Dear 8th grade Parents, the anxiously awaited High School Applications have finally been released. I distributed them to your children yesterday. Please sit with your child and discuss his/her options. There are hundreds of schools to choose from and your child will need help narrowing down the choices. Your child needs your help and guidance with this process. A bad choice on the application could mean a very long appeal process at the end of the academic year.
Tips for making your choices:
- If your child tells you that he/she wants to go to the school because their friends are going there be wary. As adults, we know that someone who may be a friend now in 8th grade will probably not be a friend in 9th grade and your child will feel stranded and resentful of their choice.
- Check travel distance and time when picking a school. If your child is travelling an hour and a half each way to school, that's a total of three hours a day that they are not studying. If they get involved in after school activities, that means they are arriving home with little motivation to study or do homework because they are tired.
- Check graduation rates for the schools. Only schools with high graduation rates are preparing your children for college.
- "All that glitters isn't gold." Many schools have attractive names which lead us to believe they will prepare your children for a successful career right after graduation. As we know, going to college is the only way to ensure post secondary success or ability to grow in a profession. Preparation for college is key in choosing a school.
- Only choose schools that you are interested in attending. Do not write in schools just to fill up the 12 spaces. Your child may wind up being selected by a school he/she did not want to go to and it will be a difficult appeals process into July or August, before you will know the outcome. A Summer filled with uncertainty is not how you want to spend your Summer.
For those students taking the Specialized High School test, the tickets will soon be available at which point your child will select among the 8 Specialized Schools.
I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to contact me for any clarifications. As to recommendations, I can only recommend one school and that is East-West.