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St. David's School

School rating 3 / 5 by

3400 White Oak Road Raleigh NC 27609 United States
Day
K to 12th
Gender
Coed

Academic

St. David's School review by .

Teacher/college counseling availability to students (at St. David's School) is VERY high. Teachers are super accessible, generally very well educated about the subjects they teach, and have attended good universities. It was a combination of both lecture-based and discussion-based learning: very small class sizes (5-15 students per class) allowed us to do that. Weekly workload wasn't too strenuous if you pursued a study hall each semester as I did, but when I took 5 AP classes with no study hall, the work load was fairly strenuous. AP Language and Composition was a particularly good class that prepared me to write the college admission essay, and both AP Literature and Composition and AP US History prepared me very well for college essay writing. The school is extremely religious... EXTREMELY Evangelical Christian: like Michele Bachmann level. This does factor into classes and can detract from productive discussion because everyone is expected to adhere to the same worldview. (For example, a debate I had in class was "Can a Woman Be President?" I was the only student out of the 12 kids in the class to think that a woman was capable of being President. And that's just the TIP of the iceberg.) I still keep up with my favorite teachers at SDS, and realistically they are much of the reason I was admitted to the school of my choice.

College Counseling

I met with my advisors 24/7. They were accessible at all times. I would stroll....

Sample insights on college counseling

  • They have contacts at most of the major universities and feel perfectly comfortable picking up the phone and advocating for a student to get accepted somewhere they feel is a good fit for that student. However, these counselors are certainly not magic bullets. They cannot guarantee that a student will get into an Ivy League university...
  • For those wishing to move on to Oxford or Cambridge, the provision is second-to-none. In the months running up to application and interview, every subject faculty offers classes (often run by former Oxbridge tutors) exploring further areas of their subject as well as offering advice on personal statements, interview technique and more...

Admissions - Getting Accepted

Everyone gets in. Literally, everyone. If you have the money and you have an ounce....

Sample insights on admissions

  • For the interview, dress conservatively. Try to be very clean and put together. Also, I was a tour guide for two years and at the end of every tour, we were asked to evaluate the candidate so if you think the tour is not apart of the process, you are very wrong. Ask questions and be interested. Also, tip for the parents: the kids speak on the tour. Do not ask their questions for them...
  • Most younger siblings have an easy time in the admissions process. I can only think of one case of a younger sibling not being admitted. About half of the students who entered with me had come from public schools. The remainder came from private K-6 schools, or had transferred from other New York private schools The Elizabeth Morrow School and St. Bernard were two of the larger feeder schools...

School Life

Every single individual at St. David's is an Evangelical Christian Republican. If you do not have this worldview, do not attend this school. There is a collaborative academic community, but the school's honor code is incredibly strict, and people get accused of cheating all the time. The approach to honor code discipline is far too strict (unless, of course, your parent is a large donor, in which case you can get away with anything you please). Similarly, don't expect to get away with underage drinking/drug use as you will immediately be expelled if found out most likely. The surrounding neighborhood....

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