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As far as students average ACT score goes, the top private schools are (School, tuition, location): John Burroughs School, 19450, West County. St. Louis Priory School, 16536, West County. St. Louis University High, 11150, West St. Louis City. Mary Institute and Country Day School, 19420, Ladue. Visitation Academy, 14310, West County.
And the top public schools are (School, location): I'm proud to say my school, Metro Academic and Classical High School, Near North Side. Ladue Horton Watkins High, Ladue. Clayton High School, Clayton. Lafeyette Senoir High School, West County. Marquette High School, West County.
If anyone has any questions I have my hands on up-to-date, accurate information on 98 area high schools and would be glad to help someone in finding a high school.
This is late in coming, but in case someone reads this, I thought I'd chime in. I'll give you an example of how this question works in STL. I moved back to STL after college for a year to give it a chance, see if there was anything there for me, make my parents happy, ect, ect... I lived across from Forest Park in the West End in a great, old high rise, with a door man and a corner apt overlooking the park. With gated parking, work out rooms, ect, it was only $640/month!!! Can't beat THAT! Anyway, I was determined to get involved in my community, volunteer, go to cultural things, meet the love of my life, find a great job, make new friends... My father got me a membership to the STL Art Museum. I decided to go to an event they had one summer night for the 20s/30s crowd. I showed up and a 30-something Clayton couple started talking to me. They seemed enlightened, even for STL. Of course all they were interested in hearing was where I went to high school. I said, "I went to Westminster." Well, that was all they needed to hear and they sniffed, "Oh..." Their eyes glazed over and they just walked away. They couldn't care less where I went to college, where I had lived, traveled or what my ambitions were. I didn't meet their expectations based on that question and they had no use for me.
There were 2 attitudes I found over and over in STL in meeting people. One was something like, "Well, if I haven't met you by now, why on earth would I want to get to know you!" The second was this idea that one should just be friends with the same people they went to high school with the rest of their lives. Unless they were looking to upgrade to meet someone who went to a better high school than they did. It isn't called the "Show-Me State" for nothing. Eventually, I was frustrated and found these attitudes so completely narrowing and boring. I now live in NY, where most people think of STL as one big trailer park, which is also frustrating and ridiculous.
However to give in, slightly, I will answer one of the questions posted here. The top schools, at least in people's minds, are, (pretty much in this order):
Private, non-sectarian-
Mary Institute-Country Day School, John Burroughs School
Catholic-
boys-Priory, though Chamanade gets points by sheer location
girls-Villa, Visitation Academy
Public-
Ladue, Clayton, though Clayton is superior to Ladue academically, at least it was.
Also, most people who went to Ladue weren't even people who actually lived in Ladue. Most Ladue residents sent their kids to private schools and the student body was mostly made up of 63141, St Louis Annex kids and a large inner city, bused-in population, mixed with local Ladue-ites who either couldn't afford or couldn't cut it at a private school. Sorry, but that was the reality and I know this as I grew up almost across the street from Ladue High School.
You could maybe get away with Parkway Central, but I remember people sneering at Parkway West and North and South were out of the question.
Close, but not quite-
Thomas Jefferson School- yes, it may be the closest thing in STL to a real New England boarding school and the kids are something out of a Wes Anderson film, but it is too small and is located in South County and thus, will never be taken seriously in STL.
Westminster- ok, I went here, so I can rag on it. It has a good location, Ladue/Spoede, but it is too young (only founded in the 70s) and the word Christian conjures up images of scary, cross burning, right-winger, Fox News-watching bigots and sadly, that's not far from the truth.
St Joseph's Academy- Ok, it really isn't bad to say you went here, but let's face it... stocky, hard-drinkin', field hockey girls from Kirkwood go here.
De Smet- Too diverse to ever be respectable.
St Louis University High School-it's located in the city. Enough to scare most St Louisians to the core.
CBC- I guess it qualifies, but, not really...
Whitfield- Everyone knows this is like a fake private school, though I've heard it's come up since my days there.
Nerix Hall- See St Joseph's Academy for more details. Just substitute, Webster for Kirkwood.
Cor Jesu- Totally underrated. Academically superior to any Catholic girls school in the area, but it's in Affton.
You see how stupid this all is? And this is how people are branded the rest of their lives. If your school wasn't mentioned, I mean, what does THAT say? I moved to NYC where the first question is, "What do you do?"
I know you haven't lived here your whole life, but I have some comments about your statements. First if all, you have Clayton and Ladue on your top public schools list, that I agree with. But where's Metro, it has a higher ACT average score than both Clayton and Ladue, it's the highest rated public school in the state (look it up if you don't believe me), and its' a national top 75 public school.
Desmet isn't diverse at all. It's 93% white and nearly all of its students come from the same sociaeconomic background.
I've been to a few mixer's, and Nerinx girls are definetly not stocky, field hockey girls. Most of them are very hot.
I know you haven't lived here your whole life, but I have some comments about your statements. First if all, you have Clayton and Ladue on your top public schools list, that I agree with. But where's Metro, it has a higher ACT average score than both Clayton and Ladue, it's the highest rated public school in the state (look it up if you don't believe me), and its' a national top 75 public school.
Desmet isn't diverse at all. It's 93% white and nearly all of its students come from the same sociaeconomic background.
I've been to a few mixer's, and Nerinx girls are definetly not stocky, field hockey girls. Most of them are very hot.
Hi
OK, firstly, I was talking about people's perceptions, which is why I said, "top schools, at least in people's minds." I'm not necessarily talking about top academic achieving schools, I'm talking more, reputation. I guess in St Louis this is more socioeconomic than anything. As late as 2000, people would have given you a blank stare if you said you went to Metro. Most had probably never heard of it.
As for most of my comments, I was being rather tongue-in-cheek. However, Desmet was and probably still is a more diverse group. It had a mix of West County kids and North County and South County and some inner city. They had quite a few non-Catholic students as well. Added to a bad reputation all around for being a rough, partying school. A good friend of mine was from a poor, single parent, non-Catholic, black home on the North side of the city. He was valedictorian of his class at Desmet and went onto Stanford and got the hell out of STL. He has told me about and is an example of, the diversity there.
As for Nerinx and St Joe's, I was sort of kidding, though they were, in my day, known as hardcore drinkers and smokers. At least St Joe's. The girls in my neighborhood growing up were afraid of those girls at parties and were pretty catty toward them. At least I didn't mention Villa's reputation for being an abortion mill. I remember THAT rumor going around for years. "She went to Villa...and had an abortion!" Shocker! I never believed that stuff. Overall, while I found some of the rumored characteristics to be true, I always tried to focus on the person and their ambitions to form an opinion. Actions speak louder than words and we all grow up and change, some of us anyway.
Here is an interesting essay I found online about all this, thought I'd pass on. Perfectly sums up how I feel about it all:
Con
When someone first asked me where I went to school, I took it in stride. “Connecticut College,” I replied. “No,” my inquisitor smiled, “high school.” Say what?
Where’d you go to high school? It’s perhaps the best-known joke in St. Louis, but the more I hear it, the less funny I think it is. What does where I went to high school have to do with anything, and why is everyone so interested? College is where most people decide what they think about the world, what they want to do with their lives, what kind of person they want to be. The fact that you would think of your prime school experience—the one that defines you forever after—as the time when you were a teenager … well, as Kelly Bundy would say, the mind wobbles.
Perhaps it’s because St. Louis is a city that holds on to its own. In New York, nobody is from New York. But in St. Louis, not only are the majority of people born and raised here, but those who do leave often come back when they’re ready to settle down. That St. Louis has such a high percentage of natives makes high school more relevant (though it’s also what makes St. Louis a big small town rather than a small big city).
But as cheery and innocuous as the question sounds, St. Louis’ fixation with high school has a darker side. In fact, I’d venture to say it’s a microcosm of St. Louis’ bigger problems—a lack of connection to the outside world; a tendency to close itself off to new experiences; an exclusionary attitude that creates separations between locals and ensures outsiders will never become insiders; an inability to believe the city can ever again reach the glory it had a century ago.
It reminds me of those popular kids in high school. The ones with the perfect hair and the perfect clothes, the ones who didn’t seem to experience high school as the roiling stew of insecurity and angst it was for the rest of us. I have a theory about those kids. It’s the other ones—the loners, the losers, the wallflowers—who make the most interesting adults, because they weren’t able to coast through high school on their looks and popularity. They had to develop other interests, other coping mechanisms. They had to find their own paths. Those popular kids? They’re the ones you see at the high school reunions. The cheerleaders with faded looks, the football stars with bald pates and bulging bellies whose best days are clearly behind them. They’re living in the past. And by making “where did you go to high school” the city’s definitive phrase, so is St. Louis.
Growing up outside of St Louis I get to dodge the high school question, but it is usually followed up with the "where do you live?" question.
When used to initiate conversation, this type of question is indicative of a boring conversation so I can see why people would be annoyed by the question but I don't understand why people are so sensitive to it. If you went to a low tier high school it doesn't mean anything about you other than you were born into a lower income family, or a family that didn't want to spend a lot on housing/education. How anyone can be ashamed or proud of a choice made largely by their parents is beyond me.
I can see pride in collegiate alma mater since that reflects a personal choice, but pride or shame in where you went for 8-12th grade is trivial.
Growing up outside of St Louis I get to dodge the high school question, but it is usually followed up with the "where do you live?" question.
When used to initiate conversation, this type of question is indicative of a boring conversation so I can see why people would be annoyed by the question but I don't understand why people are so sensitive to it. If you went to a low tier high school it doesn't mean anything about you other than you were born into a lower income family, or a family that didn't want to spend a lot on housing/education. How anyone can be ashamed or proud of a choice made largely by their parents is beyond me.
I can see pride in collegiate alma mater since that reflects a personal choice, but pride or shame in where you went for 8-12th grade is trivial.
Unfortunately, like too many other manners of too many peoples, its a means for them to pigeonhole & stereotype others into nice little categories,,, w/o getting to know the real person. Their loss...
Hi
OK, firstly, I was talking about people's perceptions, which is why I said, "top schools, at least in people's minds." I'm not necessarily talking about top academic achieving schools, I'm talking more, reputation. I guess in St Louis this is more socioeconomic than anything. As late as 2000, people would have given you a blank stare if you said you went to Metro. Most had probably never heard of it.
As for most of my comments, I was being rather tongue-in-cheek. However, Desmet was and probably still is a more diverse group. It had a mix of West County kids and North County and South County and some inner city. They had quite a few non-Catholic students as well. Added to a bad reputation all around for being a rough, partying school. A good friend of mine was from a poor, single parent, non-Catholic, black home on the North side of the city. He was valedictorian of his class at Desmet and went onto Stanford and got the hell out of STL. He has told me about and is an example of, the diversity there.
As for Nerinx and St Joe's, I was sort of kidding, though they were, in my day, known as hardcore drinkers and smokers. At least St Joe's. The girls in my neighborhood growing up were afraid of those girls at parties and were pretty catty toward them. At least I didn't mention Villa's reputation for being an abortion mill. I remember THAT rumor going around for years. "She went to Villa...and had an abortion!" Shocker! I never believed that stuff. Overall, while I found some of the rumored characteristics to be true, I always tried to focus on the person and their ambitions to form an opinion. Actions speak louder than words and we all grow up and change, some of us anyway.
Here is an interesting essay I found online about all this, thought I'd pass on. Perfectly sums up how I feel about it all:
Con
When someone first asked me where I went to school, I took it in stride. “Connecticut College,” I replied. “No,” my inquisitor smiled, “high school.” Say what?
Where’d you go to high school? It’s perhaps the best-known joke in St. Louis, but the more I hear it, the less funny I think it is. What does where I went to high school have to do with anything, and why is everyone so interested? College is where most people decide what they think about the world, what they want to do with their lives, what kind of person they want to be. The fact that you would think of your prime school experience—the one that defines you forever after—as the time when you were a teenager … well, as Kelly Bundy would say, the mind wobbles.
Perhaps it’s because St. Louis is a city that holds on to its own. In New York, nobody is from New York. But in St. Louis, not only are the majority of people born and raised here, but those who do leave often come back when they’re ready to settle down. That St. Louis has such a high percentage of natives makes high school more relevant (though it’s also what makes St. Louis a big small town rather than a small big city).
But as cheery and innocuous as the question sounds, St. Louis’ fixation with high school has a darker side. In fact, I’d venture to say it’s a microcosm of St. Louis’ bigger problems—a lack of connection to the outside world; a tendency to close itself off to new experiences; an exclusionary attitude that creates separations between locals and ensures outsiders will never become insiders; an inability to believe the city can ever again reach the glory it had a century ago.
It reminds me of those popular kids in high school. The ones with the perfect hair and the perfect clothes, the ones who didn’t seem to experience high school as the roiling stew of insecurity and angst it was for the rest of us. I have a theory about those kids. It’s the other ones—the loners, the losers, the wallflowers—who make the most interesting adults, because they weren’t able to coast through high school on their looks and popularity. They had to develop other interests, other coping mechanisms. They had to find their own paths. Those popular kids? They’re the ones you see at the high school reunions. The cheerleaders with faded looks, the football stars with bald pates and bulging bellies whose best days are clearly behind them. They’re living in the past. And by making “where did you go to high school” the city’s definitive phrase, so is St. Louis.
—Elaine X. Grant
Alright I see what your saying. One thing that's kind of ironic about Desmet not being diverse and 93 percent white (which are actually based on fact from the school) is the fact that the three people I know at Desmet are Hispanic, Black, and Bi-racial white-black. By the way, I am actually in the class of 2012 at Metro (haven't graduated yet) and I'm pretty sure that Metro is a relatively new school.
As far as students average ACT score goes, the top private schools are (School, tuition, location): John Burroughs School, 19450, West County. St. Louis Priory School, 16536, West County. St. Louis University High, 11150, West St. Louis City. Mary Institute and Country Day School, 19420, Ladue. Visitation Academy, 14310, West County.
And the top public schools are (School, location): I'm proud to say my school, Metro Academic and Classical High School, Near North Side. Ladue Horton Watkins High, Ladue. Clayton High School, Clayton. Lafeyette Senoir High School, West County. Marquette High School, West County.
If anyone has any questions I have my hands on up-to-date, accurate information on 98 area high schools and would be glad to help someone in finding a high school.
This is accurate data. I would add that the best academic high school in St. Louis is one that most St. Louisans have never heard of....Thomas Jefferson. It is mostly an International boarding school, located in Sunset Hills, very small, competes in a couple of smaller scale sports etc...but it has better test scores, and academics than any other St. Louis area high school.
But what really do these scores mean? Well they mean that that there is a higher percentage of kids with those scores at those schools...however take SLUH,....score wise it will be better than say a DeSmet, also a very good school...however there are a lot of kids scoring at those levels and higher at DeSmet...there also happens to be some or smaller amounts that don't which will give SLUH a small edge overall in scores, and there are reasons for that, most of which are money, as well as time in existence, SLUH started in 1818, DeSmet only 40 years ago, ...and it was only a few years ago that DeSmet was still in the red, and even beginnning to have sons of alums old enough to attend. So there are a lot of factors that go into things and situations. People have to be very thourough in their research of schools, places, etc...when considering the best fit for themselves as kids when picking a high school.
People can get generally ideas of academics, atmosphere, size, cost, test scores, of public and private schools to then begin their search more in depth.
this whole thread was started as an ironic, tongue-in-cheek sort of thing. When I meet fellow St Louisans down here that have the poor taste to ask that sort of question, I gently remind them that I have been out of high school for 30 years, and we are NOT in the Lou now........ that usually shuts them up!
Not sure why it's considered poor taste to ask where one attended High School. I certainly take no offense on the rare occasion I meet a fellow St. Louisan. In fact, I am more than proud to tell them Roosevelt Class of 72. I am always so excited to meet someone from "Home" and always eager to talk about my hometown and the Schools I attended.
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