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Bnos Sarah vs Machon Raaya and everything in between
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Dec 25 2020, 11:38 am
amother [ Teal ] wrote:
This 100%

Honestly, I think you are getting a distorted picture in your mind of michlalah because of your other daughters friends who are going there. I would say that is less typical of a michlalah girl. How you explain your daughter in detail is the prototype of a michlalah girl.


Perhaps I wasn't so clear, but I personally am in the apply to michlala camp. It is my dd that adamantly refuses to go, with her exact words being "I rather stay home then go there". I am sure that her opinion of the seminary is clouded by her friends going there, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about that as any parent of teenagers can testify.
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amother
Maroon


 

Post Fri, Dec 25 2020, 11:52 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
Perhaps I wasn't so clear, but I personally am in the apply to michlala camp. It is my dd that adamantly refuses to go, with her exact words being "I rather stay home then go there". I am sure that her opinion of the seminary is clouded by her friends going there, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about that as any parent of teenagers can testify.


I went to Stern and some of my closest friends went to michlalah (I didn't). They're super shtark and many married learning guys (YU). The modern vs modern orthodox thing makes perfect sense - it's just a different world.

And your daughter isn't the only one who was not interested michlalah but probably would have fit in there, and chose a Bais Yaakov instead (often a place like MR or BS). I know of many others.
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amother
Silver


 

Post Sat, Dec 26 2020, 11:41 am
OP, I'm so impressed with how rational and thorough you have been throughout. I admire your deep desire to really help your daughter.

Re BYMR, your daughter needs to feel comfortable, that's really important to have a growthful year. I have no idea of the crowd going next year but if your assessment is correct, then I agree it wouldn't be a good fit.

I love your perspective and I agree with you 100%. I wish more people thought like you and respect people for who they are, rather than by their hashkafa. I love that analogy that you tell your daughters, so true and so genuine.

Sadly though, this is not how the Israeli chareidi society thinks, on the whole. And the seminaries are based in Israel. I thought like this before seminary but it took me years to get back to this perspective. Like your daughter, I was the sweet, naive type. Intelligent but not at all strong willed. Every teacher pushed the full time learning, kollel approach, and it's hard not to see the beauty and agree.

I guess the idea is to pump girls up, get them all excited about torah and kolel and full time learning, and they know that ultimately after a few years the girls come back down. In theory I get the approach, but most girls will make huge life decisions in those years following seminary. So it has a big impact.

Although, I also agree with the idea of gaining independance, confidence, and self identity. I gained tremendously in those areas and am forever grateful. I would agree it's worth paying for your daughter to gain in those areas.

Its a tough call. The more chilled seminaries may well attract less serious, less growth oriented girls, and those looking to have fun. Although it doesnt mean they're not deep and independent thinking at the same time.

End of the day, alot of it ends up being Mazal. Finding good friends and connecting to some quality teachers is huge. Even in a seminary that ticks all the boxes, theres no guarantee. And things do change every year. Every girl is also different and will pick up different things. If she has a strong family hashkafa, and a good relationship with parents, perhaps that's enough to anchor her. I also think waiting a year or 2 after seminary to start shiduchim is a good idea. Dating right away may mean making decisions you later regret.

Good luck!





amother [ OP ] wrote:


wow, thank you so much for the time put in to write this. allow me to comment on certain parts before all the kiddies wake up.

reading between the lines, it seems that you're agreeing with what 3 other ladies said yesterday regarding machon raaya. if thats the case, then it lines up with the biggest reason my dd is not interested in them --- they are full, though not exclusively with super high maintenance girls. even the fellow OOT girls that went there were the fancier/cool girls. my dd wont be able to fit it with this crowd nor will they want my dear sweet dd that has a heart of gold.

regarding michala being too modern - I prefer using the term "modern orthodox" instead, as I prefer using no labels when possible. as we're from OOT, I look at MO vs yeshivish as more of a mindset/appearance trait then a frum thing. for example - I have always told my girls, I rather have them marry a boy wearing a white polo shirt, knitted kippah & open toe sandals (on shabbos) who comes to shul on time & doesnt talk while there then a boy with black hat, big peyos, holding a gemara that was late & talked in shul.
despite this my dd just feels mort comfortable around more yeshivish people, probably because the MO girls she knows are less frum (in contrast to dd#2 that has solid frum MO girls as friends and wants to go to michlala for seminary). for example, my dd wears loose fitting clothes, prefers long black skirts even in summer, doesnt wear leggings, dislikes dressing up incl makeup, comes to shul on shabbos morning on time, doesnt have a smart phone though watches occasional movies/reads books/listens to non jewish music. she also enjoys instagram to my extreme distaste.

Kollel push - THIS IS MY BIGGEST FEAR, and my biggest reason not to send her to seminary at all and definitely not to a place like bnos sarah. my dd is sweet/kind hearted and more then a little naive, and because of that more sway-able. so should she fall into the wrong group - oh my. it's interesting to mention how until this yr my dd did not want seminary at all and planned to go to college immed after graduation with plans of law school after.
despite this very real FEAR and understanding that "brain-washing" occurs, she needs to grow and become more independent that only a year away from her parents can give her. IMHO, this is worth the risk both financial and otherwise. (we shouldnt be spending $30k as we're a family that doesnt even do sleep away camps bec of the $$$). sadly, part of this growing process is that dd makes the decision where to go, as long as its not a bad choice Smile .

it may be true that a more relaxed seminary will focus more hashkafa & personal growth as you say. however for me it is too much of a risk that she may fall in with the wrong crowd and just chill the year out. while dd is a serious/studious/hard worker and wants to be surrounded by like minded individuals that has a chose honors/AP class when possible, she also enjoys lectures & speeches.

GTTP: it is for these reasons and others, how I personally am leaning towards bnos avigayil (from the seminaries ok'd** by my dd). I just wish they had an open house to give me a better idea.
otoh, my dd prefers bnos sarah > maachon raaya > bnos avigayil. the plan is to apply to all 3 and decide once accepted, factoring in tuition costs.

** those that we ruled out - michlala, tehillas, nachlas, ateres, BJJ, bnos chava, chemdas, hadar, seminar, darchei binah, bya, bnos yehudis, mesores rochel and all non bais yaakov seminaries.
some others we still looking into - bnos batsheva, meor, Rinas, Binas, kitov
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susanstohelit




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Dec 26 2020, 11:35 pm
amother [ OP ] wrote:
thank you for the information - BA is now in her top 3.

how does their overall academics compare against bnos sarah and machon raaya?



Can't speak to Bnos Sarah (don't have any people close to me who went) but my impression is that Machon Raaya has more work than Bnos Avigayil.

Now here's where I editorialize a bit- when I was applying to seminaries myself, I was very put off by the Machon Raaya presentation's emphasis on how much work the students had. It's one of the reasons why I chose Michlalah instead. Machon Raaya seemed to present the amount of work as being a sign of how "academic" it was. It could be that it is a very academic place, but I don't think that having a lot of homework and tests is what does that- I think it's the quality of the classes, and I know my cousin was really impressed with the quality at Bnos Avigayil. (I've heard wonderful things about the quality at Machon Raaya too, of course. I would guess that they're probably on par.)

I want to also address some of your concerns about Michlalah- while it's totally possible that it might not be the right school for your daughter from the way you describe what she wants, when you describe what your daughter is like (loose clothes, no makeup, etc), it's basically exactly what I was like at that age, and most of my Mich friends were the same (and shul goers as well to boot, though I was not!). I think she could really enjoy it, and besides for its Yom HaAtzmaut trip/BBQ, I don't think it's particularly MO- it tries to straddle a line between worlds, and the most MO thing about it is that a few of the faculty went to YU, if you ask me. It's just not at all a BY, which is a totally different thing. And I'll agree with the assertion that it's probably the furthest-right school that won't push kollel at all- even my friends at Darchei Binah reported having a "kollel yom iyun" at one point. My cousin didn't report much kollel-pushing at Bnos Avigayil, but it's something that will happen at many/most BY type schools.

What I will say about Michlalah, though, is that it's a mix of girls and can also depend on the year. What I found is that it was a mix of serious girls from MO schools and "modern" girls from BY schools- I was in the latter group, and depending on the kid, "modern girl from BY school" can mean anything from kid who was in the wrong environment for high school and is finally able to flourish to kid for whom Michlalah is basically as much of a rebellion as they were able to pull off. It's a big school, so I really didn't find that having that kind of mix of kids made much of a difference to my year (I was definitely part of a teacher's-pet kind of crew lol, and was in a year in which kids were thrown out); that said, if a very specific kind of BY-oriented environment is what she wants, Michlalah might not be it.


(Also, I texted my cousin to ask if she knew anything about why Bnos Avigayil doesn't have an open house- she said she wasn't sure but apparently they did one their first year and it flopped, so they just haven't bothered since.)
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cat81




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 27 2020, 1:29 pm
Can anyone share with me the contact info for a Bnos Avigayil student, either someone whose there right now or went last year? Trying to find someone for DD to call and ask questions, and no one from her school/neighborhood went there.

PSA - In case anyone is interested, BA currently has 82 students coming from 40 different high schools !!! That's what I call diversity. If anyone wants a breakdown by school, ask.


Last edited by cat81 on Sun, Dec 27 2020, 2:28 pm; edited 4 times in total
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amother
Violet


 

Post Sun, Dec 27 2020, 2:13 pm
cat81 wrote:
Can anyone share with me the contact info for a Bnos Avigayil student, either someone whose there right now or went last year? Trying to find someone for DD to call and ask questions, and no one from her school/neighborhood went there.

In case anyone is interested, they have 82 girls this year coming from 40 different high schools! I can post a breakdown by school if ppl desire it.


Do you have that info for Bnos Sarah? If so, can you post that?
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cat81




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 27 2020, 2:26 pm
amother [ Violet ] wrote:
Do you have that info for Bnos Sarah? If so, can you post that?


no
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amother
Babypink


 

Post Sun, Oct 23 2022, 9:44 am
OP, are you still around?
Where did DD end up going?
My daughter sounds very similar to yours and we are now starting the process and I'd love to hear what her experience was.
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amother
Apricot


 

Post Tue, Nov 29 2022, 11:23 pm
amother Babypink wrote:
OP, are you still around?
Where did DD end up going?
My daughter sounds very similar to yours and we are now starting the process and I'd love to hear what her experience was.


Bump!

My daughter is similar as well: Academic, smart, warm, hard worker, put-together but not materialistic, very frum but not yeshivish, looking to grow and learn but also to visit with relatives and enjoy this gap year before starting college, dating....

We are considering Bnos Avigail but concerned that it may not be academic enough for her. Bnos Sarah may be too intense and a tad too yeshivish.

OP, were did your daughter end up going? Was she happy? I hope so.
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Tue, Nov 29 2022, 11:53 pm
I went to Bnos Avigail. While they pride themselves on not giving 'busy work', my brain was never more stimulated then it was that year. Just as an example, for Chumash class with Reb. Heller/Gottleib (and by the way it was all about relevant topics! We learned Eishes Chayil, Aseres Hadibros...), we needed to prepare it (during set prep time) and then the actual class would be her taking us on a whole other level.
Mindblowing. I loved that.
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amother
Apricot


 

Post Wed, Nov 30 2022, 4:26 pm
amother Hotpink wrote:
I went to Bnos Avigail. While they pride themselves on not giving 'busy work', my brain was never more stimulated then it was that year. Just as an example, for Chumash class with Reb. Heller/Gottleib (and by the way it was all about relevant topics! We learned Eishes Chayil, Aseres Hadibros...), we needed to prepare it (during set prep time) and then the actual class would be her taking us on a whole other level.
Mindblowing. I loved that.


That's great to hear. Thank you!
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amother
OP


 

Post Sun, Dec 04 2022, 3:33 pm
amother Babypink wrote:
OP, are you still around?
Where did DD end up going?
My daughter sounds very similar to yours and we are now starting the process and I'd love to hear what her experience was.


She ended up choosing BA, and was very happy with her choice.
Her priority was having a nice group of girls and it met her expectations.

For me though, I wanted a little more. Nothing specific that I could put my finger on and do realize it's vague, but .....

In full disclosure, my preferred choice was BS but I respected her decision of BA.
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amother
OP


 

Post Sun, Dec 04 2022, 3:36 pm
amother Apricot wrote:
Bump!

My daughter is similar as well: Academic, smart, warm, hard worker, put-together but not materialistic, very frum but not yeshivish, looking to grow and learn but also to visit with relatives and enjoy this gap year before starting college, dating....

We are considering Bnos Avigail but concerned that it may not be academic enough for her. Bnos Sarah may be too intense and a tad too yeshivish.

OP, were did your daughter end up going? Was she happy? I hope so.


She ended up at BA and loved it.

It was academic but in a "brain burning" type of way, if that makes sense. When she repeats divrei torah that she was taught, you really have to concentrate to fully understand it.

I dont recall everything repeated in this thread and others, but future parents need to realize that BA is relatively loose in supervising their girls whether its related to showing up for classes, where to visit, curfew etc.... This could be a good thing or not, depending on the type of girl your dd is.

In addition, the girls pride themselves on being "weird", out-of-box, non conformist. I kid you not, so be warned.
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amother
Hotpink


 

Post Sun, Dec 04 2022, 4:45 pm
amother OP wrote:


I dont recall everything repeated in this thread and others, but future parents need to realize that BA is relatively loose in supervising their girls whether its related to showing up for classes, where to visit, curfew etc....

In addition, the girls pride themselves on being "weird", out-of-box, non conformist. I kid you not, so be warned.

I was there a few years ago and it wasn’t like that at all… could be that was her experience, but I don’t think that would necessarily be everyone’s. I guess it depends on the year. Whoever is looking into BA just contact a variety of girls so you get a bigger picture then one person.
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