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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Not too shy to talk
 
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This. I went to McNair (but this was many years ago), and as a college senior, I was able to focus so much time on my thesis project thanks to all of the AP classes that I took in high school. I attended public schools from kindergarten thru senior year of high school (all in Jersey City) and got into one of the top architectural schools in the country on a scholarship, if that says anything.
Posted on: 2015/5/12 15:54
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
 
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A little big picture perspective - I have worked at 2 Ivy League schools and just accepted a job at a third. I also have worked at a State school. I've taught or mentored dozens if not hundreds of students at this point. My experience is that the bright, motivated, reasonably well adjusted students do well wherever they go, in both high school and college. Whether they were the valedictorian of a struggling public high school or top 25% of a private high ranked one, I don't see a huge difference. I've actually had interns from state schools who far outperformed the interns from Ivys because they just had a better work ethic and professional demeanor.
On the other hand, the kids who don't enjoy school, don't have the temperament for sitting in a classroom all day, etc. aren't going to become Rhodes Scholars just because 3% of their high school becomes Rhode Scholars. I once tutored a failing college freshman who had gone to a 50K/year boarding school, who had the social skills of about a 6 year old and no academic motivation or interests. The 50K would have been better spent on occupational therapy rather than Latin classes or whathaveyou. So, if your kid is bright and motivated, they will probably be fine wherever. It doesn't matter to me if my top students came from Prep, McNair, Snyder, wherever - I'm probably actually a little more impressed by the kids from not-great schools who despite that know how to write well, think critically, etc.
Posted on: 2015/5/6 17:31
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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My kids walked to school for K-12, except for one year after LCCS moved up the hill, so the notion of commuting across the river to high school when there were perfectly fine schools locally was not even considered.
Posted on: 2015/5/5 17:38
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Stuyvesant requires NYC residency.
Posted on: 2015/5/5 17:00
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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For those of you who have kids at McNair or Preps, have you also looked at choices in NYC, such as Styvesant (spelling?), Xavier, St Regis and such?
Posted on: 2015/5/5 16:51
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Both of my sons got into Prep with money. One did the HAP summer program. Both chose McNair. My older son had so many AP credits from McNair that he started college three credits shy of full sophomore. It can be a pressure cooker.
On the flip side, plenty of Prep boys go to Ivies and other fine schools. Given the socioeconomic profile of McNair, you're going to find a lot more Rutgers, with scholarships.
Posted on: 2015/5/5 16:40
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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This was/is, thus far the most reasonable and level headed thread I've seen on this board in ten years.
Congrats!
Posted on: 2015/5/5 16:20
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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It was 2 years ago that my wife and I saw the list of college placements while on the tour for acceptees. We saw no Ivies or top tier schools like Stanford or MIT. I recall the best school we saw was Georgetown. They don't put the placement list on their website. I'd love to see it, as would anyone considering the school. I hope you don't take my posts as an attack on the school you love, I'm just sharing our experience, sympathetic to how hard the process is for everyone. It's wonderful your son loves it there, it just wasn't right for mine. When he saw there was both latin & religion every semester, and usually a free period every day, he wondered when he would be getting academically challenging coursework. He attended freshman for a day, and walking home past McNair realized he belonged more with these kids than the ones he had spent the day with. And we felt between Scouts and our Congregation we had the moral fiber covered. It's true not everyone does.
Posted on: 2015/5/5 2:34
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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Your view of Prep is dated, if it ever was accurate. My son is finishing his second year there, is a high achieving student (always has been) and I can tell you he is challenged daily. The incoming freshman class (Class of '19) had almost 900 applicants for about 260 spots - the school, with about 1,000 students - is a heck of a lot more than the 80 or so kids on the football teams. Three of this year's graduating class are going to Stanford and the Ivies are well represented as well. While claiming diversity as a major benefit merely for diversity's sake has always struck me as a bit silly, Prep is likely a lot more diverse than you think. All of that aside - the thing that I think makes the Prep experience a valuable one is the environment. The faculty and students genuinely buy into the "men for others" motto and my son has found a home that he always craved in his other schools but never had. He talks about his teachers not just in relation to the subject matter or lessons but also as people who teach him things beyond chemistry, trig or what have you. What's most interesting about that (to me) is that my son was raised as an atheist, yet he is treated as an equal. I'm sure a McNair education will pay dividends in terms of college acceptance. For my money, if your son is of the aptitude that he can go either place, he is likely to come out as well academically at Prep while also being molded into a compassionate man who belongs to a nurturing community. Throw in the Jesuit emphasis on critical thinking and writing and I'm happy with our choice.
Posted on: 2015/5/5 1:48
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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2014/3/4 22:31 Last Login : 2019/8/30 19:03 From Downtown Jersey City
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Maybe the solution to that is acknowledging that abstinence isn't going to work and teaching people to wear protection.
Posted on: 2015/5/4 20:23
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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2007/7/4 16:37 Last Login : 2021/11/4 21:55 From Hamilton Park
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Abstinence works! That's what I learnt at my jesuit school for sure. And it certainly apply to any interaction with her Ladyship.
Posted on: 2015/5/4 1:52
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Yup, teaching "just say no" rather than how to have safe sex has been a resounding success.
Posted on: 2015/5/3 19:56
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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So you think celibacy is xxxx, I refused to use your words, well, I think young men between 13 to 19 in this country should not be the ones catching AIDS, but they are the fastest group in this country catching this disease. http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/sexua ... df/hiv_factsheet_ymsm.pdf
Posted on: 2015/5/3 18:26
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
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Quote:
"You're not dead yet?" "No, thank god!"
Posted on: 2015/5/3 18:20
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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To be fair, there's very few actual Brothers teaching there. But I hear you. The best science teacher I ever had, in AP Bio, had been a Jesuit brother till his late 30's, and then left, married, had a family, and was loving his life. Their loss, my gain. As for the quotas, which appear very loosely enforced if at all, if I'm right assuming your kid is white, he's got much better position than if he's Asian. There's only a handful of white boys in the whole school, I think only 4 in my son's class. But why are you sweating this now if he's not an 8th grader? If he were you'd have your answer from McNair by now.
Posted on: 2015/5/3 17:23
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Any male who makes a vow of celibacy is f'ked up IMO, sorry if that seems anyway offensive to anybody. I've warned my son about being around these types and what ulterior motives they may posses. Maybe he should try to play the quota game at McNair.......
Posted on: 2015/5/3 16:50
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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If you read various health articles, they always point to the fact that religious people do live longer than the rest of the population. And according to these various experts, the longest groups of Americans are religious nuns. So while you are laughing over your computer someone else is enjoying a healthier lifestyle due to religion. http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/ ... -know-about-healthy-aging
Posted on: 2015/5/3 16:20
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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LOL, I almost spilled my coffee over my computer!
Posted on: 2015/5/3 15:27
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Are you old enough to remember the Doonesbury arc "In Search of Reagan's Brain"? It was a musty scary place full of calcification, decay, cobwebs and occasional bones.
Posted on: 2015/5/3 15:19
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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I don't know what is more...striking, that thought process or the one that equates having strong morals with being less likely to commit suicide...? I don't think that's how it works...but man the inside of Yvonne's head must be an interesting place...
Posted on: 2015/5/3 14:30
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Lol, it's wrong but I cracked up at this post.
Posted on: 2015/5/3 5:09
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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I have this pet theory that County Prep is poised for a big jump status as more educated families like yours and mine stay in JC and there are more academically competitive kids than McNair & HiTech can absorb. Much of what makes a great school is motivated students. They'll bring out the best in any teacher. My daughter is in 7th grade, and CP will be a serious consideration should she fail to get into McNair. Yvonne, do you seriously not see what's horribly wrong relating a story about hoping to avoid sexual abuse by choosing a Catholic institution where a blind eye would NEVER be turned to such things?
Posted on: 2015/5/3 3:46
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
Joined:
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For what it's worth,
My wife and I both ended up at Ivies, yet were products from public schools. Our high schools were both ranked only around the top 40% in our states. When I was researching school districts for a hypothetical move to the suburbs, I was obsessed with rankings. But looking back at my experience, maybe my kids will be better off at a less competitive and more diverse HS (e.g. Liberty or County Prep).
Posted on: 2015/5/3 0:47
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Quite a regular
Joined:
2005/6/25 18:50 Last Login : 2018/7/14 4:02 From Hamilton Park
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Another perspective on Prep:
I'm a counselor in an affluent suburban Essex district. Each year we have 6-10 boys who choose to go to Prep instead of the local HS which is always in the NJ Monthly Top 10. They take the train to Hoboken and then the light rail. Lots of kids from the suburbs do this. The parents of the boys in my district speak so highly of Prep. They swear by it. They particularly like how their boys turn out after 4 years at the school. I can vouch for that. I see them walking back from the train station once in a while. They are like different people -- so polite, poised, well-spoken. They're always so eager to tell me about the latest community service project they are working on. Some went to Haiti and other areas of the Caribbean to work with the poor. By the way, these are people who are already paying 20k - 30k in property taxes.
Posted on: 2015/5/3 0:38
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Thanks for all the info on prep scholarship! Keep them coming!
I wonder how many potential students Prep loses out to McNair every year, and vice versa?
Posted on: 2015/5/3 0:23
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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When I read the comments about Catholic Schools and Prep especially, I am amazed. I sent my children to Catholic Schools including Prep so they would have a moral foundation for life. As it is suicide, is the 3rd leading death for 15 to 24. Young people must learn morally and have a sense of value. I really wish the best for the children in public schools but I believe part of their education is missing.
When my oldest son was an infant, I was on the Montgomery St. Bus; when I looked out the window, I saw a young man touching another student sexually. One of the teachers (Ferris H.S.) saw this also and said nothing. I turned to my then infant son and told him he would go to Catholic schools. Like other parents I want the best for my sons, but I also want them to have a moral foundation for life.
Posted on: 2015/5/2 23:37
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Home away from home
Joined:
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my son was the valedictorian in Holy Rosary so coming from Catholic school might have played a part. He did not play team sports, but studied Tae Kwon Do for 8 years. we were offered 50% tuition, which was already 12k at the time (2001 if I remember correctly). when we declined they called back and offered a free ride, but he already had made up his mind to go to McNair, which back then was the top public HS in JC 3 of years running as reported by US News.
The valedictorian in his graduating class was accepted at both MIT and Harvard, some genius Russian kid, and the valedictorian in my elder daughter's graduating class was accepted to Princeton. about a dozen or so of each year's seniors go to Ivy.
Posted on: 2015/5/2 18:07
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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Not from the list of placements that we saw. It was heavy on Jesuit and 3rd tier schools. Rigorous across the board academics is not what they're selling. Back to "depends": You have not said how good a student he is. If your kid is a good enough student to get into McNair, Prep will not cost $15k, he will get a partial academic scholarship, I think $5k was common. . If he is not good enough to get into one of the magnet schools, then your options are indeed limited and the $15k well spent.
Posted on: 2015/5/2 16:11
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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McNair is very hyped, bottom line (and this is from speaking with students who currently attend).
Academic was good during my high school years. Prep always produced Ivy League Material (at a cost). So my question, is Prep now really worth 15k these days?. Not about preening and posturing or about full scholarships from people who wish they could have sent their kids to Prep but could not overcome the financial obstacle it presents for many. My time it was around $2,500 per year, so the tuition has risen a slightly. Quote:
Posted on: 2015/5/2 4:19
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Re: $aint Peters Prep
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I can't say for sure, but it wasn't need, or sports. He was a fencer, but not outstanding. I suspect it was a combination of both excellent academics and being well rounded, particularly in the "old fashioned virtues" they would like. He was a leader in his Boy Scout troop as well as being religiously affiliated. He also interviews extremely well, not one of your sullen, reluctant to talk to adults teens. They give a partial scholarship based entirely on test scores, then they choose some kids as candidates for full scholarship and interview them. My impression is they need to bring up the average IQ of the student body to make up for the athletes and underachieving suburbanites. iGreg, did you try entering "st peters prep" in the search box? http://jclist.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=28575 But it does sound like Prep is your kind of place. The diversity of McNair (and LCCS before that) is a fantastic experience that we wouldn't trade for anything.
Posted on: 2015/5/2 3:26
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