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West Hartford is the highest-ranked and highest-regarded school district located halfway between Boston and New York. If you prefer a coastal location, I would look into Guilford, Madison or East Lyme.
They are not looking between NYC/Boston, but something commutable to either, which none of those towns are.
I never said it was not elite or well respected. SailCT claimed it was rated higher than an Ivy League school which overall is just not true. Jay
He said it's rated higher than some of the Ivys. The Ivys include Brown and Cornell. The top-10 elite small liberal arts colleges are better than those two for undergrad programs. If you're on a track for graduate or professional school after your undergrad, Pomona would be the better choice. It's also going to be a way better story applying to an elite graduate program than a Brown or Cornell undergraduate degree.
He said it's rated higher than some of the Ivys. The Ivys include Brown and Cornell. The top-10 elite small liberal arts colleges are better than those two for undergrad programs. If you're on a track for graduate or professional school after your undergrad, Pomona would be the better choice. It's also going to be a way better story applying to an elite graduate program than a Brown or Cornell undergraduate degree.
And again these ratings are so subjective and nuanced - elite LA programs are better for straight humanities and business, but in applied fields requiring graduate work like public health, life sciences, or even HR, you're generally better off at a place like Cornell.
He said it's rated higher than some of the Ivys. The Ivys include Brown and Cornell. The top-10 elite small liberal arts colleges are better than those two for undergrad programs. If you're on a track for graduate or professional school after your undergrad, Pomona would be the better choice. It's also going to be a way better story applying to an elite graduate program than a Brown or Cornell undergraduate degree.
He said it's rated higher than some of the Ivys. The Ivys include Brown and Cornell. The top-10 elite small liberal arts colleges are better than those two for undergrad programs. If you're on a track for graduate or professional school after your undergrad, Pomona would be the better choice. It's also going to be a way better story applying to an elite graduate program than a Brown or Cornell undergraduate degree.
No, the term he used was that it was "ranked way higher than most of the Ivies". That implies that some of the Ivies are not highly ranked which is false. It may be higher in SOME rankings than one or two of the Ivies but I doubt it ranks higher than "most". Jay
Quote:
Originally Posted by SailCT
Little Pomona College in California is actually ranked way higher than most of the Ivies. Kids need to understand that college and an education is what they make of it not the name. Maybe for those looking for the MRS degree or an easy way into the good old buddy financial world than sure Ivy is a good idea. For most it isn't. Disclaimer: my mother as a HS guidance counselor and a good one! Oh and she went to an IVY!!! Ha
Am I the only one who thinks it's hilarious that the OP's tax cap on a $1.1M property in CT is $30K? They would have to look hard to find a home in that price range with annual property taxes of $15K let alone $30K! Living in Westchester Co. obviously has so skewed their idea of what is reasonable it's remarkable.
In any event, my family moved to Westport in Dec. 2016 after looking extensively in lower Westchester Co. and all over Fairfield County. We couldn't find any homes we liked in Westchester in our range and when taxes were factored in even less so. CT was much more reasonable for what we were looking for which was 2500 Sq ft on a half acre to acre for right around $1M. In Westchester our max budget was only $800K because an $800K property there costs the same as $1M property in CT with taxes.
Full disclosure, I grew up in Westport and am a product of Westport public schools, but honestly that's not why we moved there. It just so happened that the house we fell in love with happened to be there.
Since I work in the city I would have preferred to have landed in Darien or even Greenwich since they're both closer to the city, but because I grew up there I knew what I was getting into commute wise and was willing to put up with it. Stamford and Norwalk were out due to schools and we did consider New Canaan but even though it's closer than Westport, it's a worse commute since it's on a branch train line and it's not on the coast which was important to us.
All of the homes we looked at in our price range in Darien in particular were within 100 meters of I-95 or the Metro North tracks and everything we liked was slightly out of our range. I always knew Darien was a little more expensive than Westport but in fact we found it to be significantly more expensive....about $100-$150K premium over Westport when all else is equal. Part of that obviously due to the fact that it's 12-15 minutes closer on the train but it's also a smaller community....20K population vs. 28K population in Westport so because Westport is larger in both area and population, it has more inventory and pricing reflects that. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of homes in our price range in Greenwich, although they were much smaller than we were looking for in most cases, and just not the kinds of houses we wanted. What's the point of being able to say you live in Greenwich if you live in a shoebox?
So even though we'd have rather been closer, we are very happy. Westport is a great town with amenities that rival Greenwich and it has the #1 ranked school system in the state according to Niche in 2017. SHS can be competitive and many students do go on to ivies but the district is large enough where where is pretty broad diversity in where Staples seniors matriculate. It's not like Westchester where it's hyper competitive because every little village and hamlet with 5000 people has it's own separate public school system even though they may be in the same town. In CT, Greenwich is Greenwich, Westport is Westport, Darien is Darien, etc. so the way the public schools work there is far less confusing.
Wesport Bub: I choose to forgive your amusement at my tax situation (*writes check* *mutters, "Hilarious? Not from where I'm sitting!"* *weeps*), because I do appreciate the in-depth details about Westport, Greenwich, Darien etc. In fact, before moving to Westchester we did look in Stamford, Greenwich and Darien, but Westport wasn't really on our radar, so thanks for the tip!
It's not like Westchester where it's hyper competitive because every little village and hamlet with 5000 people has it's own separate public school system even though they may be in the same town. In CT, Greenwich is Greenwich, Westport is Westport, Darien is Darien, etc. so the way the public schools work there is far less confusing.
That is very true. When we shifted from looking in Westchester to FFC I couldn't believe this, after growing up in Westchester where on my same street you could find kids going to 3-4 different public school districts as part of different towns/hamlets/villages/unincorporated areas, etc. However, I would argue that Darien or Westport disctricts can feel just as hyper competitive as a Scarsdale or Rye.
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Just Moved to Westport
