Picking a Private School- HIES, Pace, Wesleyan or Lovett?

[chalvey]

Originally Posted by DawgPark

Pace - not for us. We are a Christian family and preferred a school with at least some Christian values. HIES is a nice balance. It's Christian enough to say Christmas, or Easter, or Jesus without getting all PC and the kids go to a weekly chapel about values.

That is quite interesting. As I mentioned above, I got into Pace in middle school, but went to Woodward, since my parents and I thought Pace was more religious. Maybe we were mistaken, but that was the vibe we got.

[Atlantan78]

Wow thank you so much for all of your responses. These are really helpful!

To answer some of your questions - we chose these four (and Woodward, where she was wait listed) because we thought these five provided a mix of academics and a nurturing community. We felt like Westminster wouldn't be nurturing enough, for example, even though the academics there seem to be pretty good. We did not apply to OLA or St. Martin's because we wanted k-12, and for whatever reason MVPS was never on our radar, probably because I've never heard of anyone's kids going there. We know families at pretty much all the Atlanta-area schools, but somehow don't know anyone at Mount Vernon.

We did indeed form opinions and preferences through out the process, but I didn't want to reveal them to early because I feared people would just suggest "go with the one you like best." We want to make sure we're not missing anything critical (good or bad) about any of these schools before we pick.

It's interesting hearing all of your impressions. Many of them match up with our thoughts on these schools. Lovett and Pace seem too Buckhead Betty (we're New England transplants so this gives us a bit of hesitation). We've heard simply horrible things about HIES upper school (but I will have to reconsider this given all of your advice about looking solely at the lower school). And we've heard that Wesleyan is very conservative (which also gives hesitation to two Democrats). To be honest though, coming from our high schools and colleges (Swarthmore and Tufts) all of these schools seem really conservative! Basically, we recognize there are cons to all of them. We feel as a whole though that the pros outweigh the cons pretty dramatically in all the cases, though!

Keep the advice coming! We're definitely leaning one way, but appreciate all your help.

Oh and I should add one more thing about Lovett/HIES/Wesleyan being religious. While both of us are Christian, we don't want to pigeon-hole our daughter into the religion, just because it's the one we've chosen. Proselytizing scares us a bit, but I think a bit of exposure especially in lower school is only a good thing.

[lastminutemom]

Have you considered your neighborhood public school? And reapply to Woodward for next year?

Anyway, given how you described yourself, I would pick Pace. I would absolutely not pick Wesleyan. As the kids age, the can go on mission trips during Spring Break. (Which is not a bad thing if it matches your values.) To me, there wouldn't be a choice. I think it has the most culturally diverse group of parent, in terms of religion and background.

[CMMom]

I'd agree with LMM. Wesleyan definitely sounds like it should be crossed off the list given what you've said above. I've heard the same things about HIES Upper School that you have (I suspect), and I believe you said you have a daughter. I can't offer any first-person perspective, but I have heard from multiple people (who don't know each other) that it can be quite "clique-ish." If you're looking for a more crunchy/granola/liberal population (not that any of the ones you mentioned are extremely so), I would go for Pace. It has a more diverse population in terms of religious diversity (higher population of Jewish families) than the others since it has no religious affiliation.

[DawgPark]

Originally Posted by Atlantan78

Oh and I should add one more thing about Lovett/HIES/Wesleyan being religious. While both of us are Christian, we don't want to pigeon-hole our daughter into the religion, just because it's the one we've chosen. Proselytizing scares us a bit, but I think a bit of exposure especially in lower school is only a good thing.

That's one of the things we love about HIES. Our family is strong in our Christian faith, and even though HIES is what I call Christian-lite, it gives just enough exposure to reinforce the basic Christian values/ethics that we're already teaching them as parents. We don't need a school to teach our children about faith, but we also don't want teachers who are anti-Christian.

And one other thing re: HIES upper school. Anybody who chooses/recommends a Kindergarten based on heresay about an upper school is misguided. Your child is 10 years from being in upper school. Chances are the leadership at all of your favorite schools is going to change between now and then. HIES had some issues w/ the previous headmaster, but he's gone now and Mr. Bratek seems to being doing a great job. Construction on a new Upper School building is set to begin soon and the new admin building is being moved into yesterday and today.