School tours bonanza, day two

Marie Curie in University City was where I went today.

University City is a pretty small community that's made up of a lot of UCSD professors and staff. So it's an intellectual crowd and on the higher end of the middle class scale.

Still, I was surprised at the size of this tour: at least 50 parents, all armed with very informed questions about budget cuts and, yes, a few questions about the gifted programs.
Again, they said they had extra P.E. and art and science, but realistically it was similar to the other places I've seen.

It's a massive place - almost 500 students and five kindergarten classrooms.

That being said, the school had a really warm, peaceful vibe to it. There's lots of garden space, a wide, open campus and a community of involved parents. I could picture us there for sure if we lived in the neighborhood.

But I'm not going to put it on my list because the commute is seriously nightmarish. I signed up for the tour, not remembering the crazy amount of traffic through the Golden Triangle. It's a problem no matter which freeway I chose and it would hit us both in the morning and in the afternoon.

So I'm looking forward to tomorrow since it's a neighborhood day, both my local schools - Hearst and Marvin - have tours.

Since before this search began, I've felt like if we don't stay at private we'd do anything to get into Hearst. My cousins went there, I have a good number of friends who send their kids there and it has a great reputation.

I think I'm putting myself in a Museum School stype situation, where I have very high expectation and I hope that the place lives up to my hype.