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I never found Edina people to be very "snooty." There seem to be a lot more people in other parts of town who just assume people from Edina are snooty. After living other places in the states I find people in the MN metro area are a lot like old-school people from Brooklyn. They almost never go anywhere besides their immediate neighborhood or suburb and assume all these weird things about people from other neighborhoods, even though they've never been to that area or even met anyone from there. I have relatives in Roseville who have never been to Edina, Wayzata, Uptown, Highland Park to name a few yet somehow know exactly what sorts of people live there, and don't have anything good to say about them.
Yes...they ALL need to get out more. Travel! The person who made fun of Coon Rapids had never been there!! (And they were born an raised here) They do a lot of judging here with little personal experience, that's all I'm saying. Dare to leave the state....or (gasp)...THE COUNTRY! Again, all the "snooty" people are the ones who have lived here their whole lives. VERY sheltered. (BTW....I LOVE Minnesota....I really do. It's a GREAT place to live. This is just my ONE BIG pet peeve) (and don't even get me started on pet peeve #2 - MN drivers!!!)
Thank you all for the explanation of cake eating. Interesting lingo. Do any of you have suggestions as for good neighborhoods/areas besides Edina? The husband would be working downtown Mpls. if he takes the job. Although I'm originally from South Dakota, and have lived in Chicago, we've been in Northern California for over 30 years. I'm very much a crunchy granola type. We don't live in the nicest part of the Bay Area, but it's not bad. One big downside of raising a family here is the lack of good public schools in many areas. I would love to live in a tolerant, interesting area with activities to keep a teenager busy. I would love to send my daughter to an excellent high school with a strong programs in theatre/vocal/math . If we stay here, she'll most likely go to a private high school. The local public high school is not very good. I myself enjoy doing some community theatre (just recently started doing that), and writing. I love to hike and walk and stay active. One thing I do miss about the midwest is the fall. For awhile, I missed some aspects of winter too, but now that I'm old, I don't really miss it. My daughter thinks it would be great to move to Mpls. What an adventure! Oh, and the lakes. I've missed the lakes. Love the lakes. We used to spend every summer at the lake when I was growing up in South Dakota.
Most of the good schools are not in crunchy granola neighborhoods or suburbs, but schools are open enrollment so theoretically your daughter can go to whatever school while you live where you want.
You should check in with potential schools to find out average SAT/ACT scores, how many students actually take the tests and where they end up going to college. Minnesotans' ideas about what makes a school district good are provincial and often relative to other schools in MN and not based actual outcomes and relative to students they will be competing against from other states. It doesn't really make that much difference if Roseville is better than Richfield if the students from both all just go on to the U of MN to major in psychology. Finally, a lot of schools in the metro and the rest of MN completely suck, which is pathetic considering how much Minnesotans like to claim they are serious about education. Unfortunately if you want to stay public, as a personal anecdote, when I grew up in the area, the main feeder schools to the Ivy League were Blake and Breck, expensive and private.
Just as a first guess I would imagine living in Bryn Mawr and going to St. Louis Park HS might be a good choice for your family based on what you describe. Edina is also probably the top ranked public school that could be considered kind of "in the city. "
Thank you all for the explanation of cake eating. Interesting lingo. Do any of you have suggestions as for good neighborhoods/areas besides Edina? The husband would be working downtown Mpls. if he takes the job. Although I'm originally from South Dakota, and have lived in Chicago, we've been in Northern California for over 30 years. I'm very much a crunchy granola type. We don't live in the nicest part of the Bay Area, but it's not bad. One big downside of raising a family here is the lack of good public schools in many areas. I would love to live in a tolerant, interesting area with activities to keep a teenager busy. I would love to send my daughter to an excellent high school with a strong programs in theatre/vocal/math . If we stay here, she'll most likely go to a private high school. The local public high school is not very good. I myself enjoy doing some community theatre (just recently started doing that), and writing. I love to hike and walk and stay active. One thing I do miss about the midwest is the fall. For awhile, I missed some aspects of winter too, but now that I'm old, I don't really miss it. My daughter thinks it would be great to move to Mpls. What an adventure! Oh, and the lakes. I've missed the lakes. Love the lakes. We used to spend every summer at the lake when I was growing up in South Dakota.
If you are more of the crunchy, granola type, you would fit in well in Stillwater. Stillwater was a borderline hippie commune in the 70's and most of them are still there . It's a great place for walking/hiking as well. They have an outstanding theater/music program and very strong academics as well. Fall along the St. Croix is amazing.
I will put a plug in for our high school, Rosemount, as well, it is recognized as having one of the best performing arts programs in the state. They put on several theater productions each year, usually a couple plays, a musical and a musical review show called "On Stage". Our choir earns national recognition as does our band program, which is the largest in the state. It's a pretty down to earth, jeans and t-shirt type community and while there aren't a lot of crunchy parents, there are a fair number. There are summer community theater productions at many of the schools in the area as well as the Burnsville Performing Arts Center just down the road.
The math program at the school is also very strong. They also have had a lot of experience with VERY good math students and have some great programs in place to handle them--one student that graduated a couple years ago was taking college level math in middle school. By high school they had worked with the University and had a special math program to challenge him. Another student I know took high school math at the high school when he was in 6th and 7th grade and as a junior and senior will take a similar program like the student above. The middle school is up the hill from the high school so he took his classes 7th hour and just rode the bus home from the high school. They are very accommodating for kids like this.
As for Edina, you can't go wrong there either. It's more of a "preppy" type community and there is a little more focus at the school on what label is on your shirt or on your key ring but other than that the schools are excellent. If your DD had long, blond hair, she will fit right in. . We run into kids from Edina at various sporting events and whatnot and the kids, for the most part, are great kids, some of the parents, not so much, but you find that anywhere. It just seems to be more prevalent at Edina, but not as bad as you see at Eden Prairie really.
As for Breck and Black being "feeder" schools to the Ivy's, we have several kids each year that attend Ivy schools or similar (Notre Dame, Stanford, etc.). Edina will as well. Any of the top suburban schools will have a fair number of students attending top notch colleges. You do not need private schools here to get a top education.
Most of the good schools are not in crunchy granola neighborhoods or suburbs, but schools are open enrollment so theoretically your daughter can go to whatever school while you live where you want.
You should check in with potential schools to find out average SAT/ACT scores, how many students actually take the tests and where they end up going to college. Minnesotans' ideas about what makes a school district good are provincial and often relative to other schools in MN and not based actual outcomes and relative to students they will be competing against from other states. It doesn't really make that much difference if Roseville is better than Richfield if the students from both all just go on to the U of MN to major in psychology. Finally, a lot of schools in the metro and the rest of MN completely suck, which is pathetic considering how much Minnesotans like to claim they are serious about education. Unfortunately if you want to stay public, as a personal anecdote, when I grew up in the area, the main feeder schools to the Ivy League were Blake and Breck, expensive and private.
Just as a first guess I would imagine living in Bryn Mawr and going to St. Louis Park HS might be a good choice for your family based on what you describe. Edina is also probably the top ranked public school that could be considered kind of "in the city. "
What Minnesota do you live in? You do realize that MN leads the nation in average ACT and SAT scores, right. I can't think of one student from our high school that went to the U of MN to major in Psychology. I know several that are in the IT program there though.
Thank you all for the explanation of cake eating. Interesting lingo. Do any of you have suggestions as for good neighborhoods/areas besides Edina? The husband would be working downtown Mpls. if he takes the job. Although I'm originally from South Dakota, and have lived in Chicago, we've been in Northern California for over 30 years. I'm very much a crunchy granola type. We don't live in the nicest part of the Bay Area, but it's not bad. One big downside of raising a family here is the lack of good public schools in many areas. I would love to live in a tolerant, interesting area with activities to keep a teenager busy. I would love to send my daughter to an excellent high school with a strong programs in theatre/vocal/math . If we stay here, she'll most likely go to a private high school. The local public high school is not very good. I myself enjoy doing some community theatre (just recently started doing that), and writing. I love to hike and walk and stay active. One thing I do miss about the midwest is the fall. For awhile, I missed some aspects of winter too, but now that I'm old, I don't really miss it. My daughter thinks it would be great to move to Mpls. What an adventure! Oh, and the lakes. I've missed the lakes. Love the lakes. We used to spend every summer at the lake when I was growing up in South Dakota.
I'd look at living in Linden Hills, which is the neighborhood between Uptown and 50th & France. Lots of Pilates, yoga, NPR/MinnPost/NY Times type households, a nice little downtown area (43rd & Upton), very walkable/bikable, within blocks of the Mpls Lakes District and close to downtown. Plus the area schools are great: Lake Harriet Community School is K-8, and Southwest High is 9-12. Our kids love their schools. We've lived in Linden Hills for 20 years and have loved it, and will miss it when we make the big move to Ohio.
Thank you. Linden Hills looks interesting. Pilates and Yoga are a plus. And close to downtown would be nice. We don't want a lengthy commute.
How much of a commute is it from Rosemount to downtown?
35 minutes in rush hour traffic, less is you are on the road before 7:00AM or after 7:45 am--depends on where exactly you go in downtown though. Also, there are express buses from the Apple Valley Transit station. Some golfing partners take that to work at Target downtown. They say it is 40 minutes from the station to their desk at Target.
You guys must have been asleep during the chapter on the French Revolution (or you went to school in MN ) Thanks to originaly living in IOWA I didn't even have to look it up!! but I'll help you out....
"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche",
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
5,509 posts, read 11,870,451 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by my54ford
You guys must have been asleep during the chapter on the French Revolution (or you went to school in MN ) Thanks to originaly living in IOWA I didn't even have to look it up!! but I'll help you out....
"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche",
Tone it down Iowa boy....MN is right there with IA in terms of education! Plus, not all of us give a shucks about the French Revolution.
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. It's a great place for walking/hiking as well. They have an outstanding theater/music program and very strong academics as well. Fall along the St. Croix is amazing.
Plus, not all of us give a shucks about the French Revolution.
