Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments private high school for HG+ kid?

Hi Gabalyn. I live in the Philly suburbs and have a sense of the various schools to which you're referring. Our kids are in a public school system and have been, so far, adequately challenged within the classroom (including some augmenting with GT programs and math enrichment). We have many friends with kids in private schools. For those who don't know this area -- the Philadelphia metro area has a disproportionately high number of private schools, to the extent that 40% of kids that live in one of the top two districts in the entire state go to private schools. It's as much cultural as anything else, and is often not solely based on academics (numerous families who have switched from private to our public have commented that the public academics are more rigorous).

My advice would be to actually visit the schools, if you haven't yet done so, and talk to as many parents as possible. The difference in environment and culture and families at each of these schools varies tremendously, and as everyone here often says, fit with kid/school can be so individual. One neighbor just switched her son (my sense is he's PG, certainly HG+) to Shipley and they've been thrilled, yet other friends moved their HG kids out of same school because it wasn't a good fit.

If you're in the city, have you considered Masterman? If so and you don't want to consider it, would you mind sharing why? My sense is that Masterman is competitive academically with most, if not all, of the privates.

Lucy