<p>What is the best prep school in Humanities, Politics, International Affairs, and History?
My daughter loves History especially Classics! We also depend on a "need based" tuition. </p>
<p>SAT 550 Critical Reading at 7th grade</p>
<p>Thank you!!</p>
<p>Tough to define “best” in a way that anyone will agree on other than “best fit for a particular child”….</p>
<p>Pretty much any of the schools mentioned on this forum regularly will have great history teachers. Many also have great classics departments.</p>
<p>St. Paul’s (Concord, NH) is known to be very generous with aid and has an integrated Humanities program:
<a href=“https://www.sps.edu/academics/curriculum/default.asp?academicid=7111%2CD&nav=[/url]”>https://www.sps.edu/academics/curriculum/default.asp?academicid=7111%2CD&nav=</a></p>
<p>And perhaps some other schools do as well.</p>
<p>For some reason, I think of both Episcopal and Madeira as having strong international relations type programs…partially because of their proximity to DC and various off-campus programs they offer. These schools get very little play on the board but are very worth considering, IMO.</p>
<p>If you are just getting started looking for schools, this thread may be worth reading:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1174214-one-family-s-bs-search-application-process-start-finish.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1174214-one-family-s-bs-search-application-process-start-finish.html</a></p>
<p>It’s a recap of our entire process a few years back. My daughter chose St. Andrew’s School in Delaware, where she is now a junior.</p>
<p>NOTE: If you were sharing the 7th grade SAT score as a reference point for what sort of rigor your daughter might require, pretty much every school mentioned here (not just the “big names”) will give her a great education surrounded by many people with similar (and some cases, significantly higher) CTY/TIP qualifying scores.</p>
<p>I am a big fan of an integrated Humanities curriculum, and would suggest you look at some schools that follow that approach. I think it leads to a much deeper understanding, and develops really important skills of learning how to see connections between seemingly disparate subjects. </p>
<p>Just as an example, here’s how it works at Hotchkiss. For both 9th and 10th grades, there is an integrated Humanities curriculum. The Humanities curriculum includes history, literature, philosophy & religion, and an arts component (choice of dance, drama, art, or photography). Each of those classes meet 4 times a week, except philosophy & religion, which is twice a week. Although each course has a different teacher, the teachers work together behind the scenes to mesh what they’re doing in class. </p>
<p>So the 9th graders might be studying the middle ages in Europe for history, reading the Merchant of Venice for literature (as a window into what it was like in the Middle Ages), and studying the bible in philosophy & religion (because the church was such an important part of medieval life). For those three classes, the kids are in the same small group for each class – so they really get to know one another well and they all have the same experience and can weave what they talked about in history yesterday into the discussion in literature today. When we were recently there for parents’ weekend, we saw this in action and it was so great to hear 14 year olds actually making those kinds of connections themselves. You could almost see the lightbulbs going off over their heads and it made them really enthusiastic about volunteering their ideas in classroom discussions.</p>
<p>10th grade is structured the same way, though they move the kids around into different groups so that they get to know other kids and get different viewpoints. Then after 10th grade, they move into doing electives in Humanities depending more on their own individual interests.</p>
<p>Financial aid might be harder to find than than humanities - all the top schools have great humanities programs. Also look for “classics” programs if your child is interested in Latin and ancient Greek.</p>
<p>@2prepMom: I would also say that all the top schools also have fairly generous FA programs, no?</p>
<p>@SevenDad, I agree, the HADES schools with big endowments have good need based financial aid and excellent humanities - but I would expand that definition of “top” by a factor of about 10 in this case, (to top 50) because there are many wonderful GLADCHEMMS and “Hidden Gem” schools with great academics (including humanities), as well as potentially excellent aid. </p>
<p>In order to try to match up your student to a school with good financial aid and a top humanities program, look around at various option, and many different schools.</p>
<p>Seven Dad has been through this before, check out his posts about SAS, known for good financial aid and excellent academics. But there are lots more too, outside HADES and GLADCHEMMS.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your input! I know for a fact that her SAT is not that high at all and her SSat is only 79%. But, all of her essays are just extra ordinary and articulate that you will not know that it is written by a 13 years old. Most of her teachers said “wow!.” Well, AO might surprise us? I will definitely post if she gets in at all!! </p>
<p>Btw, I started late in our admission application at Hotchkiss…but it was just too late for me to finish the admission application! Hopefully, my daughter will end up to a school that has integrated Humanities curriculum!</p>