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The agony of the acceptance letter
By adamg on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 8:38am
Parent Imperfect walks us through the angst of getting a Boston Latin School acceptance letter and then deciding whether to send your kid there:
For families in the Boston Public Schools, at least, the decision NOT to go to take an invitation to attend BLS can be a very tough one. Liz and the PI remember well the strange momentum that took them in just a few months from not thinking much about the exam schools to deciding that Vince should give BLS a try. Some parents seem very confident that they know how their child will respond to BLS. Liz and the PI were not of that sort. Since Vince had not done Advanced Work in fourth, fifth or sixth grade, they really had to guess how he would respond to the kind of pressure he’d face at BLS. Have you heard yet that ominous, "BLS is not for everyone!"
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Comments
Chance of a lifetime
Then again, maybe your kid isn't up to snuff.
It was hard, very hard and I struggled greatly after breezing through lower grades. On the other hand Latin put me in touch with people who had parents that didn't think that getting on the T, Edison, Globe, or Gas company was life's greatest goal.
The school also is better now in terms of the suck it up or drop out attitude that was there from around 1640 until 1995.
I would love to be 13 again and go back and learn everything all over.
Also, if your kid cannot make it, you can always shell out tens of thousands for private school, move to Wayland, or stick them into one of Boston's gladiator academies, scratch that, other high schools.
I would take that letter and be first in line on Ave. Louis Pasteur in a minute if this was my kid.
On The Other Hand...
I went there for seventh grade in 1969. After breezing through my local Dorchester grade school with straight A marks, I struggled to get up to a C in most courses at Boston Latin.
I like to think it wasn't a matter of brainpower so much as it was a combination of never having to truly apply myself previously and the much longer commute to school leaving me a bit lacking in the sleep to which I had become accustomed.
(That last is truly something to consider. Depending upon where a kid is coming from, the commute can involve - as it did in my case - a trolley, a train, then a streetcar. In the time it took me to complete the first leg of that, I would have completed the walk to my grade school. I went from a fifteen-minute meandering stroll to a one-hour tour of the T during rush hour, both ways. That didn't make for a happy student.)
I transferred to my local junior high for eighth grade. Had I stayed at Latin, I would have been repeating seventh grade. Since it was such a rigorous school, however, I was promoted to eighth with the transfer.
Having not learned anything, I took the exam again for entry into the ninth grade. I lasted a half-year on the second go-round, once again transferring to the local school. I had passed the exam for Boston Tech, also, so I went there for tenth and graduated from there in 1974, on schedule.
Now, it was my own damn fault for not buckling down more, but whether I buckled down or not, the entire experience left me with a distaste for formal schooling. I hadn't been overjoyed to attend school before Latin, but I didn't consider it the worst aspect of my life, either. From midway through seventh on, the only thing I wanted to get out of school was me.
At least partially as a result of having attended Latin, I never had any desire to go to college. So, I never did. I was overjoyed to leave school permanently after graduating from Tech.
(I went to broadcasting school when I was 32, and that institution has since become accredited as a full-fledged college.)
It was long circuitous route to garner a job I enjoy and which pays decently. I suspect that if I had avoided Latin I might have become successful earlier in life. Of course, that's just speculation, but it's based upon how much I truly loathed school after having attended that institution.
I'm sure others have happier tales, but it was THE miserable experience of my academic career, such as it was.
(Sorry for the long ramble, but I despise that school. The only time I've ever returned to it was to piss on the building, along with two of my fellow classmates who not only hated the place but also dropped out from there and ended up never even graduating high school. True story. We made a special trip there one evening just to do that.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I agree with J. Costello and Suldog
I went to BLS in the early 70s. I agree with Costello's statement "On the other hand Latin put me in touch with people who had parents that didn't think that getting on the T, Edison, Globe, or Gas company was life's greatest goal." (He forgot the Post Office, the other biggie of those days for "a good job with good benefits".) I met some people there and had some experiences, none of which had anything to do with the curriculum itself (in fact some of them went directly against it), that have stayed with me to this day.
But I also agree with Suldog. The commute was one factor, as he points out. And I too have a distaste for the school system as it was/is. I left BLS after three years to attend another high school which I ended up liking even less. The students at the school seemed much less worldly, after my experiences at But I did graduate and go on to college.
No, it's not for everyone
But you know what? High school isn't for everyone. We're drawing close to the end of our six years at BLS and it's been a crazy ride at times--some truly wonderful teachers, amazing kids, some teachers who should have been rubber-roomed years ago, not enough resources, ever, but extraordinarily dedicated parents, staff and students who seem to be able to make something out of nothing. Is it tough? Yes. But there is support to be had and there's a spirit of independence and do-it-yourself energy that I don't think you find in a private school. I dont honestly think that the workload or competitive spirit is worse than it would be at any decent independent school. I have friends whose kids are struggling in private schools and I can't honestly say whether or not they'd have done better or been happier in a class of 400-500 at BLS than they have in a class of 30 or 50. But it's a worthy gamble, IMHO, not to mention it leaves you an extra $25,000 or so to spend on tutoring, sports, etc.
Curriculum < Parenting
Would you rather your kid be a little fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a little pond. Graduated from Burke High, one of the shittiest HS in town, and turned out just fine
I really wish I could like the PI blog
But all too often, I find myself wanting to smack this guy on the back of the head for being such a self-involved rumor-monger. (also for talking about himself in the third person, ie "the mark of the douche").
If he spent a bit more time actually seeking out solid info on his topic du jour and a little less passing along whatever he's heard from un-named sources and composing breathless prose for his blog, he might find himself a bit less "angsty" about his childrens' educations.
Since the beginning of the year, he's written multiple articles that pass along hearsay, innuendo, and plain old innacuracies - about kids he's never met, about schools he's barely looked into, about statistics seemingly drawn from the astral plane. For someone who's apparently so concerned about his kids' education, he might take a little time to actually hunt down some pertinent facts.
But that's the problem with most blog culture - it's fundamentally onanistic and narcisistic. Although UHub's comment threads can be a troll fest sometimes, at least when I read this site I feel like I can depend on adam's journalistic integrity to keep the primary foccus on what's actually taking place, rather than what's tumbling around inside one person's noggin.
I wish...
Always good to discover a new fan...
The attempt is to see if there is anything in my (first person) experience of trying to be a parent that is of value to anyone else. There obviously isn't anything there of value to you, which is fine.
Your observations will make me be more careful about numbers from the astral plane. That's a legitimate criticism, unlike some of the others.
The blogosphere is onanistic? Is that really happening, or just tumbling around in your noggin?
Thanks
I graduated BLS in 2006, and
I graduated BLS in 2006, and my first semester I had breakdowns every Thursday night until Thanksgiving from the workload. It's a lot of work, and you'll be doing your child a favor by helping him/her plan ahead, see how long their homework really takes them each night and spend the time to teach them proper planning and long-term follow-through. It's not for everybody, but it was undoubtedly the right decision for me. Just remember that the beginning is always the worst.
2006 -- You must have been in the same class...
... as my twins. ;-}