AOS, Presbyterian, Other Private Schools (Houston, Montrose/Museum Area)

[Dirt McGirt]

I might apply to St Johns if you're going through everything for the private school applications, low chance but why not try, if you get in you'd likely want to choose that over the other privates.

For public, a sliver of Montrose is zoned to Poe which is considered decent and has IB and neighborhood vanguard g/t. Otherwise the options for elementary are not great in Montrose. For the magnet schools, River Oaks and TH Rogers (just outside the loop) are the two you'd want to try for. TH Rogers is 100% magnet -- no one is zoned, everyone gets in by qualifying as g/t through testing and then being in a lottery for the slot, and ROE is pretty close to that (it was originally a zoned school, then wasn't, and now is again, but the % of people in $2m plus homes in River Oaks that send their kids to public is pretty small). I do know a decent amount of people in West U, Southampton, etc that do try to get into ROE however - perhaps the difference between being well-off or truly rich. There are also other elementaries not too far away that are also well regarded you could apply for slots in (Roberts, Twain, etc.) albeit the number of non-zoned spots at those is pretty small.

PS and AOS are both solid options. Excluding fit I would personally consider AOS the better of the two, perhaps biased but a few of the parents I know that applied for PS was a backup for not getting into certain public g/t lottery schools or schools like AOS. That said, that's from selectivity at the kindergarten level and both schools stop at middle school, so not like any of the private schools in that range are going to limit the likelihood of your child succeeding.

[Clever nickname here]

Originally Posted by buckeroo

We looked at AOS and Presbyterian school for our children as well and ultimately chose AOS for a couple of reasons. First, although both schools lack in diversity, AOS has a bit more, mainly because of the many greek families that send their kids there. Second, for what it's worth, when we looked at the high school placement, the kids at AOS tended to end up at some of the more academically competitive high schools.

Presbyterian's brighest kids usually make the move to any K-12s, with a great high school, at 5th or 6th grade when those schools add classes. Those schools actively recruit Presbyterian kids for when they expand in middle school. There is a very contentious relationship between Presbyterian and St John's over how many of the best and brightest Presby kids St. John's skims off at 5th and 6th grade entry points. One year St. John's took 25% of Presbyterian's fourth graders for their 5th grade entry. Presbyterian had a 4th or 5th grade Odyssey of the Mind team make it to Worlds one year and every single kid on the team was picked off by the big name schools for middle school. Presbyterian is left filling those losses with kids that wouldn't have made it in without those losses and those replacement students did not get their foundation at Presbyterian.

[mechteach]

Originally Posted by Clever nickname here

Presbyterian's brighest kids usually make the move to any K-12s, with a great high school, at 5th or 6th grade when those schools add classes. Those schools actively recruit Presbyterian kids for when they expand in middle school. There is a very contentious relationship between Presbyterian and St John's over how many of the best and brightest Presby kids St. John's skims off at 5th and 6th grade entry points. One year St. John's took 25% of Presbyterian's fourth graders for their 5th grade entry. Presbyterian had a 4th or 5th grade Odyssey of the Mind team make it to Worlds one year and every single kid on the team was picked off by the big name schools for middle school. Presbyterian is left filling those losses with kids that wouldn't have made it in without those losses and those replacement students did not get their foundation at Presbyterian.

How many kids are in a grade at Presby? The reason I ask is that 5th grade at SJS is not a natural entry year, so there aren't very many slots. Maybe it was for the 5th graders entering 6th?

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by Dirt McGirt

For public, a sliver of Montrose is zoned to Poe which is considered decent and has IB and neighborhood vanguard g/t. Otherwise the options for elementary are not great in Montrose.

FIY the other Montrose elementary schools are:
* Woodrow Wilson (extends into K-8 for its magnet program)
* Wharton Bilingual School (some parents who want their kids to get a leg-up on Spanish send their kids there)
* MacGregor Elementary

AFAIK MacGregor does not have as good of a reputation as Wilson and Wharton.

[Clever nickname here]

Originally Posted by mechteach

How many kids are in a grade at Presby? The reason I ask is that 5th grade at SJS is not a natural entry year, so there aren't very many slots. Maybe it was for the 5th graders entering 6th?

MS starts at 5th grade for PS. I believe there are no more than 15 to a class in elementary at PS and two classes per grade until 4th. It used to until 5th but there were losing so many kids at 5th and 6th grade they added another 4th grade class.

One other point on where PS kids go for HS. There are a lot of Catholics at PS that are only there because they can't get into a Catholic private school and their best chance for a Catholic education is high school at Strake or Agnes.

Why can't they get into Catholic private school? it was explained to me that the local diocese believes the best way to help improve the underprivileged's situation is an education at Catholic schools via scholarship/tuition waiver for a better education. The local well heeled Catholics think it is stupid that those kids travel from all over Houston for the centrally located Catholic schools and think that more underprivilaged kids could be served if their own kids were at those schools paying tuition to the Catholic church, instead of to other private schools. Then that revenue could be used so that more Catholic schools could be built in other areas, and funded, to catch kids that can't manage transportation into central Houston everyday. One particularly pissed off parent told me he was tithing a 6 figure sum to the Catholic church every year but there are no slots for his kids to receive a Catholic education and he now deducts his kids tuition to PS from his tithing as he felt he was footing the bill for there to be no openings for his kids to have a Catholic education.

[hadreej]

Originally Posted by Clever nickname here

MS starts at 5th grade for PS. I believe there are no more than 15 to a class in elementary at PS.

Interesting, 15 seems like a pretty small class for elementary school. Is that typical at private schools in the area?

[Vicman]

Then the better heeled should pay to keep Catholic schools in poorer areas opened. Several Catholic schools in poor neighborhoods closed several years back. http://www.chron.com/life/houston-be...on-1746969.php

Originally Posted by Clever nickname here

Why can't they get into Catholic private school? it was explained to me that the local diocese believes the best way to help improve the underprivileged's situation is an education at Catholic schools via scholarship/tuition waiver for a better education. The local well heeled Catholics think it is stupid that those kids travel from all over Houston for the centrally located Catholic schools and think that more underprivilaged kids could be served if their own kids were at those schools paying tuition to the Catholic church, instead of to other private schools. Then that revenue could be used so that more Catholic schools could be built in other areas, and funded, to catch kids that can't manage transportation into central Houston everyday. One particularly pissed off parent told me he was tithing a 6 figure sum to the Catholic church every year but there are no slots for his kids to receive a Catholic education and he now deducts his kids tuition to PS from his tithing as he felt he was footing the bill for there to be no openings for his kids to have a Catholic education.