The top 3-5 brand name private schools have been discussed at length on here. There are many other private schools in Houston, however. Anybody care to comment on any of the following:

-Providence Classical School
-Northland Christian
-Clay Road Baptist
-Houston Christian HS
-Holy Spirit Episcopal
-Grace School
-First Baptist
-Second Baptist
-The Woodlands Christian Academy

[This message has been edited by Buck Turgidson (edited 7/30/2011 3:07p).]

The Village School would be my choice before any of those.

Second or Houston Christian

I would do alot of research on SBS before sending a student there.

The Village School was our target when we built our house several years ago. Then the school was sold by its founder to a chain of schools and the new owners are intent upon making it another Awty. I'm not interested in the Junior United Nations environment they're now selling. I'd much rather have a school filled with kids who are going to stick around and be long term friends. That's why I'm starting our search all over again.

I know some SBS parents and kids. What's your specific concern?

If you attend mass there, its great. If you dont, I would pass. VS has always had a VERY heavy indian/oriental population. Why not VS until high school and then a Strake/SAA or the likes.

Have you looekd into St Michaels? Its a GREAT school.

St Michaels is too far in for us. I guess that would likely eliminate First Baptist as well, but I'm still mildly curious about what people think of them.

St Michaels is only 10 minutes past SBS. What about St Francis Episcopal?

I know a parent who's really happy with Providence. I don't know much about them.

St Francis is in a do-able location for us. I can't figure out why they charge a premium tuition over, say, Holy Spirit Episcopal.

They have a better relationship with the private HS. They place very very well.

I was very impressed with Houston Christian FWIW. St. Agnes was a better fit for us at the end of the day, but HCHS is good and getting better. There's also a ton of money behind them from the First Baptist/HBU old line money.

Houston Christian is located conveniently enough, but HS is years away for my kids. After I became turned off to the Village School, I looked into HCHS to see if I wanted to target one of its feeder schools. I'm not impressed with their average SAT scores (only around 1100 last time I checked). Assuming they are improving academically, though, I have a long time for that to improve.

Their big feeders seem to be Grace and First Baptist. A small K-8 school that sends kids there is Clay Road Baptist. Nobody ever seems to know anything about CRBS, though.

[This message has been edited by Buck Turgidson (edited 7/30/2011 9:56p).]

If I had to sum up the ideal private school for us, I'd want:

-academics that justify the cost
-a clean cut "Mayberry" like environment (as close as I could get, anyway)
-tuition that is not insane, because I have three kids close in age (at least 39 years of combined tuition to pay)
-when they graduate, state colleges should be their safety choices

So, what schools fit that description best?

There isnt a private school where "state colleges should be their safety choices". There are schools that will prepare them to score well on the tests and potentially be automatic admits, but none of them guarantee admission into TAMU or UT. Its just to competitive of a game. There are some that are a lock for SMU & TCU...

If you want the state schools to be a backup, your best bet is to send them to public school.

The problem is you and 10,000 other parents all would like those things. You have to trade off and make sacrifices. Usually that sacrifice means the money is over the top for the education, just like most other luxury goods.

John Cooper School in the Woodlands might be worth a look.

[This message has been edited by CSTXAG2015 (edited 7/30/2011 10:16p).]

I don't expect a guarantee. However, I basically slept through Lamar and got into A&M and UT without breaking a sweat. Granted, that was a long time ago. But my point is that I don't want to spend well over a half million on combined tuition, just to have them end up in the same colleges they would have gotten into had they gone to decent public, suburban schools.

No school can guarantee what you want.

TAMU and TU are two of the hardest schools to get into in the state. It doesnt matter where you go to school.

If YOUR son/daughter takes care of business or can produce on the SAT, it doesnt matter where they go, they will have auto admission to the state schools.

It sounds like you want SJS or Kinkaid but dont want to pay for it.

If you want them to go to a school where the top 1/4 - 1/2 goes ivy with another 20-30 going middlebury, chicago, etc and the bottom of the barrel going to Zona, CU, TCU, SMU, you dont have much choice.



[This message has been edited by CSTXAG2015 (edited 7/30/2011 10:26p).]

quote:

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don't want to spend well over a half million on combined tuition, just to have them end up in the same colleges they would have gotten into

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I'm a St John's grad who went to A&M. How sad that my parents wasted all that money on me.

I'd just choose based on the names, the first one sounds very classy.

Buck, you sound like me from my days at Lee.

If you are involved and your kids study then you could just go public. As far as the schools you bring up, and I remember this discussion from before, SBS and Houston Christian are both good schools and go through HS.

I know kids that went to several of those schools but they had to find a HS.

As far as SBS, if you want to talk some time let me know. I have two kids there and two kids that went there. One went to tu business school, the other is at A&M. They could have gone to schools back east, and have classmates that went to/go to Vandy, UNC, UVA, Stanford, Yale, etc. We had three from last year (a class of 70) go to West Point.
Kids at SBS can do everything, like a small town school, play sports, be in the school play, etc.

As far as not going to church there, it has never been a problem.

Buck, did you consider putting that money into property that zones to memorial or stratford? Would guess your work commute would be better also.

Briargrove Park FTW

I went to HCHS my freshman year before my parents moved to The Woodlands. Academically the school is one of the more underrated in Houston. The teachers there pushed their students to the limit and got the most out of them. Most of the graduating class this year ended up at either A&M, tu, Baylor, SMU, and TCU. I know two kids who are going to Stanford that just graduated there, another is going to Vandy, and another MIT. The students themselves are very welcoming. Most of the kids went to Grace, FBA, or St. Michael's, but coming from a school where only one other person was attending HCHS I found friends right away and found the students to not be cliquish. The only drawback I would say about HCHS is the administration. At first, it seems very Christian oriented but you will find out quickly that they begin to charge you left and right for different school events where you will spend an extra $5k a year. The administration wants your money more than anything.

Also heard really good things about John Paul II.

"Buck, did you consider putting that money into property that zones to memorial or stratford?"

We have thought about that quite a bit. It's still an option that we are weighing. Looked very closely at a house in Hedwig last summer, but it wasn't zoned for Memorial MS so we passed.


[This message has been edited by Buck Turgidson (edited 7/31/2011 2:56p).]

"It sounds like you want SJS or Kinkaid but dont want to pay for it."

Not exactly, but I admit I'm looking for something that is rare. The 10% rule has completely warped A&M & tu admissions, so maybe I should throw them out of the mix. Let's say that in order to justify their tuition, a private school ought to place their average graduates in colleges a hell of a lot better than TT, UH, LSU, OU or most public universities other than A&M & tu. How about that?

From our other thread, I did say that STES seemed like an okay tradeoff between cost and results. Strake's another one.

So? Are the other middle schools there really bad?
3 kids to private school would not even be on my radar when you can purchase into memorial or stratford.

I went to a country ass 4A schhol and we sent kids to Harvard, MIT, Vanderbilt x 2, and a whole bunch to the texas schhols. Wife went to st agnes and while they were more prepared for the college curriculum, the kids weren't "smarter".

To me any of those private schools will get you in at gaylor, smu and tcu.. If you have the admission $ you are in.