<p>Well, I went to a public magnet, not a private, but at my school we didn’t get this type of guidance. In fact, the teachers there had a pretty strong resistance to the mentality of trying to produce contest winners (despite the fact we had a lot of success in the Westinghouse/siemens/intel). In particular, the notion of choosing a research project that would be more likely to win a contest would be particularly objectionable to them. Maybe this is different at privates.</p>
<p>You might justify trying to coach the kids such that they learn how to present better, but that didn’t occur either. Pretty hands-off.</p>
<p>^^^Contrast that to our public school where nobody ever heard of national contests like Intel. I hadn’t heard of these until I found CC in 2002. Nobody tells kids at our HS about such things. While not in the area of sciences, I recall reading about the NFAA Arts Awards on CC (also a national award program but in the arts). Nobody at our school enters or no staff tell kids about it. But since I read it here, my kid entered on her own. She actually won an award. But in looking at the list of winners, there were some schools that had many winners and I think their schools even assisted them in preparing and entering. Contrast that to my region where my kid was the only winner in any of the categories of the arts in our entire state. That is not because there are not talented kids here! But kids don’t find out about these national contests or are not coached at their schools for them, unlike at some other schools.</p>
<p>“We made no decisions as to where our kids went to high school” </p>
<p>sooz: you chose to live in area that had no choices</p>
<p>“but now with college, you get to pick.”</p>
<p>depends on where you grew up and your family, many middle class families started looking out of state in the 60’s for college. I do think places like Vermont are just very provincial, k-12 is down the street, college is the state school, and vacation is Disneyland:)</p>
<p>That is a travesty. This is a pipeline to Presidential Scholar.</p>
<p>My S’s all boy school usually has 2 out of the class attend. But, there is no coaching. This year was a photographer and a young man that designs furniture from functional to whimsy. What the school offers is encouragement of participation in the arts, the necessary facilities and the institutional knowledge of these things and how to get involved. That’s the substantial leg up.</p>
<p>Can we at least agree that Harker is a great school that will help smart kids get into highly selective colleges? It has great college couseling, AND the prestige AOs of Ivies buy. Or at least for kids who don’t have the parents or hired consultants who can provide the great college couseling and prestige, Harker helps achieving better results. (Not sure if POIH would be satisfied. :))</p>
<p>when I lived in a rural area a few years ago the principal and staff of a 3500 student high school had never heard of an International Baccalaureate degree</p>
<p>when educated about it they thought it was elitist.</p>
<p>just one more reason why we moved back to the city:)</p>
<p>I don’t agree with this. We moved to VT before we ever had kids and established careers here. We didn’t pick where to live based on schools. When our kids came, they attended the schools in our district. And that is just us, and we are not native Vermonters. But there are LOTS of kids here whose parents grew up here and this is where the family is based and where their children attend school. But, let me say this, we are NOT complaining about where we sent our kids to school. While we did not pick their schools,we are not dissatisfied with the education they received or with their college admissions outcomes (even if we COULD pick a high school, we would not select it with college admissions in mind). In any case, we LIKE where we live. We live in a community where MANY people were educated elsewhere and chose to live here for the lifestyle (ourselves included). Many of my peers in the community are not natives. I also do not live in a typical rural town in VT, as I live in resort community. There are plenty of people here with advanced degrees who are professionals and their kids go to the same schools with the farmers and carpenters’ kids. :D</p>
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<p>For one thing K-12 is NOT down the street, and particularly 9-12!!! Our kids could not walk to school. The high school draws from many different towns and a wide radius. Two kids at the same high school could live 20 miles apart.</p>
<p>If you think everyone is so provincial here…I know my own kids are not. They are very worldly and have traveled to many other countries and also spent their summers out of state. I’m in the middle of writing up an alum interview report for an applicant in my state to a very selective college. This student has been to Israel, Taiwan, Soviet Republic of Georgia, France, Italy, and Costa Rica. The interview I am going to write up next, the student has been to every continent but Antarctica, though was at the southern tip of South America (close). These kids all attended public schools. Their parents, like us, grew up elsewhere and have graduate degrees.</p>
<p>I also was not aware of IB for a very long time as it is uncommon in the region where I have lived as an adult and where I grew up as well (2 different states). It so happens, however, that my niece did IB in Alaska and it is talked about on CC and so those were the only ways I was initially aware of it too. Some things are regionally oriented. </p>
<p>On a lighter note, as another example, I had never heard of Forensics or Show Choir until my kids met kids from other regions where these ECs are popular.</p>
<p>I never heard the acronyms of HYP or HYPSM until I found CC in 2002. And I even went to grad school at Harvard! :D</p>
<p>sooz: provincial is more of a state of mind. your family may be worldly and open minded because you had the money and interest, but most of your neighbors (outside of the resort gates) are not worldly or open minded. I’ve been to Vermont, most people are provincial.</p>
<p>IB is not a regional thing. It’s an intellectual thing. And if you have educators and principals of large high schools that have never heard of it, that’s not good. It’s like a mechanic having never heard of a BMW. </p>
<p>the point is these are professional educators. it would be similar to saying I’ve never heard of the SAT</p>
<p>VT has a mix of people, pacheight. There are some here who have never been outside of VT and every generation of their family has lived here and so on. But there are many professionals, for example, who grew up elsewhere and then settled here or were educated out of state. This is NOT just in my particular town. The two students I just referred to are not from our high school or community but are from educated families. The state has a mix of types in this regard. I like that my kids went to K-12 with children of both professionals and children of farmers, carpenters, and waiters. I consider it a part of their education.</p>
<p>Well, it does show that people in rural areas have good instincts and common sense. It is amazing how a program originally designed as a remedial tool for the nomadic European elite has been marketed with such success in the United States. The IBO organization in Geneva must still be ecstatic about the discovery that the IB program offered the perfect GPA boosts in states where ranking of HS students is king (Texas and Florida.) </p>
<p>A fact that was not lost on schools such as Andover.</p>
<p>Not know of IB is NOT the same as not knowing of the SAT! Kids in every state take the SAT to get into college. Many regions have high schools with no IB program. I never knew anyone who did IB when I was growing up in South Jersey or here in my state of Vermont either. But everyone took the SATs.</p>
<p>Btw, my career field has always been in education in fact!</p>
<p>I think Harker served it’s purpose of being a good school for DD. A good school is one that provide oppertunity to a student to excel and I think Harker fulfil that in a true sense.</p>
<p>It is not a 9-12 HS only but a complete K-12 school. The intake happen at 3 distinct levels.
2/3rd of the 9th grader comes from Harker middle school (like DD). Again 2/3rd of the 6th grader comes from Harker K-5 elementary school.
Majority of the top students at HS are continuing students from Harker middle school.</p>
<p>Now if you say Harker is so good at picking up high achiever at K-level and 6th grade level then all bets are off. </p>
<p>I did take DD on tour of Harvard and MIT when she was 4. Maybe Harker picked on that.</p>
<p>Pacheight…I just looked through the 718 schools in the US that offer an IB Diploma program. </p>
<p>I grew up in South Jersey. And of course many of these programs have begun in the years since I was in high school long ago. I could find NO programs in South Jersey.</p>
<p>I have lived in VT ever since I got out of grad school long ago. There is only one school in this state with IB and it is a private school, Long Trail School, and it has only had this program since this past May. I also live nowhere near there.</p>
<p>It is not so far fetched that I had not heard of IB until 8 1/2 years ago when I found CC.</p>
There! I’ll add (not sacastically) that Harker as a school is stronger than the top boarding schools in the east coast. Fortune unfortunately used an unbalanced formula to pick out the top 20, which doesn’t deminish the value of Harker as an excellent school. How does that sound? I hope this is a conclusion of this thread everyone is happy with.</p>