<p>Hello, I'm new on this forum and have read lots of good info (thank you to those who take the time to provide info & insights), but am trying to get some specifics. Perhaps there are some folks who have an informed perspective on 2 schools, ideally based on direct experience.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted to Nobles and Milton as a Gr 9 day student (she was also accepted to an all-girls school, which she's not excited about based on the location/ campus and girls that she knows who go there). She's a quiet, reserved, intellectual type (straight As, 96% SSAT, small group of friends) with many extracurricular activities (team & individual sports, chorus, excellent artist, meaty role in a school play this year, prolific reader). My sense is that both schools will meet her extracurricular needs just fine. The marketing messages and academic stats b/w Nobles and Milton are fairly similar, but I'd like to get any insights CC folkds may have on the following:</p>
<p>Academic - teacher quality, "intellectualness" of the classes, rigor/intensity of assignments</p>
<p>Culture - sense of community, general friendliness, acceptance of diverse personalities, quality of student advising, how well school leaders set a positive tone and serve as good examples of leadership</p>
<p>I realize these are meaty issues and perhaps sensitive topics. Any insights would be most appreciated!</p>
<p>We know a number of kids at both schools, and also know parents very involved in both schools (on the boards, etc). They’re both great schools, and I really believe you can’t go wrong either way. That said, I do think there are some differences. Both schools have a very strong emphasis on sports. Nobles seems to me to be more encouraging of kids who want to try a new sport (squash or crew, for instance), and also encourages athletes to be involved in other activities too (drama, arts, etc). Milton’s emphasis very heavily is on football/lacrosse/hockey and they have had some issues (including quite recently) with students recruited to play those sports exhibiting poor behavior and perhaps not otherwise being academically qualified for the school.<br>
Milton is perhaps more diverse than Nobles, particularly because the 50% boarding draws kids from other states and countries. On the other hand, Nobles has a much stronger emphasis on global studies, foreign travel, and study abroad programs. Nobles has a bit of a “beautiful people” thing going on, which I think can be difficult for a girl who isn’t totally self-assured.<br>
I can’t offer any stats in support of this, but I think that the kids at Nobles may on average be stronger academically – a goodly number of kids at Milton started there when they were in kindergarten or elementary school and it’s pretty hard to judge the academic aptitude of a 5 year old. Kids from the lower school who truly won’t cut it academically in the upper school do get moved out to other schools, but I think the school does end up keeping some kids from the lower school who probably wouldn’t have gotten admitted if they were applying fresh as 9th graders. In fact, this was what was behind the idea that was floated several years ago about making Milton’s lower and upper schools totally separate institutions. The parent and alumni community was wildly opposed, so it went nowhere in the end, but several people told me at the time it was because of concerns by the upper school’s head that the kids who came through from the lower school were holding Milton’s college matriculation stats down.</p>
<p>I am fairly familiar with both schools. Many of my friends attend either school and most of them love it. Both have great academics, sports, and college admissions. Like soxmom said, I honestly don’t think you can go wrong. I would give the academic advantage to Milton and the sports advantage to Nobles. Many of my friends at Nobles are great at one sport but after trying a new sport at Nobles, they are one of the best on their team. Many of my friends at Milton seem to shy away at trying new sports but that is the just the way I see it. Another thing to think about is, potentially, financial aid. Since you didn’t mention it, I’m assuming that you are not needing financial aid of sorts. However, if that is not the case, I think you should take a long look at which one offers a better package. Otherwise, go to revisit days for both and allow your daughter to put herself at each schools. As for my opinion, your daughter being a more quiet, reserved person might have a hard time to make friends at Nobles as it is preppy and may have formed cliques already. You could certainly say the same thing for Milton but I didn’t find it preppy at all and a lot of my quiet friends have found friends at Milton. Again, revisit day and decide. </p>
<p>(P.S They have an intense rival with each other like A/E so they might not like you going to their rival school.)</p>
<p>“I think that the kids at Nobles may on average be stronger academically – a goodly number of kids at Milton started there when they were in kindergarten or elementary school and it’s pretty hard to judge the academic aptitude of a 5 year old. Kids from the lower school who truly won’t cut it academically in the upper school do get moved out to other schools, but I think the school does end up keeping some kids from the lower school who probably wouldn’t have gotten admitted if they were applying fresh as 9th graders.”</p>
<p>Your argument is specious. Only 24 kids are admitted to Milton for Kindergarten, even if all of these children graduated, which is unlikely, the graduating class is ~168 so this 14% would hardly hold college matriculation rates down considering that Milton sends ~50% to top schools (comparable to Deerfield, Lawrenceville, Choate and Hotchkiss which do not have lower schools).</p>
<p>Note that I said kindergarten or elementary school, there are later entry points too. Anyway, your argument is non-responsive. If the premise is that some kids in the high school don’t quite measure up to the same academic standards, then citing statistics about the top half of the class going to “top” schools doesn’t answer the question. The more relevant data would be where does the bottom half of the class go, and how does that compare to the bottom half of other schools. But I just offered it as a theory, I’m not wedded to being right, nor do i mean to disparage Milton, which I think is a very fine school. As a purely anecdotal data point, I do know several parents of current and recently graduated Milton students who say that their kids wouldn’t have gotten in to the high school but for coming through the lower school. And whether it was truly the reason or not, it was widely perceived at the time that this was why the head of the school was exploring disassociating the upper and lower schools.</p>
<p>Thank you for the replies! Indeed, my D applied to these schools as we understood them to be very good overall. I appreciate your insights as I dont know well any families at either school to ask about the nuances. My daughter is visiting both schools, but Im cautious that these visits may not reveal much unless theres a glaring issue for her. Please know that I dont take anyones remarks as disparaging of the schools as any institution has +/-s, but they are still excellent on the whole. I also have no illusions about identifying the perfect fit as there are just too many variables, but there are nuanced aspects of the community and teaching that I hope to ferret out.</p>
<p>Soxmom and Denroo, you both said something about Nobles perhaps being a difficult social environment for a quiet, reserved, brainy girl as Nobles girls are generally self-assured, preppy, “beautiful people”. Thanks for this honest input - makes me wonder if many girls tend toward inconsiderate, exclusive, self-absorbed (qualities that would shut my D down). Im sure shed find a few friends, but I do wonder how this impacts the sense of community and how do the school leaders deal with that (assuming its a recognized negative)? Do you have any thoughts on Milton in this regard? Certainly, the fact that it is more diverse should be a huge plus, though my concern there was the integration between boarding and day students.</p>
<p>Soxmom, its nice to hear that students are encouraged to try new sports and activities at Nobles. Do you have a sense of what drives this prep for college admissions, a focus on personal development, the school wanting to get their best athletes on multiple teams to be most competitive (as denroos comment may imply)? I didnt get a developing the child vibe from either school, but I suppose thats the nature of high/prep school (although I did get that vibe from Andover, though my D did not apply).</p>
<p>Denroo, why would you give Nobles the academic advantage what do you mean? We are not too concerned about grades/SAT/college admissions as Im sure my daughter will do just fine and get into a college thats right for her. But Id like her to be in an environment that will stimulate and develop her intellectual nature via intellectual classroom discussions that go deep into the subject matter and school work that requires deep thinking and creativity - my D loves to learn, not just get As. Perhaps neither school is really like that due to the size of their student body and wide range of kids and general focus on achievement (as opposed to a school like Commonwealth). Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I’ll try to answer as best I can, but obviously what I have to say is totally anecdotal. My impression (and it’s just that, an impression) is that the prototypical Nobles girl is Ayla Brown (Scott Brown’s daughter, who is tall, thin, pretty, got pretty far on American Idol, and ultimately went on to play varsity women’s basketball at BC). Someone like that would definitely have given me a complex when I was a somewhat quiet, introverted teenager who wished they could fit in with the cool kids! I know some girls who sort of fit that mode at Milton (though perhaps not quite as talented as she is), but I know other girls who have been very happy at Milton who were quiet (though still self-confident), intellectual types, and who then went on to attend excellent colleges. But I don’t really know the answer to your question on atmosphere – you can have an in-crowd who are a clique but are nonetheless nice to the people around them, or you can have an in-crowd who create a negative environment for those who aren’t part of their group. Sounds like your daughter would be fine with the former (just let the other girls do their thing), but not find with the latter.<br>
As for Nobles creating an atmosphere where kids feel comfortable trying new sports, I think it really just is for their personal development and wanting them to try new things, and not because the school is trying to end up with the most competitive teams (though they do want that too). I know a boy who was recruited there for one sport, and played for two years, but then wanted to give it up to try a different sport that he’d never tried before (and one that wasn’t as macho as the first sport), and the coaches and his friends thought that was perfectly cool, no one gave him a hard time. I didn’t have the sense that the same would necessarily be true at Milton.</p>
<p>We just went through the BS process with our son from a very competitive NYC k-8, and I see an academic mix of ability as a bit of a blessing. Believe me, when it comes to college application time, you will want your DD to be at or near the top of the class. It matters when lots of kids apply to the same school.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Nobles but we have a good friend whose daughter is a senior at Milton and she sounds a lot like your daughter – smart, hardworking, artistic, athletic but not an uber athlete and just a lovely girl. She has friends but is not one of those “cool” or “it” girls. She loved Milton for the mix of day and boarding and the diverse student body. (As an aside, she just found out that she got into multiple Ivy League schools.) On the topic of whether a K-12 school would be weaker academically than a 9-12 school because they have kids who were admitted in kindergarten, I don’t know if that is true about Milton and Nobles but it doesn’t ring true to me generally. Here in NYC, many of the top schools are K-12 and several of them (Trinity, Dalton, Brearley, Horace Mann, Collegiate, et al.) are among the top schools in the country.</p>
<p>I think you may have misread my comment. I actually said that I would give Milton the academic advantage. They have a beautiful science building and a very strong English program. I have visited Milton and their classrooms are lively and engaging. Their teachers are great and the only thing that really worried me about the school is the 50/50 boarding/day ratio. The reputation for Nobles, based on what I have heard is that it is very preppy. However, two of my friends were wait listed even though they had two siblings there because they underachieved in school. Basically what I am saying is that you need to be smart and not just have siblings to go to Nobles. Either way, I’m sure that both schools would fit your daughter’s academic needs, maybe Milton a little more but.</p>
<p>My daughter is a class III student at Milton (admitted as a sophomore) and is on several sports teams so has some sense of Nobles. When I asked her your question she said she thought your daughter would find Milton a better fit. She also said that she knows quite a few day students who have been at Milton since middle school or earlier and most are very bright - but a few probably would not be there if they had not been at MA at middle school.</p>
<p>Overall, she finds the school very strong academically. She was a straight A student all through middle school at a challenging junior boarding school and scored 96 on SSATs. She works very hard at MA to maintain all As or A-s and one B so I would say the school appears to be challenging. She often comments that “all the kids are smart” - a judgment she would not make unless all the kids were smart!</p>
<p>The other thing she mentioned was that MA is really diverse and lots of different kinds of kids find groups with similar interests, etc. Apparently, Nobles is more preppy and could be more difficult for a quiet and reserved girl to fit into comfortably. </p>
<p>I hope you will be going to or have gone to a re-visit day – we found them extremely helpful in making our decision last year.</p>
<p>Based on college acceptances (check the websites for each school), being an isl parent for years, and knowing where kids from private grade schools want to go, the tiers should be:</p>
<p>Tier 1
RL
Groton
Nobles
St. Pauls
Milton</p>
<p>Tier 2
BBN
Bel Hill - be careful here b/c most of college placement is sports related
Middlesex</p>
<p>You place BUA and Commonwealth, where? Tier 3??? No…</p>
<p>I haven’t checked Commonwealth, but BUA may have as good a placement record in the past few years as any school around. Certainly as good as RL or Nobles tbs…</p>
<p>EtonDad, BUA and Commonwealth aren’t ISL schools, which is all that o2008z said he was ranking. So the “all other” in his Tier 3 would be Brooks, Rivers, St. George’s and St. Mark’s. Not so sure I agree with the distinctions between Tier 3 and 4. But 1 and 2 might be right.</p>
<p>Noble’s is a complete school and clearly one of the Boston areas top three. Have known so many parents and graduates with total satisfaction. While not a parent of a Nobles child, you can’t help but respect the results of their products after speaking to a few Nobles grads. Kudos. </p>