sbergman

Thanks for the wonderful post jennycraig. You certainly described my experience. I attended a public school through 9th grade. My teachers were good, the school was good, and most of my friends there were headed to college. I could get an A without a lot of effort and although my teachers would talk about "unmet potential," they certainly didn't have the time to try to further motivate one good student when they had plenty of not-so-good students to deal with.

For me the biggest joy of switching to a smaller school was that I didn't have to wait in line to participate in sports and theater. At my public school there was no chance of making a varsity team before my junior year or getting a lead in a play before my senior year. I also hated that you had to choose your group (brainiacs, jocks, burnouts). With just 100 kids per grade at my new school, everybody was everything.

I now work for a school that is not on any top ten list. Our typical senior class will go to a wide range of colleges - including several to the Ivies or top tier liberal arts schools and many to state schools. Here's a quote from one of our recent grads who is now at Yale, "I know that some people worry that SAS is a small pond and that at some point there will be a reality check but the confidence I built in that small pond prepared me for that challenge when it came.” There's something to be said for being a big fish in a small pond.