Archbishop Murphy High School

After graduating from Archbishop Murphy and now being in college, I feel like I have the ability to actually look back on my experience there fully. In all honesty, I really enjoyed my time at AMHS. I met some great friends, had some great teachers, and learned a lot of valuable information. But in reality, the main reason that I went to AMHS was because I thought it would aid me in receiving scholarships and getting into colleges that I felt a public school wouldn't allow me to get into. I graduated from AMHS with a 3.7 GPA, but was not accepted at the University of Washington. Initially, I blamed UW because I felt that my grades were more than worthy of admittance. However, in hindsight I have realized that the main culprit to blame is the now over $10,000 a year school that didn't do anything to help. In a public school you are allowed to participate in running start where you go to a community college and earn college credit. Archbishop Murphy does not allow you to do this. They do have their own programs that earn SOME college credit, however they do not equal the time you could spend at a community college and take off a full year at a university. On top of this, they (as in the administration) sell parents the fact that students will earn more money for scholarships and have a greater chance of getting into schools because they make students do more and grade harder. I know for a fact that if I would have gone to a public school and graduated with a 3.9, which I know I was more than capable of doing with my 3.7 at AMHS, that I would have been accepted to almost any school that I wished to attend. And scholarships are based off of the grades that you have.

Also, other than the education that one receives while at AMHS, there are some behind the scenes things that go on with students that most parents are unaware of. Most parents would think that their child would be safer when going to a private school, however I honestly believe that this is not the case at all. At AMHS, there are hundreds of students whose parents have plenty of money. As a result, these students usually have plenty of money as well and spend it any way they want because their parents are too trustworthy. As a result, much of this money ends up getting spent on drugs and alcohol. Sure, these problems exist at public schools, I'm not arguing that, but at a public school most students don't have the opportunity that they have at a private school. For many students, they don't have parents just handing them money that they can do whatever they want with. I honestly can't think of anybody in my class that wasn't doing something in some form except for maybe a select few (as in one or two).

Finally, at a private school everything becomes politics. You want your child to play sports? Then you better make sure that you are donating money to the school because otherwise your child will get almost no playing time unless they are a complete stud. It's just the way that it works. The kid's whose parents have money and donate to the school are the ones that end up starting, or at the minimum taking up a roster spot that should have been used for the kid that knows how to play the sport.

These are my thoughts on AMHS, and I feel as though they are valid. A lot of people don't hear or read about stories from people that have actually been at the school. The politics at AMHS are ridiculous not to mention the loads of empty promises they give you to aid you in writing that $10,000 check.