My son is applying to a number of Mass prep schools for middle school thru high school. The list includes:
Dexter Southfield
BB&N
Belmont Hill
St Sebastian
Roxbury Latin
I know Roxbury Latin is the hardest to get into (more competitive)
If you had to rank the schools above based on academics, and overall balance, what would your list look like?
(from what I hear Dexter’s new high school already has a matriculation rate as high as RL for IVYs…
Belmont Hill has an amazing modern technological advanced campus, BBN is kind of run down so to speak. St Sebs requires repeat year for younger students regardless of academics, RL has placed students with A and Bs on transcripts and has denied A+ students because of lack in other areas of their application
I am told by my tutor that he would be able to accept the challenge of anyone of the schools , just took his ISEE and said the Math portion was EASY for him.
He plays sports and is middle of the road, and I don’t want sports to take the center row, its there, he wil love it but I see education as being why he is attending any one of these schools
Would you take a repeat if another one of any of these schools accepts him as is?
a very confused and concerned parent… thanks for your time
I am surprised you would feel BBN is “run down.” I have a relative who attends there and has told me the facilities are amazing. My ranking for ACADEMICS would be:
Roxbury Latin
BBN
Belmont Hill
St Sebastian
Dexter Southfield
I would point out that Roxbury Latin and St Sebs are both very old school. If you want your child to have a more “modern” school I would look at the other 3 schools on your list.
daddy- respectfully, your information here isn’t accurate in the least:
“(from what I hear Dexter’s new high school already has a matriculation rate as high as RL for IVYs…
Belmont Hill has an amazing modern technological advanced campus, BBN is kind of run down so to speak. St Sebs requires repeat year for younger students regardless of academics, RL has placed students with A and Bs on transcripts and has denied A+ students because of lack in other areas of their application”
Each school on your list is VERY different from the others and offers EXTREMELY different experiences. All emphasize sports as an important element of the educational process but differ widely in academic rigor and demands.
My academic rank would be the same as Bulatt’s above effort but I would disagree with her/his assertion that RL and St Seb’s are “old schools.” Additionally, Dexter places a few athletes (particularly hockey and baseball) into IVY League schools but Dexter’s matriculation results in no way resembles that of Roxbury Latin (or BB&N and BH for that matter).
I’ll pop in here as my son is also looking at some of these schools. Could one of our resident experts place Fessenden and Beaver Country Day in the above ranking? Where would they be?
I know someone with a child at Meridian. That child is doing wonderfully. But, it’s a small school with non traditional coursework, as I understand it, and thus, likely a great choice for a certain kind of kid but not for most. Apples and oranges to the others on the list.
I want to thank everyone for their input. Well my son scored in the low 80s on the math portion but he scored pretty low on the vocab and reading…
He was rejected at Belmont Hill
Rejected at RL
wait listed BBN
Wait listed Dexter
Wait listed Sebs
I was impressed with all the schools byt st sebs. (yet I looked at Austin Prep and I loved that school as compared to St Sebs. I am proactively doing what I can while on waitlist hoping something pens up at Dester or BBN
the matriculation rate I gave for Dexter was given to me by admissions the day I went for the interview for the past so many years their have had a high school
just this list of schools, just considering academics:
RL
St. Seb’s
Belmont Hill
BB&N
Dexter Southfield
Take the DS AO comment with a grain of salt. Matriculation rates are not as clear-cut as one might think - ivy legacies skew stats big time. also, think of the ivy school list / D1 list overlap - this also muddies the waters… Academics alone, I find DS wanting.
…and my opinion on this ranking is quite strong…
Have you followed up with the WL schools? Have you considered having your son write letters to each WL school? the chances of moving off WL is not high, but the ones who express their desire to attend, keep in touch, etc., have better chances (there are also those other factors, which we have no control over).
I’m curious - do you mind if I ask - did you apply for FA?
@vindobona@TeddyBallgame Fessenden, BCD, and Meridian are really in another league. Their expressed mission, goals, communities, and means of transmitting curricula are quite different from each other, no? They are certainly different from daddyproud’s list of schools. …btw isn’t Fessenden K-9?