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The Assistant Principal sent a congratulatory welcome note and invitation to the event in an e-mail on Saturday.
Thank you so much for taking the time to give me your thoughts. This is an agonizing decision and I wish we could foretell the future
On paper, I’d say Payton. On everything else, I’d say Ignatius. My daughter has always succeeded at everything she’s touched – grades, art & dance. It sounds like I’m speaking to choir on this thread. But, I suppose the question is: what do you do with such gifts?
She’s very introspective and deeply, internally competitive. She does not react well to an A- on a test and she takes it out on herself harshly. She’s never had a B and I’m not looking forward to the day that that occurs. I attribute her introspection to the fact that she’s just not around kids that are thinking like her and that she’s taking middle school very seriously – whereas the other kids are planning the weekends. She’s an exceptionally humble and quiet leader and she’s made “being smart” a cool thing at her school.
Correct me if I miss the perception, but Payton seems to me to be an academic factory of high achievers who are pushing the boundaries of every subject – particularly math and science. Ignatius to me seems to be a leadership factory, where they are trying to make the ‘whole’ person. They seem to fall short on straight-up math/science, but they try to make up for it with their push of religion and service. Though neither seem to have strong dance programs, Ignatius’ performances are clearly better. Also, Ignatius seems to have more outlets for art. Ignatius might give her that chance to ‘come out of her shell’ a bit. But, then again, if she doesn’t my worry is that she gets trampled by the privileged legacies that already had their path charted for them (a path us non-legacy, non-Catholics don’t get).
Both schools now have the traditional grading scales (Ignatius finally came into the 21st century last year), so my daughter can put aside the fear of the dreaded 92% B+. Ignatius publishes what % students have earned what grades and its encouraging (40% getting A’s in math for instance) – they aren’t grade inflating, but they’re not killing peoples GPA’s either. Knowing where she typically performs, she shouldn’t have a problem graduating with honors. I have no idea what the grade distributions are like at Payton, but am curious whether and the extent to which grades are the end-all-be-all of your success for the next level.
Sorry for the diatribe, but this thread has been a welcomed, unbiased outlet.
Tier 4 – 897; 300 on SE Test. Got into Payton, 1st choice. We’re in a school choice dilemma now – St. Ignatius or Payton. Concerned that Payton will be too much of a pressure-cooker. Kids will clearly be top 10% of class going in at St. Ignatius (top 1-2% math), but maybe only top 1/3rd at Payton – is it better to take the stress off and go Ignatius route or keep pushing and go the Payton route?
They have surprisingly similar college placement statistics – which has me worried. Payton is a lot more diverse, so one theory is that the minority students are the ones getting the coveted college placements and the non-minorities are left scratching and competing. So, while Ignatius has poor diversity figures, when they report 25% going to top colleges, those figures are truly available to non-minorities.
Would love to know if others are going through the same or have thoughts.
