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How do the two compare academically? Heard Greenhill is more progressive (in terms of curriculum, not politics). Anyone have first hand experience? We are interested only in the lower (elementary) school. Do either have any recognition outside of Texas?
Assume child is very advanced for her age. Will both schools be able to meet that need?
How big are the classes? Teacher student ratio? Do children have PE daily? Anyone with kids at either school willing to comment?
Both schools are very good, but very different. Here are some examples:
1 Hockaday is single sex
2. Hockaday has a uniform. Greenhill students are very casual.
3. Greenhill has great campus, but is outside the loop. Depending on where you live commuting can be a problem. Same obviously can hold true for Hockaday.
4. Grades pre k through kinder you get 2 teachers per class. After that you 16 students per teacher at Hockaday. I think it is fairly similar at greenhill
5. Hockaday traditionally has higher percentage of nmsf, but both schools have more than their fair share. Greenhill has plenty of kids going to Yale, Harvard, etc
6. Greenhill is more diverse. Traditionally it has been very popular with the Jewish community. Hockaday is 28 percent girls of color, but still mainly white Christian. Plenty of kids at both schools that have different religions, backgrounds, etc.
7. Both schools can accommodate an advanced student.
8. Hockaday has PE daily, although every 8th day some students take private lessons in piano during PE.
9. Greenhill is often second choice of parents who did not get into st marks or hockaday. A fantastic second choice, but still a second choice.
Either school would be a fantastic choice. Very involved parents, etc. if you get into both schools, it is like deciding between Harvard and Stanford. You can't go wrong.
I'm not trying to be provocative but is it really like comparing Harvard and Stanford or more like Northwestern and UChicago? Nationally, neither school seems to be well recognized and Ivy admissions rates seem rather low compared to the top prep schools in the nation. I understand that St Marks and Hockaday are tops in Dallas but I don't understand exactly why. It seems from your response that Hockaday and Greenhill are basically comparable from an academic point of view so is the popularity due in large part to Hockaday just having the cache that a newer school like Greenhill does not have? Was Greenhill the school that the Jewish community went to because Hockaday/St Marks didn't accept Jews back in the day? If Hockaday is everyone's first choice because that's where the Dallas establishment sends their kids, then I couldn't care less. But if it's everyone's first choice because there is a difference in academic rigor, then I do care. Seems like the former but who knows. I was googling and noticed a survey conducted by Worth magazine, from about 10 yrs ago, that ranked schools by admissions to Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and Greenhill was 37, St Marks was 100 and Hockaday didn't even make the cut. Has Greenhill just deteriorated in the past decade (recognizing there's more to a school than just getting into HYP)?
Measuring these schools by HYPSM admissions is pretty worthless because, unlike East Coast schools, where everyone is gunning for those schools, only a subset of the kids and families in DFW are aiming for those schools. There are those who are SMU, TAMU, or UT legacies, and no other school is even considered. Schools like Rice, Vanderbilt, and Duke are more highly valued by the Southern-skewing Texas view than they would be by someone in NYC or Boston.
For example, a generic Greenhill grad would probably consider a Rice admission to be as prestigious as a Dartmouth admission, and probably better than a UChicago admission. That's a viewpoint that would be laughable to a New Yorker. Still, there you are.
HockDad gave a post that is pretty much 100% correct. Either way, you're at or near the top of the food chain for what's available around here. Whether those are better than schools in other cities really isn't relevant. Now, if you want to try comparing those schools to Exeter and such, that's an apples to oranges game.
Interesting perspective. Can't say I understand or relate to people who "don't consider any other school" because they are legacies at SMU, UT, etc... but to each his own. Not that there's anything wrong with those schools, just that I don't understand why because you are a legacy at one school, you would eliminate all other options without consideration.
If the relative hierarchy of these schools is based in large part on admission to Southern colleges, then clearly it's meaningless to anyone who does not have long term plans in Texas. If one had to generalize, would you say Hockaday or Greenhill has a higher proportion of students interested in going to a non-Southern university?
Interesting perspective. Can't say I understand or relate to people who "don't consider any other school" because they are legacies at SMU, UT, etc... but to each his own. Not that there's anything wrong with those schools, just that I don't understand why because you are a legacy at one school, you would eliminate all other options without consideration.
If, instead of SMU, I had listed Williams, would you still feel the same?
Every school gets a certain percentage of its student body from legacies. Sometimes they're a boost, sometimes they're a drag.
Sticking with the East Coast approach - there are kids who could have landed at an Ivy, but go to Williams due to their family connections. On the flip side, there are kids at Williams who would have had no chance to get in there, but for the hook of being a legacy.
Quote:
If the relative hierarchy of these schools is based in large part on admission to Southern colleges, then clearly it's meaningless to anyone who does not have long term plans in Texas.
I wouldn't say it's "based in large part". In fact, I, personally, would stack them up relative to each other based on HYPSM admissions.
My point was that it's unfair to the DFW privates to judge them on Ivy admission percentages. Relative to Chicago, DC, or Boston schools, you have a lower percentage filling out Ivy apps, so of course you'll have a lower Ivy yield. Without the "hidden information" of how many Greenhill kids are reaching for Ivies, one can't do an accurate comparison.
This is coming from a public school dad, with no dog in this fight.
Quote:
If one had to generalize, would you say Hockaday or Greenhill has a higher proportion of students interested in going to a non-Southern university?
Well, if you don't have long-term plans in Texas - that is, if you won't be here long enough for your kid to graduate from Hockaday/Greenhill - then it doesn't matter. Your real concern will be gaining admission to some other prep school in another city. To that end, either one of these schools will serve you well, as those schools can see that your kid was in the deep end of the DFW private school pool.
To answer the exact question - I think you'd find little difference between the elite college aspirations of the two schools.
Looking at standardized testing -- which also isn't the ideal way to compare schools but arguably at least as good as matriculations to the Ivy athletic conference, I'd say that the Dallas privates compare pretty well to the uppercrust Eastern boarding schools. Remember that the Dallas schools draw almost solely from the DFW area (Hockaday has a few mostly international boarders) while theoretically the Eastern boarding school classes are formed nationally.
For example consider these median/mean reported scores for last year's class as shown in each school's college profile: (Some schools report median, others report mean. ):
Cistercian -- SAT: CR 688 M 714 W 698 ACT Comp: 30.9
Exeter -- SAT: CR 700 M 711 W 694 ACT Comp: 29
St. Mark's -- SAT: CR 679 M 714 W 679 ACT Comp: 31.1
Andover -- SAT: CR 683 M 694 W 677 ACT Comp: 29.9
Deerfield -- SAT: CR 673 M 678 W 675
Greenhill -- SAT: CR 644 M 633 W 628 ACT Comp: 29.3
Hockaday reports in 25th - 75th percentile ranges. These ranges suggest that they too compare favorably with the Eastern elites
CR: 600 - 720; M 620 - 740; W 620 - 730
Andover SAT avg (according to Boarding school review): 2076
Exeter SAT avg (according to Boarding school review): 2074
Hockaday SAT avg (according to Boarding School Review): 2020
Deerfield SAT avg (according to Boarding School Review): 2000
If, instead of SMU, I had listed Williams, would you still feel the same?
Every school gets a certain percentage of its student body from legacies. Sometimes they're a boost, sometimes they're a drag.
Sticking with the East Coast approach - there are kids who could have landed at an Ivy, but go to Williams due to their family connections. On the flip side, there are kids at Williams who would have had no chance to get in there, but for the hook of being a legacy.
I wouldn't say it's "based in large part". In fact, I, personally, would stack them up relative to each other based on HYPSM admissions.
My point was that it's unfair to the DFW privates to judge them on Ivy admission percentages. Relative to Chicago, DC, or Boston schools, you have a lower percentage filling out Ivy apps, so of course you'll have a lower Ivy yield. Without the "hidden information" of how many Greenhill kids are reaching for Ivies, one can't do an accurate comparison.
This is coming from a public school dad, with no dog in this fight.
Well, if you don't have long-term plans in Texas - that is, if you won't be here long enough for your kid to graduate from Hockaday/Greenhill - then it doesn't matter. Your real concern will be gaining admission to some other prep school in another city. To that end, either one of these schools will serve you well, as those schools can see that your kid was in the deep end of the DFW private school pool.
To answer the exact question - I think you'd find little difference between the elite college aspirations of the two schools.
Very interesting and informative thread. Big G - you mentioned you are a public school dad. Do you (or anyone) have an idea how kids in the AP classes or IB Program at Plano (or any other district you are familiar with) would stack up against the Greenhill/Hockaday/St Mark's kids (in terms of admission chances at second tier places like UVA, Vandy, USC, Berkley (all fantastic schools but not Ivy, MIT, Stanford)? That is more of a realistic goal for us. You think there is any notable difference? Fairly new to the area and just wondering if the $20,000/year should be spent on private school or on extras such as international travel, etc. I have seen a number of threads on the topic of whether it's worth it, but you seem informed and interestingly have taken the public school route. Any thoughts appreciated.
... just that I don't understand why because you are a legacy at one school, you would eliminate all other options without consideration.
In the case of more than a handful of Hockaday/ St Mark's / other elite Dallas prep school grads, they aren't mere "legacies", they are the children and grandchildren of those for whom buildings and entire schools at UT, SMU, and A&M were named, or the children/ grandchildren of the board of regents and other highly connected alumni.
I went to one of our flagship state schools with a Hockaday grad whose family name was on a major building on campus. Her family had not only given millions to the school, but she grew up being allowed on the field at football games, having the cheerleaders at her childhood birthday parties, having the mascot visit her family's annual party the night before the "big game". I don't think it would have ever occurred to her to look elsewhere- this school, an excellent school, was a big part of her life from the moment she was born.
Do you (or anyone) have an idea how kids in the AP classes or IB Program at Plano (or any other district you are familiar with) would stack up against the Greenhill/Hockaday/St Mark's kids (in terms of admission chances at second tier places like UVa, Vandy, USC, Berkeley (all fantastic schools but not Ivy, MIT, Stanford)? That is more of a realistic goal for us. You think there is any notable difference?
A difference? Sure. In fact, I'd surmise the preference for a private school grad would be more notable at the "sub-Ivies".
Now, a difference worth $250K over 12-14 years of private education? Not to my eyes. But I live in Plano, not Preston Hollow. That means 1) $20K/year has a far different marginal value to me, and 2) the public/private school performance differential is much smaller. In effect, I'd be paying relatively more money for relatively less improvement.
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