<p>There are many other great high schools in the Bay Area besides Harker (which is great). For example: Bellarmine College Prep- $18k a year (less than BASIS) and with over 150 years of educating students successfully. Amazing academics, state and national ranked EC’s (Speech & Debate State winners multiple years in row, Robotics world champions, etc…), and numerous high level sport programs. Not for profit.</p>
<p>@skeptical parent: You are way off on your estimates of “70% burnout.” BASIS is so terrible that at least 104% of the kids burn out. In fact, they are so draconian that the kids have to stand over ACTUAL FIRE while they take their tests. Pity those poor 5th graders who cannot adjust and fall into the pit of unending despair. And “6-8 hours a day (every single day) studying textbooks?” What, are you talking about during Spring break or something? Because during the school year, my kid studies at least 20 to 28 hours per night. You read that right. BASIS is so awful, it does not even follow the rules of space-time. She is missing most of her finger tips just from the paper cuts, but BASIS doesn’t even care. And those kids are definitely not “well-rounded.” Oh, sure, they win singing awards, and strings awards, and two dimensional art awards, and three dimensional art awards, and creative writing awards, and band awards, and theater awards, and gymnastics, tennis, golf, swimming, rock climbing, soccer, lacrosse, track and field, skiing, and snowboarding state and national titles; and I will grant you that they win state and national science bowls, geography bowls, geography bees, spelling bees, history bees, quiz bowls, chess tournaments, biomedical research awards, statistical society competitions (who even knew such a thing existed?), and debate competitions (that’s just from March and April), but if you call that “well rounded,” then I guess you would call a Rubik’s cube “well rounded” (which reminds me: BASIS kids got second place in the state Rubik’s cube competition). For god’s sake, Skepticalparent, just stop trying to sugarcoat it: BASIS is a dystopian hell scape filled with hopeless, burnt out drones. </p>
<p>One favor: If you could please not tell the kids that, though, because they have their Spring dance coming up this week, and it would bum them out. And the seniors have prom, before, of course, they go off to those similarly awful institutions like Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, UCLA, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, Bellarmine is a relative bargain among academically good private schools. However, it is an all-male school, so some students would not be eligible. It is also a Catholic school (in general, the Catholic schools are less expensive than other private schools, at least in the area; there are Catholic coed and all-female schools).</p>
<p>One of the big differences is that BASIS is free in AZ and costly in SV. When you pay a lot of money for something you tend to expect a bit more. Here is some info on Palo Alto high school: class size 471, avg. SAT 1971 NM commended+ 118. That’s 25% of the class, so a lot less than at BASIS in AZ. AP scores 95% scored 3 or higher, 52% scored 5. So, they do better on the APs. I think it all depends what the alternatives are. I couldn’t imagine pulling a kid out of a free high school anything like that to pay, $24K/year for BASIS. If the alternative were an academically failing and unsafe middle school, yes, I would at least try it and see how the kid does.</p>
<p>As far as the workload goes, that is really kid-dependent. Parents who push a marginal student into something like that are going to be complaining. I hear complaints all the time from parents about how their kids are freaking out over some test or assignment and when I ask my kids they say, oh I didn’t study for that, or that only took an hour (even though the other kid was up until 2 am with it). My daughter took 2 APs as a freshman and she was doing less homework than her little sister in 5th grade. So I’m not convinced it would be that bad–for appropriately selected kids. Taking a total of 8 APs isn’t too much to handle for a top student either. </p>
<p>Mr. neurotic, why so much hostility towards anyone who has a different point of view from you? Are you a representative/typical parent at BASIS? Is that how other parents are at BASIS as well? You certainly would make me feel so very comfortable about being a part of the BASIS community.</p>
<p>You might be surprised to know that there are other good schools besides BASIS in this world, may be even much better school than BASIS that don’t use “draconian” approaches to help kids learn. You should perhaps consult with your founder about expected homework load for students. Before you try to deflect the issue by laughing it off, he expects kids to study for 6 hours per week - go look at his u-tube video.</p>
<p>Yes, 70% of the kids burn-out before graduation – Facts are a brutal things, Mr. Neurotic. You can only laugh off things for so long. Sooner or later parents will want to find out the facts for themselves instead of relying on a point of view that may not be as even keeled as one would like.</p>
<p>Bay Area has quite a few goo private schools that are less draconian and much more well rounded at about half the cost of BASIS. I will reiterate a question, why should some one choose BASIS over a Harker or Challenger which are less draconian and have been around for 5-6 decades and are producing results that might be significantly better than BASIS.</p>
<p>If I find the time, I will look up the information sources and submit them here for others to see.</p>
<p>If a kid leaves a school, is that kid burned out by definition? That fact is pretty brutal. Maybe statements like that make Neuroticdad resort to extreme sarcasm. It is extreme though. I’m a Harker parent and I’m happy to see some competition and something with a lower cost that might work for some kids.</p>
<p>How are the capstone projects different than the projects that students do for the Synopsys/ Siemens/ Intel Science Fairs? Many of these projects are done under the tutelage of University professors.</p>
<p>In my previous post, I should have said ‘expects kids to study for 6 hours per day’, not ‘expects kids to study for 6 hours per week’</p>
<p>Mr. GradeMonk, thanks for your clarification and upon first blush, I would have to agree with you. However, the follow up question I would have is, how many students/parents would choose to leave ‘one of the top 5 ranked schools in the nation’ that was also free? Particularly, when they knew before they enrolled that the school was about extremely hard work and tons of testing. What could possibly be the reason for leaving if not burn-out? The drop our rate of 70% from a ‘free’ top ranked school is an alarming rate. I would further venture to say that this school would not have the PISA test scores it does, nor would it have its top ranking if it’s so called rigor did not systematically drive the less than perfect kids out of the school. </p>
<p>If you have motivated hard working kids with supportive parents, willing to put in 6 hours per day in studies with parents’ providing a lot of extra tutoring at home, those kids will succeed anywhere, what does a school have to do with it? A child can find alll these AP courses and a ton of other activities at a typical school. If however, you have a child who needs a military style discipline to stay focused then BASIS is an option but Challenger and Harker are far more established and less ‘draconian’ options.</p>
<p>My problem with trying to assess BASIS Tucson North is that it appears the school has only been around since 2012. Am I wrong about that? If it’s the case that the school is that young, what BASIS TN has essentially done is admit kids who were already NMS and who had burned through the curricula of their LPS’s, then plugged them into advanced classes and signed them up for AP’s.</p>
<p>IOW, admitting 16 year old applicants with 220 SAT scores and a half dozen 4/5 AP scores then bragging that you churn out National Merit and AP Scholars is disingenuous at best. They would have received those awards if they had transferred into the worst schools in the nation.</p>
<p>I’d also be careful about comparing schools that publish their college acceptance lists with those that publish their college matriculation lists. The latter is a much better metric for admissions success because one kid with multiple high status acceptances (say, Stanford and Harvard and Yale) can make the college results of the class as a whole look better than they really are.</p>
<p>[As I said, perhaps I’m misreading BASIS TN’s website. If so, please correct me!]</p>
<p>*PSAT scores, not SAT.</p>
<p>A couple of perspectives on the BASIS schools:
<a href=“BASIS and University High Are Top U.S. High Schools, Which Means . . .? | The Range”>http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2014/04/23/basis-and-university-high-are-top-us-high-schools-which-means</a>
<a href=“The Head of BASIS Tucson North Responds | The Range”>http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2014/05/06/the-head-of-basis-tucson-north-responds</a></p>
<p>The second contains this critical piece of information:
</p>
<p>The first says:
</p>
<p>I am one of the other BASIS parents and I hope my previous posts show that not all BASIS parents are as intense as Neurotic. The parents, like the student bodies, are very diverse so you get a little bit of everything. </p>
<p>With regard to the 6 hours of home work I just don’t see it. Perhaps it’s just my kids, which I doubt, but I don’t know any BASIS student that puts in that kind of time. Quite frankly that would suck…Both of my kids are in after school activities, club sports, art etc yet they still find time for hours of YouTube and TV.</p>
<p>I believe the Tucson North question is a matter of name change. I remember there only being one campus in Tucson until they opened the K-6 school. So the Tucson North campus was the original location opened in 1998. Moreover, I believe you have to graduate 4 senior classes before the school can be eligible for consideration in the USNWR high school rankings, I may be wrong though.</p>
<p>I don’t think the majority of kids leaving are burned out. We have some excellent high schools in AZ and some kids want to explore some of their other strengths that a BASIS school might not be able to address. I have seen students leave for athletic, music as well as cultural reasons. With the Asian and Indian diaspora being so tight knit, some families want to experience something outside of what they already know. Naturally, some do leave for academic reasons but I would not say that is the majority.</p>
<p>As mathyone pointed out, BASIS is free to us in AZ. Neurotic and I had a pretty easy decision since our options for elementary/middle school were lacking. If I was in the OP’s position and I had a plethora of good options my family might have taken a different path. Options are never a bad thing.</p>
<p>Hi autumnspast,</p>
<p>I very much appreciate your perspective. You are so even keeled that it is hard to muster the energy to respond. BTW, the daily homework/study time expectation information is from the Founder of the school - the interview video can be found on U-tube.</p>
<p>Additionally, I would like to point our that BASIS is using a very aggressive, one might even argue a disingenuous approach to marketing their school in Silicon Valley. They don’t sound like an educational institution. They sound like politicians who distort facts to make themselves look better. Here is a “DARE” from their website.
“…WHILE CHALLENGING THOSE EXPENSIVE PRIVATE SCHOOLS TO TAKE THE INTERNATIONAL TESTS AND RELEASE THE RESULTS, JUST AS BASIS DOES. A VERY BIG DARE…”</p>
<p>Comparing the test results of highly culled (as one of the previous parents shared) 40 students vs all the students in Shanghai or all the OECD countries to prove that they are superior sounds like a cheap PR tactic than a serious way to demonstrate they are great. Having said that there are a lot of parents who do not have the time to look at things critically. They might be sold by the simple “best school in the US” claim. </p>
<p>Additionally, 70% - 80% of the students don’t drop out from a so called ‘top ranked and free’ school in an otherwise weak school district for other options unless there are serious difficulties or deficiencies - please have look at the TucsanWeekly articles linked in one of the earlier posts by Sue22. On of the articles lays out the methodology for the rankings and how the rankings may not really reflect how good a particular school really is. </p>
<p>I feel there is already too much stress among high achieving high school students about testing, and too much focus on “what do we have to know for the test”. I am rather put off by the extreme focus on testing being promoted at these schools. It certainly doesn’t give an impression of a school that seeks to develop the whole student, and which values activities that can’t be tested.</p>
<p>I’m not sure the term 70% “burn-out” is really fair. Many families may feel that they can take the same AP classes at their local hs, which also offer other benefits. But US middle school education is very often just bad. That’s clear from international comparisons. So I wonder how many of those families enroll their kids at 5th grade with full intention of pulling them out after 8th grade. That could make a lot of sense to me, for an academically capable kid willing to work hard. And there is a lot less risk in trying it, because the middle school grades won’t be seen by colleges.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen the YouTube video but I can tell you that he/she are not getting 6 hours out of the students I know.</p>
<p>As with most advertising, I am sure the statistics are part truth and part hyperbole, it is rarely a cut and dry apples to apples comparison. It is the job of the parent to filter through the noise to determine whether or not the school is a good fit for their child and family. </p>
<p>With regard to your remark, “there are a lot of parents who do not have the time to look at things critically. They might be sold by the simple “best school in the US” claim.” while making the decision to spend 24K on a middle/high schooler’s education?…I am not sure what to say other then I wish I were them… </p>
<p>Here in AZ, much ink has been spilled fighting the Public vs Charter vs Private school war. Scroll to the bottom of those articles and you will see the war still being waged. It’s a polarizing topic. </p>
<p>One of the things I learned on CC was that it was very helpful to get the perspective of someone who was attending an institution, as they had direct knowledge of being there day to day.</p>
<p>The one thing I believe would help this discussion is to hear from a parent who decided not to stay at BASIS. Their insight would add a different dimension and further the OP’s knowledge.</p>
<p>Do all BASIS schools have BASIS in their names? After reading about young students in BC calc classes, I decided to look at the USAMO and USAJMO qualifier lists in 2014. No qualifier from schools with a BASIS name appeared. One student from Arizona (College Prep, Erie) appeared. This kind of surprises me. If these kids are so advances and into math , I’d expect at least one student from a BASIS school.</p>
<p>I’m sure the schools are producing well prepared students. If the education is free, that’s great - I would have at least looked into it. But, I’m not sure it’s a STEM powerhouse like TJ, Bergen Academy, or Phillips Exeter. (Interestingly, quite a few kids from the Orange County Math Circle - different high schools -made the qualifying list).</p>
<p>After having read the article in TucsonWeek shared by Sue22, I spent a few minutes trying to understand how a school becomes a top school in the nation. I realized that schools such as BASIS can and do use a coercive incentives to reach that top ranking - No public high school serving a broad population would probably be permitted to do so. </p>
<p>Here are the most simple aspect of the formula: If you have every student in the 12th grade (after culling the weaker students out) get at least one score of 3 on any one AP exam that they might have taken in their educational years, your school would have ranked in the top 15 public High School in the nation in 2014. Where you rank among the top 15 high schools is a function of how many scores above 3 (scores of 4 or 5 don’t count for more) as a percentage of total number of students in the school. </p>
<p>BASIS Tucson’s (my assumption is that its true for other branches as well) graduation policy is such that they could not possibly rank below the top 15 schools in the nation. A student can not graduate from BASIS unless he/she takes at least 6 AP exams and 4 of those exams must have a score of 3 or higher. Yes, to just graduate from BASIS. </p>
<p>Furthermore, If a student doesn’t get at-least a 3 on the AP exam for a particular course, the highest grade that the student can get in that course is a C or B. If they get at 3, even a cumulative grade of C+ can be bumped up to a A- (see pg 89 of Handbook - link below). Look at the incentive to get at least a 3 in every AP exam. Isn’t a students who has slogged for 8 years for 6+ hours per day is going to do everything possible to get at least a 3 in each and every AP exam? What has the school got to do with it? </p>
<p>If a school could create ‘draconian’ policies for graduation and grading, they can also join this club. It is not hard to imagine that these ‘draconian’ policies do lead to most of the kids dropping out before 12th grade. Would you risk not graduating?</p>
<p>I frankly don’t think this is a BASIS only issue. I believe this is also a US News ranking issue. Flawed metrics are being used to determine “The Best School in the US”. The system can easily be rigged and is being rigged by creating coercive policies in the name of improving education. </p>
<p>Kudos to all the students for their perseverance. These kids don’t need BASIS. BASIS needs these kids. The whole system’s reputation (illusion?) is built on the effort of these 20-30 kids who survive into 12th grade.</p>
<p>I am enclosing links that you can see for yourself below.</p>
<p>BASIS Tucson Graduation Policy:
<a href=“http://basistucson.org/sites/default/files/bsi/publications/graduation%20requirements.pdf”>http://basistucson.org/sites/default/files/bsi/publications/graduation%20requirements.pdf</a></p>
<p>BASIS Handbook Link (see pages, 87 - 89):
<a href=“http://basisschools.org/sites/default/files/BIS_Handbook_2013_0114.pdf?__utma=1.353255342.1399856854.1399856854.1399856854.1&__utmb=1.8.10.1399856854&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1399856854.1.1.utmcsr=google”>http://basisschools.org/sites/default/files/BIS_Handbook_2013_0114.pdf?__utma=1.353255342.1399856854.1399856854.1399856854.1&__utmb=1.8.10.1399856854&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1399856854.1.1.utmcsr=google;
<p>So, the BASIS handbook says if you have from a B to a C+ grade for the year in the class, and you get a 3 on the AP exam, which is a mediocre grade not even considered passing by some of the top colleges, then they change your grade to an A- in the class?? A 3 is an A? If you have a D- to F, you can get a B+ for the year with a 5 on the exam. I think the lesson many kids would take away from this is that if it’s not being directly tested on the AP test there isn’t much point doing it. </p>
<p>Those metrics are clearly flawed, though they may make a little more sense in looking at schools with more normal policies on AP classes and tests. It is very difficult to distinguish the quality of instruction at a school from the quality of the students. Considering that their overall AP “pass” rate at BASIS isn’t especially noteworthy, I think the main distinction of the school is in promoting earlier access to the material, which is probably good for their strongest students and not for the weaker ones. I wonder how many students leave after getting poor scores in grades 8-10 and realizing that graduation could be in jeopardy.</p>
<p>That AP conversion chart is strange. It looks like they consider their courses to be taught to a “2” level since that’s where “average” students are least likely to see any changes in their course grades based on exam scores. I know for a fact that at D’s school there are plenty of people getting B’s in AP courses who go on to get 4s and 5s on tests…with no change in course grade. Since a “5” on an AP exam is not the same as an “A” for the equivalent college course, why should it be seen as a reason to change a “C” to an “A”? Talk about grade inflation! </p>
<p>I hope the OP is still reading…and reading carefully. I think this discussion has been very illuminating for someone who is considering the BASIS Silicon Valley as a private school option. </p>
<p>I also think it’s a good example of why it’s important to look beyond the published rankings and marketing hype to understand the reality of how the school is meeting the needs of its students. </p>
<p>From what everyone has said here it sounds like it fills a niche. As a free public I could see considering it for a very math-y kid who was under stimulated in his neighborhood school. If I had to pay private fees…I don’t know. It would depend on what else was out there. </p>
<p>I have a math-y kid who would have thrived on the academic challenge. However, he was also the kid who needed work socially, who needed to be around a variety of people and put in a variety of settings. BASIS would have been good for his strengths but would have neglected his weaknesses. I didn’t put him in any of our private schools, which were also academically rigorous (and we can pay), because he needed to be around kids who weren’t like him as well as ones who were like him.</p>
<p>My other son would have hated it. He is also very smart and mathematically strong, but does not like homework and loves sports. It just wouldn’t have been a fit for him. </p>