For kiddo, and the seniors generally, it is the ECs that are too much. Coursework is the same, but they have no time to do it, and the teachers seem to know the burden is a lot. The school has been working very hard to revitalize the community and spirit, and are doing a great job of it (Family Weekend was a breath of fresh air), but much of that burden has fallen on seniors, especially prefects. They are overwhelmed.
Many freshmen are socially delayed because of the pandemic, sophomores think they know how the school works, but they didn’t actually get a real bs experience last year, and juniors aren’t ready yet to take on leadership roles for ECs. Seniors have their own catching up to do, and are having to work overtime on bringing others up to speed on the Cate way of doing things. And apply to colleges. It is a lot.
Mental health issues are front and center across the board, including for admin. Everything is a work in progress. Family Weekend was great though, seeing our kids finally be kids again.
I haven’t posted on this board in a while but I really want to echo the “socially delayed” part. I’m a new sophomore and it has been incredibly hard on me I feel like I’ve lost all my social skills in the past year and a half I was online. It’s taking an incredible toll on my mental health especially for someone like me who isn’t very extroverted. Almost two months into a new school year and I still feel isolated at times.
My kiddo is a new Jr. She was online all last year at a cyber charter. I don’t think the academic part has been a huge adjustment, and she had been worried about the social part but she has found an amazing group of friends, has come out of her former shy shell and it was the best decision. She even got up at the sit down dinner and made an announcement, which she never in a million years would have done at her former public school. After visiting during family weekend, her younger brother wants to apply, but I have reservations that it would be as good for him. I don’t think he would do well with the pressure and being busy 16 hours a day. He is a kid that needs down time.
That time off caused a lot of problems that are not easily remedied by just starting up again as if nothing had ever happened.
A tiny story about our local situation:
Our PS was in person last year, but masked. Spring 2020, they basically just gave everyone a Pass grade, with no expectations and minimal teaching. So our kiddos really only missed out on a quarter. My wife is a reading Para in one of our elementary schools, basically she teaches reading to groups of 1-3 grade kids. She said that the second and third graders were a bit behind, but got back up to speed pretty quickly. The first graders, otoh, were still underperforming at the end of the year. The teachers just kind of plowed on through, and they missed a part of the reading development that was so crucial they were behind all year. That cohort may well be behind forever, if you struggle with reading you struggle with everything.
That was missing essentially one 9 week quarter. Granted most kids had a lot better school last year than we did during that quarter. But a lot of smart kids and good students just didn’t get what they should have out of “Covid School”. Maybe that means your American History knowledge is a bit spotty, or you have a blind spot about how photosynthesis works. Annoying but probably not big deal. But if it is reading, or math, or foreign language, just plowing ahead is a recipe for disaster, you will never really get caught up. That is where a lot of kids are I think. More so for the PS ones than the BS ones. The difference you are having is that the teachers are ignoring it, not just dumbing it down the curiculum or letting kids get worse grades. I’ve heard college professors being pretty frustrated by kids this year too, especially first years.
The social aspect is a problem too. Kid and teen brains aren’t really fully cooked anyway, and taking 6 months to a year and a half without normal socialization did not do them any favors.
I think we are going to be experiencing “butterfly effect” from Covid for a generation, maybe more.
Many seniors are behind in the college application process (more than usual). In addition, there is a real lack of motivation, as most have little knowledge of the school’s they are applying to. Few have visited schools and the motivation to do virtual visits or research has been low. That’s the last thing they wanted to do after virtual classes last year, or after actually having real in-person options for other activities over the summer.
This is part of the reason boarding school applications went through the roof instead of declining as some expected. People want a proper reset. I noticed at parents weekend that there seemed to be more families with kids who are repeating a year. This has always been a thing in boarding schools, but the numbers of repeats are way up. A friend working in admissions told me that it is upward of 50% of new students at some boarding school, from 15-20% in usual years. That is a huge change and I am not sure if it is positive overall for the school but clearly many families decided kids needed the reset and just threw in the towel on a ‘lost year’.
I always wonder how college admission offices view repeat students, or do they ever know? I think repetition gives a student a big advantage (age/maturity/seen topics etc.) but is there a downside from a college admission perspective?
I would think it would be a minimal negative, especially at BS since it is relatively common. It was a parent decision at a pretty far back point in time.
If by ‘seen topics’ you mean repeating actual material, it depends. Some schools have multiple entry points for many subjects…math, science, language off the top of my head. So you may find a repeat 9th grader in classes filled with 10th and 11th graders, or even seniors.
“Seen topics”?
My repeat Junior isn’t taking any class she has already taken. Although she is rereading one book in English. There are so many more classes to choose from. Some of her classes have kids from each grade. She is taking this opportunity to explore a few electives she would never have had time for. When she applied we had never heard of choosing to repeat a grade and she very much chose to do it to gain back a “lost” year due to Covid. I don’t think any college will look at it as a negative, if they do then they are not the college for her.
And of course they will know, she will have 3 different HS transcripts, one from her public 9th and 10th, one from her public cyber charter we chose to stay safe during 2020/Covid and one from BS.
So much this. This year has been excruciatingly hard. Our BS and the colleges she’s applying to… we feel that no one fully gets what they’re facing. The things they’ve lost. The changes the school is implementing. The fact that only a few dozen of the current seniors have had a full non-covid year experience at BS.
Privilege. Yes. I know.
That doesn’t discount that it is hard, and exhausting.
Yup this is exactly what I was getting at. We wanted our kids to get the year back for two reasons. First, because they’ve always been a year+ young for their grade. Second, so that they’d have the full four-year HS experience.
We’re especially glad we did this given that one of the 4 years was more or less robbed from them.
And to the point they’ve not repeated any material at all.
Are there any stats on how many high school repeat juniors (who would otherwise be seniors) there are? Enough to meaningfully decrease the competition for college apps this year?
All conversations lead back to college apps for me right now. Sorry about that!
