New Trier? Whats This Madness? (Chicago, Naperville: best schools, colleges, camps)

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by gardener34

Yeah, I agree. There are lots of good high schools producing stellar students throughout the chicagoland area.

Others have been over this, but the reality is that there are far too many underprepared students being churned out of even the very good high schools.

It is probably something that is fostered by the attitude that "there are lots of good high schools" in as much that the responsibility to make sure that kids don't just get accepted into good schools but succeed there does not happen.

The handful of students that should rightly be called 'stellar' may even by anomalies rather than the norm at all but a tiny number of schools.

Believe me it, if there were lots of places that many students were extremely well prepared the economy would be much different and housing prices would be much more uniform...

[cubssoxfan]

Believe me it, if there were lots of places that many students were extremely well prepared the economy would be much different and housing prices would be much more uniform...

Hmmmmm, perhaps all the HS's need to add "Common Sense 101", "Home Economics for 2010" and
"Instructional Home Finances-How to live within your means" to the state mandated curriculum. Oh wait, that would take away from testing and instuction on how to excel at test taking. We can't have common sense, personal life skills being taught in our schools! That's un-democratic. It would diminish the need for entitlement programs

[JohnR61]

I do think New Trier is one step further along the madness trail, than are the other strong suburban schools.

Example would be my son took a statewide French test, not a mandatory thing, but one of these "see how you rate" things for the ambitious students. Good news was, he scored 13th in Northern Illinois, yeah that was cool. Bad news was, he didn't get an award, because the sponsors will give out no more than 5 awards per school, and he was 8th among New Trier students.

Another difference would be, as far as my son can tell from myspace discussions, there are straight A students at the other high schools. There are no straight A students in the top level New Trier classes, at least none whom he has ever met. So the grade pressure is kinda tough, you can be among the top 5% among all New Trier students in a subject, and quite easily get a B.

I wish he were at a slightly less mad high school, to tell you the truth. It's a bit nuts.

[Bette]

As a child, I grew up in Winnetka. Whenever I tell people that, they're like - did you go to New Trier?

So, even back then in the 60's and 70's, it was still considered a good school.

When our daughter went away to college and she would meet people from Chicago, she would tell them I lived in Winnetka when I was a child and they always said - Did she go to New Trier; I went there. So, obviously, it is well known!

[nanannie]

I wonder how much "Uncle Buck" helped in name recognition among the young people.

[Paige65]

Originally Posted by JohnR61

Another difference would be, as far as my son can tell from myspace discussions, there are straight A students at the other high schools. There are no straight A students in the top level New Trier classes, at least none whom he has ever met. So the grade pressure is kinda tough, you can be among the top 5% among all New Trier students in a subject, and quite easily get a B.

I wish he were at a slightly less mad high school, to tell you the truth. It's a bit nuts.

I think there are a few other schools like this where there are no, or maybe two or three, straight A students who are taking ALL top tier level courses. I'll have to ask to verify this though.

The academic pressure is clearly very high at NT, but it's pretty high at some other schools as well.

[Costa Rica Chica]

Originally Posted by fredn

You'll find tons of comments on New Trier, both on these boards and on the web. It is ranked high academically. It's probably the only Highschool in the Chicago area where parents regularly drive around with stickers on their car bragging about the fact their kids go there. I'm not talking about honor roll stickers, I'm talking "NT" or "Trevian" stickers as if it were some College (which some argue it is). You may find some folks have a religous-like fervor for the institution. I thought it was a little overrated, but I'm just a jaded guy . For those of you who currently live in the district, I mean no offense to you. I'm sure your children will get a wonderful education.

I just drove up to the Winnetka street fair because they advertised pony rides in the Evanston Review, (btw, no ponies and a very disappointed 3 year-old,) and the number of stickers on cars was nauseating. I also have never seen so many kids wear high school logod tee-shirts, (and during the summer.) I went to ETHS, and I never wore anything with my high school name on it except in p.e. class!

[Anthera]

I think there were ponies there earlier, before the downpour.

I don't think there's anything wrong with kids showing school spirit. No one is forcing them to wear their school t-shirts. Most kids who go to NT like the school, most parents in the district are happy enough with the school.

The poster who keeps up the "NT is the best" is atypical. I have never met a NT parent who talks like that. It rubs me the wrong way and I live in the NT district.

[Costa Rica Chica]

No, not that there's anything wrong with it, I just never wanted to when I was in high school. I guess the kids are happy to go there too.

[ndfmnlf]

The value of New Trier and other schools of similar nature is not that they will turn a student with an IQ of 50 into one with an IQ of 150. Much of the evidence on intelligence (see Steven Pinker - Books - The Blank Slate ) points to genetic heritage as its major determinant, so elite schooling has limited impact on intelligence if the raw material is not there to begin with (see Bush, George W). Steven Pinker talks about how parents fret about putting their kids through the best schools, subjecting them to rigorous curricular and extracurricular training when, in reality, a genius will shine whether he attends New Trier or some run down school in the boondocks.

The value of these elite schools is they enable students to establish social networks that may prove useful later in life. As the saying goes, "the value of a Harvard education is the opportunity to meet others with Harvard educations."