Top Student @ Good Public -vs- B student @ Top Boarding school

QueueCT
Mon, 08 Nov 2021 15:27:09 +0000

This is all going to vary student by student so I’ll give you one perspective. My daughter got all As and A+s in 8th grade. In her mind, losing a point on an assignment was a crisis; a B+ was a catastrophe. She’s not brilliant, just works really hard and the school did not (or would not) differentiate good students from great students in their rubrics.

Our primary goal for her isn’t to be top 10% at BS. It’s to stretch her abilities and become comfortable overcoming the challenges she’ll face in class. To gain confidence that she has the ability to fight through the struggle and get better as a result. We were very careful in choosing schools so she would get that challenge but not be overmatched.

After first marking period, given the grade distributions, she’s in the 2nd quintile of the class. Honestly, that was about what we expected and, even though she’s a bit disappointed, it’s not demotivating and she can build on it for the rest of the term.

So far we’re getting exactly what we wanted for her. The right amount of challenge, a focus on writing skills, and more individualized attention from her teachers. We’ll get her into the right college based on her interests and abilities when the time comes … but strengthening her abilities is the priority now.