule it out though. Ask yourself what you need from your BS experience compared with alternatives you have, and assuming what you have observed is true, envision what you could do to make the experience more productive and fulfilling.</p>
<p>Schools have courses of varying rigor. Students are usually placed in classwork at their required level. Could be you were previewing classes that aren’t necessarily the ones you will be taking.</p>
<p>You could wait and apply to Exeter next year - but the applicant pool is so high there are no guarantees you’ll be admitted.</p>
<p>And there are no guarantees that you will be challenged at Peddie! As you already said your current school is challenging with more work than you might get at Peddie, so you’ll be fine even if you don’t get into E.</p>
<p>I may get any boos for saying this, but I just doubt there’s a huge difference in the actual academic rigor at the upper levels of Peddie and Episcopal and some of the more popular schools you are now thinking about. All of these schools have incredible teachers and extremely bright students. Where they will differ in is culture. In some schools, piling on hours of homework is the norm. Kids love complaining about how much work they have, and battling through the workload is part of the process. In other schools, the culture may be to assign less homework, but as long as the assingments are meaningful to the students’ growth, less homework doesn’t always mean less brain activity. I’d warn anyone against making the false equation that academic or intellectual rigor is directly proportional to the number of homework hours assigned. It’s about the quality of the assignments, the quality of the intellectual work being done during class, and the engagement level of the faculty and your peers. You went into your school search looking for fit, and it sounds like you have some questions about that fit now that you’ve visited Peddie. </p>
<p>Since I’m guessing you have a way to contact current students and ask them questions about the school, here are a few you might consider asking:
Do kids talk about the ideas raised in class outside of school hours or just talk about how much work they have to do? Does the homework you get expand/change/grow your understanding of what’s being learned in class, or is it just busy work? Do kids actually do all of the assigned work, or just the stuff they know they have to turn in? Are classes fun? exciting? How often do you find yourself really learning, rather than just taking notes and memorizing?</p>
<p>If you can get some current students to open up about how things really function, you might get a better sense of the fit you are looking for. I’m also on the side that one visit day cannot give you a full picture of the actual rigor of the class, although it can give you some keys to the culture of the school. Don’t worry about the foundations classes in the Arts, either. There’s always more to learn from different angles or approaches, and many, many of your classmates will also already have experience in these areas, and a good teacher will know that. </p>
<p>It’s normal to have doubts and to wonder about the path not taken. You have two incredible educational opportunities in front of you. Best of luck finding the right fit!</p>
<p>I’d say you should be less concerned with “more” or “less” work (or even the initial challenges you are getting) than what you saw in the classroom for different classes you attended on revisit day (was it just one class or most of the classes you attended that concerned you) if you felt the teachers weren’t teaching well and the students were uninterested or couldn’t hold a decent class discussion. If it’s just because you already know the material covered in the classes you attended, you know better - there are of course more advanced courses offered by the school.</p>
<p>No pains, No gains. More quantity doesn’t mean less quality.</p>
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<p>How can one find answers for all these questions by A10? They would have to attend the classes everyday until A10 even to get reasonable answers. Current students generally will tell you they love their school. But do you love it? It can only be answered by you attending the classes which you did to a limited extent. However, if you are in 8th grade and you attended a 9th grade class, that tells you something right there.</p>
<p>Beatlesforever, if your public middle school is rigorous, how is your local public high school? If you don’t feel strongly drawn to a school at this point, it might not be a good fit for you. </p>
<p>If your default option is not challenging enough, you may have to choose the boarding school you like better. If you have reservations at this point, though, I would counsel you to listen to your doubts. As Neato suggested, contact the schools to discuss placement and rigor.</p>
<p>Thanks all for your suggestions and thoughts. This is a very difficult decision for my family and I…we are all basically taking the weekend off from other things just to evaluate the situation. I agree that I shouldn’t have judged rigor by homework hours, but pulsar does have a good point. As for the rigor of my public district, it’s supposed to be pretty challenging at this moment. However, with budget cuts and all now the BOE is trying differentiated learning to eliminate classes and teachers, which is not too great for either side of the bell curve. They are also talking about eliminating the “cool” classes - things like art and such. My parents and I are probably going to contact the academic deans within the next few days. I am still not sure what to do, but your ideas were reassuring. Thanks for your support!</p>
<p>My d goes to Peddie. IM me and I will give you more info. Rigor is definitely there, but match-up for revisit is not based on academic interests from what I can tell. They do have tracks in math and science…</p>
<p>I was at the Peddie revisit day as well for my child. I understand your concerns about academic intensity very well.</p>
<p>My thoughts at the end of the day were that Peddie has excellent facilities and excellent staff and faculty. Mr. Greene, I thought, is a wonderful principal. Science teacher, who presented to parents, is amazing. Math teacher, who presented at lunch time, is very funny and appeared very intelligent. Math track presented to us suggested that it would be very challenging with advanced kids taking AP Calculus BC and AP Statistics by the time they graduate. I was sure that if a student was looking for challenge, he would find it at Peddie. I was also very impressed with the Summer Signature program in which the students create an independent project related to their interests.</p>
<p>What was missing to me was the caliber of students. That could have been better. I understand that it is a chicken and egg situation. Peddie wants brighter students, but they won’t come to Peddie until it has brighter students. In this regard, Peddie is making efforts and slowly making headway. It will take time.</p>
<p>If my child was admitted only to Peddie and did not have to choose, I would have no qualms about going to Peddie. There would be enough challenge and academic rigor by going for the toughest courses and schedule. In this respect, I found Peddie to be more flexible than other schools.</p>