<p>I’m looking for insight into the differences between UK schools (Eton/Winchester specifically) and US schools (thinking Andover/Deerfield/Groton). Is music stronger in the UK? The “goal” is university in the US.
One of those schools is an option at this moment but I want to be sure that we have considered the options on both sides of the Atlantic as I start to panic about the commitment being made. I realise that entry dates are different. Any advice is welcome and appreciated.</p>
<p>You make it sound like it’s a given you will be admitted into any of these elite schools. Don’t underestimate how difficult they are to get into-- especially for int’l applicants. </p>
<p>The main thing I’ve realised over the last year is how different top schools are between the countries. The work load will be a lot greater in the US, but general academic standard higher in the UK (it’s generally said that we’re a year ahead). I know less about Winchester, but music is absolute brilliant at Eton, and is taught incredibly well. </p>
<p>It might be easier for me to help if there are specific differences you’re looking at? </p>
<p>Well, the person applying is already in to one of the schools and is a dual citizen, so wouldn’t be an international applicant. I’m generally looking for input on the differences in experiences between the types of schools, whether music would not be as good in the US, as I know it’s fantastic at Eton/WinColl, and what sport is like for someone who is sporty but not super-talented. I’m interested in what you say about work load being greater in the US but the academics being higher in the UK – is it because the UK would start at a higher level or is the US just giving more busywork/going for breadth rather than depth? </p>
<p>Actually US boarding schools were setup and based on UK boarding schools as role models. </p>
<p>Well I get the impression of very different workloads mostly from CC, and a lot of the US schools say there is an expectation of 2-4 hours of work a night. I’m at a top UK public school doing A levels and very rarely do more than 2 hours a night, although there are a lot of activities around school that take up a lot of time.
As for academic standard, the UK is just generally a year ahead. A levels are equivalent to, or even slightly harder than, APs. I can only assume it’s because of more work at a younger age, as this is the same the whole way up, and is one of the reasons that bachelors degrees are a year longer in the US.
What school year would they be applying for?</p>
<p>Thanks UKgirl23 that’s helpful to hear. He’s going into Yr9 this fall, but then would apply for US schools during that year so entering at freshman year if he were to switch systems. Trying to figure out if the US or UK system is a better “match”. I think he’s ahead of the US system now so in that sense the UK makes more sense but there are other factors in favour of a US school. WinColl at least do pre-U’s which should be harder than A-levels.</p>
<p>I’m at Westminster, and we also do Pre-Us for certain subjects, but I think any top school would push students beyond the standard curriculum, even if they only do A-levels.
If you’re aiming at university in the US, it may be may be better to switch curriculums earlier, or look at schools here that have a very good record with them.</p>
<p>Hello Momtoarc, we are in the midst of this same decision ourselves, and we have two musically-inclined children, so I am happy to chip in from our perspective, which is actually American notwithstanding my username. </p>
<p>First, about being “international”, and your described goal of a place in a top US university. Notwithstanding your dual citizenship, if your goal is a top US university your child <may> be better off applying from Eton or Winchester than any US school - all other things begin equal of course - simply because he will be one of a very few doing so. From Winchester, it seems that about five to ten per cent of the class now do this, and I am told Eton has a similar number. Ironically, the UK schools now seem happy to help their leavers to apply to US universities because it reduces the numbers competing for Oxbridge spaces, while still allowing them to boast of their acceptances to top US schools. They even have SAT prep classes, and help coordinate college tours. However, the word “may” is important here, because more and more of the top Eton/Win Coll students are choosing to apply to Ivy schools (e.g., a recent Sen.Co.Prae. is now at Princeton). With a limited number of spaces at these schools for non-US students, the “diversity” factor may work against you. </may></p>
<p>In short, when it comes to admissions, I have to fall back on the cliche that your child should go where he will have the best chance of developing his talents. With that in mind, let’s turn to music. I do think that Eton and Win Coll are stronger in classical music than any American school. Besides the Quiristers and whatever the Etonian choir is called, the English schools have explicit music scholarships, and in my experience there is a stronger emphasis on music education in English primary schools (or at least, the kinds of schools that serve as feeders to Eton and Winchester). </p>
<p>That said, we were very impressed by the scope and depth of Groton’s music offerings, which are all the more notable given that Groton has only 380 students, compared to 670 at Winchester and 1300 at Eton. This seems to be due to the fact that music is fully integrated into the curriculum - and since students take six classes as a norm, it is easy to take a music class as a sixth course, along with the typical prerequisites such as math and English. On a per capita basis - perhaps an odd metric to use in this case, but perhaps useful depending on what you are looking for - Groton’s music offerings and its commitment to music might be the equal of Eton and Winchester. </p>
<p>By contrast, I understand that Andover students can also take six classes, but it is the exception and can only be done with permission. Andover does offer a variety of music courses - many more than Groton, or Eton or Win Coll for that matter, because they are trying to meet students’ interests as opposed to simply preparing for Pre-U or A-Levels. True, most of those classes are introductory, which students take to fill a requirement, but Andover also claims to have over 60 music performances a year, so they must have a sizable community of musicians, some quite talented. So if your child has a general interest in music (i.e. keen to perform an instrument, and perhaps also sing, but not the kind to pursue a music scholarship), Andover might be a good fit for you. Indeed, if your child is serious about jazz, or about composing electronic music, you might well be better off at Andover or Groton (or, I have to add, Exeter) than Eton or Winchester. </p>
<p>The only one on your list I would dissuade you from - based on the criterion of having a serious interest in music - is Deerfield. We looked at this for our older son, who is both athletic and musical, and were disappointed to find that there would be conflicts, because Deerfield still treats music as an extracurricular activity. Before I get attacked for saying that, I should note that they have recently invested in improving their facilities, and seem to want to upgrade their offerings. But the number of classes and instructors tells you that they still do not have nearly as many students taking music classes as Groton, nor do the number of recitals (adjusted for the relative size of the schools) match either Groton or Andover. </p>
<p>I could say more, and I’m tempted to say something about other US prep schools, but this post is long enough - please feel free to PM me if you want to discuss further. </p>
<p>Well, as you predicted, of course I can’t let that gratuitous “Dump on Deerfield” comment go by. So my DS is a serious musician, in fact just won a concerto competition, and goes to the New England Conservatory every Saturday. Deerfield USED to, but no longer, treats music as an extra- curricular. Many music classes can be taken for a grade or pass-fail; courses include Chamber Music, choral music, intro, composition, studio production. AP Music theory, etc. I know at least chamber, choral, and band can be taken either for a grade or P/F, as many times as you want. They can only be counted as a graded 5th course for 2 trimesters, but can be a graded 6th course as many times as you like as long as you maintain a 90 average overall. My DS does chamber music (a regular class) which is great–good musicians, learn to critique and support one another, learn some music theory, perform frequently. The quality if the quartet he’s in for the year is very high. Orchestra meets once a week (Sunday night). I was told (by a student, so I can’t swear to it) that very student who took the AP theory class last year got a “5” on the exam. My DS, too, is an athlete, although not varsity. Still, he had to try out, made the team when others did not, and the coach has been completely supportive. His music commitments at Deerfield do NOT conflict with music, but his Saturdays at the NEC certainly conflict with lots of games. The coach has been completely supportive, playing him in all weekday games, letting him off for Saturdays. When DS won the competition a couple weeks ago, but hadn’t mentioned it to the coach, the coach called him aside to quietly congratulate him. DS had to miss one practice for music, and that was fine. You CAN do a music extra-curricular instead of a sport, but that has nothing to do with classes or playing/singing groups. For that, you don’t do a regular (competitive) sport, you get a 2 hour practice block every afternoon, and you then perform in the community-- at soup kitchens, schools, nursing homes, as community service. The new facilities they’re building ARE fantastic, and just to explain all this, a few years ago Peter Warsaw came to Deerfield to teach the Chamber class and conduct the Orchestra. He was at Andover for 24 years, BUILT that program (very small when he got there), and is now building this one. So not attacking you, wykehamist, just updating your information.</p>
<p>Daykidmom, </p>
<p>Thank you very much for your response. No need to worry about it being perceived as an attack - you gave a detailed, factual response that contributed to the discussion. I should add that two of my best friends from childhood went to Deerfield, so I am happy to stand corrected. </p>
<p>Congratulations also to your son; the discipline and effort required to strike the kind of balance that you describe are remarkable and will serve him well in whatever path he chooses. </p>
<p>What you describe reminds me to also mention Milton, which is justly proud of its music department, and where several students travel to the Conservatory for world-class music lessons - but they only have to ride the T. Choate also has a concentration program in music, with a strong music department. A student with a strong interest in music could probably find what they are looking for at any of these schools, or others (Pandolfi, at St. Paul’s, began at Deerfield and has very high standards; Lawrenceville boasts of its strong commitment to music; Peddie’s music department was nothing to look at but was packed with students on a Saturday afternoon; and NMH has a great new performing arts facility). In short, to be clear, several American schools have excellent offerings in Music, enough to fill the needs of most (or, indeed, almost all) of their students. </p>
<p>Having said that, let me come back to the OP’s points of reference - Eton and Winchester - and offer two points of context for an American trying to compare the strength of their music programs. </p>
<p>First, neither of these schools really recruit athletes (except perhaps for rowers at Eton). Instead, they look for especially talented student-musicians the way that American schools look for talented student-athletes. Indeed, roughly 10% of the students at each school are admitted as “music scholars”. That gives them a large corps of very talented musicians. </p>
<p>Second, say what you will about the English class system, but one of its more positive enduring legacies is an approach to “education” in which it is simply expected that a well-education person will play at least one musical instrument. (To give one famous example, Peter Gabriel and three other founding members of Genesis met at Charterhouse, which for an American is like saying they were classmates at Choate.) So you have a very high percentage of students with some decent musical training. </p>
<p>These two factors combine to produce schools that are just steeped in music - mostly classical, to be sure, but done at a very high level. Here are some statistics to illustrate the point, from Winchester’s Music Department page: </p>
<p>"Two thirds of the boys learn an instrument, while many learn two or three. There are over seven hundred individual instrumental lessons given each week by a visiting staff of over fifty specialist teachers as well as seven highly experienced full-time staff. [This, for a school of 670 boys.] </p>
<p>“There are three orchestras, a symphonic wind band, a double reed ensemble, clarinet ensemble, jazz group, rock groups, a flute ensemble, four choirs, numerous smaller ensembles, and a regular programme of chamber music, as well as informal concerts that enable every boy to perform. The School is also active in commissioning new music for their choirs and instrumental ensembles.” </p>
<p>The page goes on to note that the “Music School”, as it’s called, has “fifty teaching and practice rooms, a fully-equipped music technology classroom, recording studio, editing suite, percussion studio and rock room”. </p>
<p>Similarly, Eton reports 1,000 lessons a week, for a school of 1,300 boys, and also recently doubled the size of its music facility. And of course they do things with their own, unique flair - here are the music offerings just last Sunday: </p>
<p>“Sunday 9th February
2.00pm Bagpiping Competition
2.15pm Junior Organ Competition in Lower Chapel
not before 3.15pm Harpsichord Competition in Music Schools
4.30pm Senior Organ Competition in College Chapel
8.30pm Cello piano duo recital in Music Schools” </p>
<p>Bagpiping and Harpsichord? Well, again, that’s Eton for you. </p>
<p>I think the numbers applying to US colleges from the UK are much higher than has been suggested. Certainly at my school, 30-40% apply and around 10-20% actually go. I don’t think any go to the US and not to Ivy League/MIT (although this may be different at a slightly less academic school) and almost all would choose Oxbridge over the US, if they get in. So what actually decides the numbers going to the US is which universities they all get into.</p>
<p>The UK schools’ music programs sound fantastic-- more similar to a performing arts BS experience in US (Walnut Hill, Interlochen)-- but those schools in the US don’t have the same academics as the ones discussed here (although are great if your child is definitely aiming toward a conservatory-- but that doesn’t sound like the case here). I’d be a little careful of the “year ahead” assumption for the UK schools given in a post earlier-- A levels may be equivalent (or higher)than APs, but the BS list the op gave (A/E/D) all have courses well beyond the AP level in many disciplines. If you DO end up considering the schools in the US, do try to visit (when the time comes) and really observe music classes and performances, and talk to the music directors and/ or teachers. You’ll find the quality varies, even if, on paper, the offerings look somewhat similar (looking at the broader list suggested by wykehamist, based on our experience seeing a few of those schools). The op mentioned busy work. I can’t tell you about the British system, but I would not say the homework assigned here is “busywork.” Unlike when my DS was at a (private) middle school, the homework assignments have been quite substantive (at least overall), and there are some really fantastic and often interdisciplinary courses offered. Sports opportunities are great–they offer so many levels for so many sports, from beginning to really great varsity teams, that pretty much everyone finds a sport they like and a challenging(but doable) way to play it. DO look for specific placement data from the UK schools, if a US university is one of your goals, as UKgirl suggests, and keep trying to determine how the programs differ, but, I have to say, the Eton/WinCol music programs do sound amazing.</p>
<p>UKgirl, thanks for the additional information. I did not know the percentage of those applying to the US was quite so high. How much of this do you think is due to the recent restrictions that have been imposed on Oxbridge applications? Someone described them to me briefly, and they sounded quite draconian. However I have also read that some English families are applying to US universities because the financial aid packages make the US more affordable; is that also something you have seen? </p>
<p>Daykidmom, you make several good points, beginning with your reference to Walnut Hill and Interlochen, which is quite apt. As for the “year ahead” issue, the comparison is not that simple; it is kind of like comparing Macintosh apples to Golden Delicious apples: some things that look different on paper end up being quite similar in practice, while other things that look the same operate differently. </p>
<p>The one generalization I would venture is that the UK system is better for those who know what they want to study early on, and who want to concentrate on that subject (most notably, law and medicine are undergraduate courses), while the American system is better for generalists or the undecided. Once you are admitted to “read” a subject at Oxbridge, you are usually committed to that subject - people can change subjects, but you have to apply to do so, and permission may well be denied. Thus A levels are designed to be taken in just a few subjects (typically three, for those headed to Oxbridge), often related, in preparation for choosing a specific subject to read at university (e.g., Biology, Chem, and Math, or English, French, and Latin). Of course there are some university courses that are exceptions to this kind of rigid specialization, with Oxford’s “Philosophy, Politics, and Economics” course being the most famous; they also have “Physics and Philosophy”, and in fact they have recently developed several others that sound like the kind of combinations American students come up with when they have a major and a minor, or a dual-major. </p>
<p>As for the music programs at boarding schools here in the states, I did not mean to suggest that all of the other programs that I mentioned were all equal, and you are quite right that one should look carefully at the details of the programs, understand what they really offer and the quality of the faculty, and visit if possible. (There was also a spirited debate on this point on CC a year or two ago, which should come up in a search.) </p>
<p>The amount of homework is top US high schools should have its own discussion. I take your point, unreservedly, that excellent schools such as Deerfield can have engaging, highly valuable homework assignments that are intended to, and regularly do, take up four hours per night. Andover, too, is known for significant homework assignments. So at first it seems odd that top English schools make a point of noting the limited amount of homework they assign. This is best illustrated by two top schools other than Eton and Win Coll: St. Paul’s (London) notes that homework assignments are not intended to exceed two hours each school night in the early years, and roughly 15 hours a week in the final two years. Westminster (again, the one in London, not New England) has study hall on school nights from 7:15 to 9, followed by an hour of informal time, which many students choose to use for study. Both schools send over 40% of their graduates to Oxbridge. </p>
<p>How can we reconcile those results, and the limited homework hours with the standard “four hours a night” of the top American schools (boarding and day)? The difference is <not> that these English students are faster, or cleverer, than the students at the equivalent top American schools. Nor are the Americans simply piling on busywork (that may be the case in some schools, of course, but I don’t think that’s the answer overall.) Rather, it seems to me that the difference reflects the fact that English students spend more time in the classroom than American students do. Week in and week out, more of the English students’ learning takes place in classroom discussion, and less takes place individually, after hours. </not></p>
<p>Which system is “better” depends primarily on how your DS best learns. Some kids learn better (or faster) on their own, and may be shy in class, while others are able to pick up ideas in a seminar setting (and may even be slow readers, making long assignments painful). Since this different approach to the amount of homework is a general difference between US and UK schools, I would urge anyone choosing between the two systems to bear this distinction in mind when making their choice - how does your child learn best? </p>
<p>Separate and apart from the amount of homework, one may have a concern at kids getting exhausted and burned out at schools that don’t enforce a lights out policy, so that kids stay up late chatting on the internet, and only turn to homework when the should be brushing their teeth. That’s a different problem though it does lead me back to something else that I read last year or so about Deerfield - though it may have been in The Phillippian, so I can’t swear it’s accurate or even true. In any event, the article referred to an experiment in which winter morning schedules were moved back a bit to allow people to get more sleep. According to the report, the change was a clear success, with teachers reporting that students were much more alert and did better on quizzes and tests. Daykidmom, as someone who knows Deerfield in detail, can you please let me know if there is any truth to this report, and if so whether the experiment was continued in any way? </p>
<p>Yes-- they switched the class start time to 8:30, saw good results, so they’ve continued that time. They also turn off the internet at 11:00 PM for underclassmen and 1:00 AM for upperclassmen, hoping to get kids to go to sleep (not sure that totally works, but hopefully it helps), and there are no Saturday classes. I know they really do believe the later start time has helped-- and, personally, my DS appreciates the no- Saturday-classes thing so he can do the NEC. I like your description of more class time and less homework in the UK, although does that still allow for afternoon sports? Still, in principle, it seems like a good idea. </p>
<p>That’s terrific - regarding both the early start and turning off the internet. More schools should try to ensure that kids get enough sleep. </p>
<p>As for the balance of class time and homework at English schools, they do still have time every afternoon for sports or other club activities, but you are right - sports are generally much less important at English schools (not just Eton and Winchester) than at US schools. There are some exceptions of course - Eton and other schools have some serious training for crew, and of course they take soccer seriously - but most of them are treated like clubs, meeting a few times a week, and the minimum requirements are much less. I think Winchester requires boys to play a sport their first year only - after that it’s optional. One advantage of this is that you can easily play more than one sport a term: for example, I played on the school basketball team and on an intra-mural “Winchester Football” team. </p>
<p>Still, though, coming back to the original point, I think the main reason they have less homework in English schools is they simply have more class time - including those Saturday classes. </p>
<p>US boarding schools emphasize a liberal arts education, whereas the UK curriculum is much more focused on pre-professional education. </p>
<p>^that is definitely true. I’m going through the UK curriculum now, and in a few months I’ll have to pick six courses for IB to study for two years. SIX. And what I choose will greatly affect what courses I’ll be able to take in a UK university, since they all have pre-requisites. I have no idea what I want to do in the future, and if I continue with the UK curriculum I feel like my options are so much narrower. </p>
<p>I didn’t know that. But then I always assumed that most BS’s are like that in America too.</p>
<p>A lot of my friends are going to UK boarding schools (I’m actually the only one who applied to the US). And most of them are taking A-levels, where you choose FOUR subjects. gosh that TERRIFIES ME. but they all have a very clear idea of what they want their career path to be… lucky</p>