<p>Is there anyone familiar with the school?
I have heard that the school is not as good as it used to be, in terms of academic quality and teacher-parents relation, etc.
Could you please share your experience?</p>
<p>Recently spoke to parents of a current junior; they were as happy as clams. Social context of a high school, but university level classes.</p>
<p>I know people who currently go to Roxbury Latin, but considered BU academy. Like toadstool said, it is a high school with tremendous university opportunities. Among that, it has an arguably stronger math and science department than many magnet schools. </p>
<p>All hearsay, by the way.</p>
<p>I"m a current parent - I’ll be happy to answer any questions. First, you may have seen some negative comments on some websites that review schools. I believe that this is largely because of a very small number (one to three) families who are very unhappy and have been very vocal.
That having been said, BUA is a very academically demanding school. Right now we have two kids who have advanced through the AMC and AIME to the USAMO, and several who have done very well on the AMC/AIME. We have the current high school state chess champion. Our robotics, math and science teams all do quite well. We have a lot of high scoring students on the National Latin and Greek exams. We continue to send kids to great schools too. Our juniors are generally taking two and sometimes three college courses each semester. Last year I believe we had 17 seniors who were National Merit Commended or Semi-finalists - which is pretty good given that the senior class had about 38 kids.
I’m very happy with teacher-parent and head-parent relationships as well.
Finally, I will say that BUA is not like most prep schools. We aren’t big on sports (although we have sent at least one student to college on a sports scholarship which given that we only have a couple hundred grads isn’t bad.) We don’t have a big, pretty campus with green fields and rolling hills. (But we do have all the facilities of BU to play with - including the arena, the sports fields, and the library.)
For those who can handle the load and like the culture, it’s a wonderful place.</p>
<p>One of every three parents are unhappy? Brings it to under a 70% approval rating among the student body. I hear it is great in math and science, is it for students, however, who are not sure what they want to major in? Do they have a strong humanities program?</p>
<p>No - principalviola - there are one , two or three unhappy families that are complaining on public boards. I’m basing this largely on the fact that there is a set of comments that are nearly always the very same wording that have showed up in a few forums. NOT one OUT OF three families.
BUA is very strong in the humanities as well - it’s a little less obvious because there are fewer competitions to boast about. But we get about an even number of kids who are focusing on both based on the topics for senior theses for the past several years. The humanities side of things is very classically based. By this I mean, yes, Greek or Latin as the language choice for underclassmen (upperclassmen can choose anything BU offers), and a heavy dose of the Western canon in both English and history classes.
For example, freshmen read and debate - Homer, Hesiod, Greek lyric poets, Herodotus,Plato, Aristotle, Livy, Horace, Virgil,Tacitus, Suetonis, Pliny,Petronius,Augustine and a few others. They go to the MFA to study Greek poetry, and those in Greek manage to translate the inscriptions. That’s in history - in English they are exposed to a broad range of authors but also read more Homer. (All of this is in translation, admittedly, although they get bits of the original works in Latin and/or Greek as well.)
As sophmores, they read the big survey of England - Beowulf to Virginia Woolf (although I’m not actually sure if Virginia is on the reading list this year - but you get the idea, I’m sure).
Take a look at the matriculation list - you’ll see plenty of schools noted more for humanities than for science. St. Johns, for example, always sends us a college rep.</p>
<p>I can offer some views as a parent of a student who considered BUA but does not attend. We spoke with a number of parents, students, teachers, and staff and were very impressed with the sense of community and support as well as the academic standards. The parents I spoke with all felt good about their communication and connection with the school (Several of these parent conversations were not setup by admissions.) </p>
<p>If your question is about change, my understanding is that there has been some change under the Head who came a few years ago. Change can be difficult for some people to adjust to, but prospective students and families would be well served to consider if the BUA of today is right for them.</p>
<p>My sense is that academic standards are very high. There are very few high schools in the country (less then five?) that have the percentage of senior class attain National Merit Commended or higher that BUA’s class has.</p>
<p>For a quick overview of BUA checkout the Head’s current letter: <a href=“Boston’s Best Private High School for Curious + Kind Students | Boston University Academy”>Boston’s Best Private High School for Curious + Kind Students | Boston University Academy;