Is Westminster School the best school on Earth? STATESMOM returns

[statesmom]

I have a lot to say, don't know if anyone remembers the thread. Let me know if you want to hear from me.

No, nor did I @TBOM, but you are clearly savvy. And American recruiters adore UK job candidates as their salary expectations are low to start with. Catch up quickly once they have US friends and benchmarks. .

I lived and worked in NY from 1980-85, in magazine publishing, with a sideline in the music industry. Obviously, the world has changed and moved on since.

Actually I WAS born in America during my dad's 2 year secondment with the Foreign office. Came home when I was still a baby.

Just last month I finally completed the procedure to renounce my US Citizenship.

You sound just like my californian cousin whose every word and action is like a parody of a loud American. Visits far too often and every other word is some comment about the superiority of everything american. We don't know why she keeps spending her miniscule holiday allowance visiting such a disappointing place. I'm actually quite looking forward to her next visit, she has no idea I renounced. Might get my certificate of loss of nationality framed and hung in the downstairs loo.

We have a townhouse in Manhattan and could move back tomorrow, but we love it here.

What can we do to change your mind and send you back? We'd love it here even more if you weren't....

Has DSC had a name change?

I think Oxbridge has a history and other worldly vibe that gives it an edge.

If your child moves to the US and has children there, there's also a chance that those children won't end up at the top financially like you are, and so might end up in a situation where public healthcare is far worse than it is here, universities for their children are out of reach financially and even the nicest cities have huge homelessness problems. Huge wealth inequality within a society does have an effect on rich people as well. Look at Donald Trump getting voted in - a lot of it is poorer people thinking he's a man of the people. And that affects everybody in the country.

The UK has wealth inequality but not to the extent the US does.

Obviously you'd have already moved to the US and would send your child to a school in the USA if you actually were that rich and truly believed this.

OP can you also tell us what being at Westminster was actually like for your son?

Aside from a US university spot, what else did he do there? How was it? What was the experience like? What is the teaching like? Pastoral care? Co curriculars? Everything else?

I can assure you I didn’t have low salary expectations at all! I’m extremely well paid even compared to my US colleagues. I know my worth. And how to negotiate well.

What I want to know is how do I become a college counsellor for these aspiring Top Kids??

There's 97 things wrong with Mississippi, which that UKIP MP is happy to gloss over, but there's a bigger picture truth here: after inflation, the UK has had nearly flat wages since 2008, and in the case of public servants, wage cuts. The US has seen considerable wage growth in that time. (I read this in The Economist).

Inequality is a serious problem, but look at what it's like to be poor in the UK right now. Aside from the NHS (and that's no longer the brag it once was) it's nothing to be proud of. British children are going hungry and living in unfit conditions. When my children were born I would have said it was better to be born British than American. I don't know if I could say that now. But the British attitude, no matter how bad things are, is to say "Well, it could be worse."

Are things good in the UK for average and lower income wage earners? Absolutely not. But neither is the US the land of milk and honey that the OP is purporting. The cost of my US healthcare insurance in the US for one month is more than my employers pay for my family private health insurance in the UK. The cost of decent quality fresh food is absolutely astronomical If you have to rent in NY because you’re not able to buy yet, you’re looking at ridiculous prices - and buying isn’t exactly cheap anymore. Most cities on the east or west coast stink of weed and have huge homeless problems.

The OP sounds like she’s actually really out of touch with life in the US now. It’s really not all that. There’s no planet on which I’d live there post work life. None.

Nope, not the U.S.
I would vote for France or Spain, i have lived in both and found the quality of life there to be excellent. They both have diverse traditions of fantastic food and wine, the arts, culture and history.
They are not utopias, there are unemployment problems and drug issues (though the latter is not as besetting as in the US) but on the whole they are grown-up, confident and civilised societies.

OP sounds like she's out of touch for ordinary people in any country.

But I live in the US (Near DC). It's really not that grim. East Coast cities actually do quite a bit better on homelessness than the West Coast. Weed stink is a problem but it's even worse in Canada! No one in North America seems to consider smoke to be an issue if it's cannabis instead of tobacco. (Canada and Australia are also worse for grocery prices. If you ever want to die from price shock go into a Loblaws.)

I would never suggest the US is the land of milk and honey. I would say that some things are better for us here than in the UK and some are worse.

It's all getting a bit off topic from university, though!

This OP sounds manic. Take your meds OP!

The Ivies did indeed start out as a sports league, but they have immense and well deserved academic cachet now, facilitated by their massive endowments.

There are Ivy equivalents and 'public Ivies' too, all superbly funded. Nobody would turn up a nose at MIT or the University of Chicago or Washington University in St Louis, Stanford, Cal Tech, or the University of Michigan/ Washington/ Illinois/ U California-Berkely, UCLA/ Wisconsin, Florida, Texas...

Excellent students will do well everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of American students have spent a semester or even a full year studying abroad in European / British universities since the end of WW2. Two of my own DCs went to Paris and London and emerged with flying colours despite dealing with a second language and tutorials and different exam systems. An increasing number of British students land in US universities these days, and generally do not come home bewildered or defeated by the system they encounter.

I don’t think you can compare wages between the two countries so simply. The cost of living is so much more in the USA so of course wages need to be higher. It doesn’t mean that the individual employee is “richer”.

The OP sounds like she is working very hard to justify her decision-making/spending. Which is fine but interesting that she feels it necessary to do.

Those league tables for GCSE are based on percentage getting 9-7. The results actually show that Westminsters got a higher percentage getting 9-8 (90%) and 9 (72%). The difference is marginal but Westminsters remain ahead. It also matters that Westminsters all take a GCSE in French. This is not compulsory at Kings College Wimbledon. You can apply the same analysis to other top schools. All have lower scores for the really top grades and none have compulsory French. So, the boys at Westminster are doing OK still. That’s not to say the girls won’t improve things.

It really isn't that much more expensive to live in the US. It certainly isn't so much more expensive that people need twice as much income to get by.

The UK is a notoriously low wage economy, with the bottom line of business/ employers effectively subsidised by the taxpayer.

English Language and English Literature is also compulsory for Westminsters when a lot of KC Wimbledon and St Paul’s boys drop them for GCSE. So, you need to dig a little deeper but it’s possible to see that Westminster still the standard for a public school education. Even Statesmom would agree.

Ahh so rather than being a “top student” he’s really just another nepo baby 🥱 puts a different spin on an already batshit thread!

👏👏👏👏👏

Hi yes why don't we get back to the entire point of the thread?

So I went in thinking it is a lean, mean studying machine and I do think that is still sort of correct, in that studious, highly intelligent kids self select into the school.

Once you are there though, I really don't see much value add. They are simply taking the smartest kids in London (and especially take the girl ringers/mainland Chinese at Sixth Form to get their numbers sky high) and pushing them through the system.

The teachers, in general, I found to be lazy and resting on their laurels. Many times my son would work on an essay and simply never get it back. There is a huge focus on GCSE and A level grades to I think the detriment of overall education. Eton has all of these prizes the boys go for and that promotes intellectual growth. Winchester has Div, and so on. The Great School simply doesn't have this sort of culture.

Speaking of culture, that's where I had real problems. There are a few girls who come in saying they are boys and "call me Robert" or whatever and that is a huge distraction. They are mentally ill and need help and they are very confused; it is sad. In remove especially there are TONS of parties, like every weekend. Lots of super rich families who have houses in Belgravia or whatever but mom and dad living in Hong Kong or NYC so the kid is living alone in some huge mansion and just partying. I am not kidding.

These are some initial thoughts but happy to answer specific questions. Basically, the school has probably the brightest kids but the system itself does not add any material value to them.

Basically, the school has probably the brightest kids but the system itself does not add any material value to them.

As a top public school it has the richest kids, not the brightest.