Welcome @BlueBirdWine , and congrats @mama paradox!
Thank you. I just wanted just one yes from any of the schools for the twins. I am not picky. I never had the opportunity to attend a private school when I was young. All of our kids can be whatever they want to be.
My son4 will be joining the BS class of 2022! We are very excited for him, but working on deciding where. Like mama Paradox, we just wanted one yes, and believed that he would âgrow where planted,â so to speak. Heâs one of those kids who is fine just about anywhere. We are looking forward to revisit days as he has not visited most of his schools, and they are 1000 miles away for us, but we are confident that there are no bad decisions to be made.
The twins have decided on a school and are so happy. Both schools were equally great. Make your hotel reservations early near the schools for revisit days. I am very frugal.
Congratulations on their decision! My husband and I are probably stressing way too much over this decision. It just seems so important. I have reminded myself 500 times this past week that regardless of the school or schools decided upon, there are no bad choicesâŠbut then I go down a rabbit holeâŠagain.
I definitely understand⊠This is an important decision. Enjoy the ride!
@KentuckyMomma , take your cues from your kid, but itâs okay to weigh in, particularly after the revisits. In many ways, you and the school will be âco-parentingâ for the next 4 years, and if you have misgivings about one of your "cosâ, thatâs important. At some point in the next 4 years, there will be SOMETHING that comes up that will require that you work with the school on something â often something a bit difficult --, and boy, is that a drag when you have really different values and world views. So you should be as alert to how you feel during the revisits as your kid. And donât worry about those rabbit holes â used wisely, they are a good way to process a ton of info.
Berkshire is an awesome school with so many amazing offerings that many other schools donât have!!
We are going on a revisit day on 4/6/18 . My twins wants to see the school again and shadow a student for the day. We will have a long drive ahead of us to Mass. The school is giving a cupcake social and a formal presentation on 4/5/18. Trying to save money the best I can. In September, I want the kids to have enough spending money and all the school supplies that they need.
Any advice for parents whose kid may want to attend another school than your choice after Revisit Day? We are going with the school where our student will be most happy, feels its the bet fit, feels at home⊠we want BS experience to be positive and for kiddo to thriveâŠbut know that some parents out there may seek matriculation stats over happiness factorsâŠany thoughts?
Thank goodness that I allowed the twins to make their own decisions. After a certain age, kids are very head strong. ( Smile)
Iâd say that if a parent has already decided on the school, letting a kid attend revisits in hopes that the kid will choose that school is a recipe for disaster and is not fair to the child. Works great if the kid chooses the ârightâ school, nothing but grief if s/he doesnât. Youâd hope that the student only applied to schools that everyone would be happy with or why apply? Iâm in the camp of letting the child choose at this point. All of the schools that accepted the child know that their school is a good fit, so itâs pretty hard to go wrong with any of them. If the parent is going to have the final say, then that should be discussed up front, before the child loves the âwrongâ school.
So trueâŠ
Excellent posts @Golfgr8 and @ChoatieMom! Thankfully we are not in this situation, but I have a close friend who is in this predicament. She and her daughter are at odds over which school is the best choice for DD. In their case the discrepancy is not over matriculation stats. Rather, itâs in regards to the levels of structure at each school, in addition to the fact that one is single sex and the others are not. I am afraid that if she does not allow her daughter to make the choice then DD will go into a full blown rebellion. Nothing like spending tens of thousands of dollars on a year of BS only to end up with low grades and / or disciplinary problems at school! I hope they can work things out so that does not happen.
Agree with @ChoatieMom assuming all the choices fit within the familyâs financial situation. DH and I were each inclined toward different schools than the one AppleKid had as a first choice (and ultimately picked to attend), but we wanted AK to own the big decision to go to school away from home. Even when things have been stressful, weâve not heard âI wish I was at another schoolâ or âI wish I had stayed homeâ.
Which is not to say that DH and I kept quiet about our opinions. The revisit process was tiring on many levels, but it was certainly a journey of discovery. I would say that our communication as a family has probably never been as good as it was during that trip. We would touch base with each other with silent looks or whispers during the revisits, and we had really interesting conversations after each revisit. And lots of laughter all around! So really there was no surprise when it came down to the final choice.
Safe travels and best wishes to all!
Thanks @AppleNotFar - did you find that AKâs first choice did change after Revisit process?
Did you parents find that the Revisit experience provided a pretty accurate reflection of life at the school, or was it âBSâ about the BS? :-S
I think I may be the outlier here! As we were applying, we felt that all of the schools where DS applied were a better option than the LPS. In that sense, had he gotten into only one â the one I liked the least â I think we would have okay with him going there over the LPS. (A friend had told me in advance that you shouldnât let your kid apply to a school where you wouldnât let them go because it might be only school where they were admitted.) But when he had other options â ones which I felt were better on a number of fronts â I felt that I too had a say in this. I know a little more about the world and I was going to be paying.
And as it happened, DS was liking the school I didnât after the revisit. As we talked about it, it had to do with the fact that it felt really familiar to him â it was very similar to his middle school in terms of demographics, type of kid, etc. It was similar in that the staff was authoritarian and the boys were bonding over their minor disobediences in class. I respected that he felt comfortable, but these not compelling reasons imo.
After his revisit to the one I preferred â which felt very different from what he was used to and in that regard, less comfortable â he agreed that while it didnât feel comfortable in a familiar way, the kids were nice and welcoming and that it was clearly a âbetter schoolâ in an academic sense. We talked about it more, and in the end, he agreed that he could be comfortable with something that was less familiar and that high school was a great time to expand oneâs horizons. I am glad that I didnât leave it totally up to him, and with BS in the rearview window, so it he.
I agree that itâs unfair to let your kid go look at a school if youâre going to refuse to let them attend. I think that as adults, we sometimes pick up on things that they donât that could be important. I would never have forced my kid to go to a school he didnât like â and that wasnât the situation â but I wanted to have a voice in the discussion.
As I said above in the thread, it is very likely that at some point, there will be something that comes up that requires you to interact with the school, and at that point, it will be much easier if you truly trust that you BOTH have your kidâs best interest at heart and that, even if youâre approaching the issue from different perspectives, you can partner with these people.
I am sure that there are plenty of situations when all of the choices are equally good, but it is quite possible for that NOT to be the case as well.
@Golfgr8 , I felt that the revisits were very accurate. Of course, there are always things that you realize later, which is why I am here nowâŠ
:)>-
@Golfgr8 No change. And perhaps there was a self-fulfilling prophecy thing happening as I suspect the kid had pretty much decided on M10. So how do you keep an open mind and how do you encourage your kid to keep an open mind? I actually do think my kid gave the other schools due consideration at the revisitsâitâs kind of hard not to when the schools are all putting their best foot forward and highlighting the best aspects of their communities. When it came down to the final choice, my kid was clear about which school, but found it hard to say no to the others because they were all good schools and we had made positive connections with people at each of them.
I understand where @gardenstategal is coming from and donât think our approaches were so different. Ideally parents and kid will reach a mutual conclusion; in the end both should be happy with the final decision.
Revisit days were very important for both of my kids, as they had some good options and not a super-clear first choice. We approached revisits as âresearchâ and came up with a few questions or areas to explore during the visit. For example, my son is really into Studio Art but heâs also an athlete. He didnât want a school where the artists and the jocks were two separate groups. So at revisits he asked students about that dynamic at their school. We found it helpful to go into it with the goal of active information-gathering, as opposed to a passive âabsorb the vibeâ approach. YMMV of course, but I really wanted my kids to feel good about their decision, as they both had good options at home.