St Joseph’s Collegiate Institute

Hey john z– screw you.
Now that that’s t of the way let me start by saying that my family has gone to Joes since the 1960s. Reason: It is a fantastic school. The teachers are the best in Buffalo. If a student doesn’t understand something, they really are helped out. Even the food is good here.
Let’s address john z’s points, shall we, lest you are turned off. Yearly tuition is not the same as colleges. True, it’s pricy, but you get a lot back. Product quality of the public high schools cannot compare to St. joes. That’s like comparing a Twinkie to a fine dinner in Paris.
Next, you must have been either blind and deaf or just ignorant. Today, st joes offers so many clubs and electives, it’s hard to choose, or at least that’s what my kid says. There’s everything here, from band to Chinese.
When you go here, you learn religion. Case and point. I don’t know where you were but the religion courses are challenging and inspiring.
Have you paid attention to the shape of the buffalo school system? Public schools suck. Students there will NOT do better than joes. Look at the data, our median test scores are way higher than publics. Again, it is 40 grand to go here only if you never get a scholarship, of which st joes offers many.
I don’t know what religion class you took, so I’m not even going to go there. All I will say is that those classes are the total opposite of what you say.
All in all, Joes is a fantastic school. My father went there, I went there, and my sons are going there. There’s a reason. It is simply the best.
GO JOES.

Having graduated here in 2003, I would never dream of sending my son to St Joe’s.
The reasons are many, but in the end it boils down not to cost, but to value. For same yearly tuition charged by state colleges, yes, colleges, this high school offers a product quality that I would rate at slightly below that of local public high schools. You will be out $ 40,000 per son, for what gain? Not much, methinks. Let’s explore this holy mystery further, shall we?
Case in point: my sister attended Ken West while I was at St. Joe’s. Often did I regret my enrollment at Joe’s in light of the far more AP and honors classes my sister was offered, and the probably tenfold increase of student clubs at West. Not to mention a certain listlessness that I felt at St. Joes. Possibly this was because it was boys-​only, or maybe it had something to do with the not-​so-​modern Catholic School schtick. Either way, What I found at Joe’s was something amounting to less the total quality I perceived at Kenmore West, at a massively inflated price.
A gifted student at OP or Sweethome or Amherst will excel and go to college. He will participate in sports. He will get good SAT scores. Think about it… will teachers paid the same as their public school counterparts increase your son’s SAT scores et cetera to a level worth your $ 40,000?
TL;DR: The high price of an SJCI education does not imply high quality.
God, I imagine, is a motivator for many parents to send their sons here. I credit St Joe’s with helping me (and no shortage of my classmates) to abandon the Catholic faith. Playing the intellectual while teaching the Bible and Catechism sets religion teachers up for total failure: Religion class amounted to an immersion in apologetics. Incessantly trying to reconcile ancient religious teachings with the modern knowledge of other classes leads the student to, in time, carry more faith in reason. At St Joe’s, religion is not fulfilling, does not bring peace, but rather poses another set of obstacles to memorize your way past. As a Dawkins 8.1 atheist, I see the important role SJCI played in making me this way, and yes, I am grateful.
One thing a St Joes kid will get is four years of high-​pressure marketing of the priesthood, from various clergy. At times, it was like convincing a cold caller that, no, I still don’t want that timeshare package.
TL;DR: The religious education at St Joe’s made me an atheist.
St Joe’s is home to many pillars of Buffalo society. Surely, you say, SJCI breeds leaders! I think not, however: instead I believe that some leaders send their sons to Joe’s out of tradition. And well they should. My four years at Joe’s were like witnessing a silver-​spoon swap meet. It’s no mystery who the sons of dealership-​owners and city councilmen are. They know it, and so will your son. The elitist vibe is alive and well at Joe’s, and though it doesn’t really get in the way, it sure was annoying. Masturbatory is the word that comes to mind.
There are arguments for attending St. Joe’s, but as with anything (having learned to think scientifically later, in college) one must reconcile correlation with causation. If they post superior SAT scores, it may be because they reserve the luxury of excluding «underperforming» applicants. If they dominate the Catholic school league one season, it may be because their competition are still-​smaller, still-​more-​underfunded Catholic schools. The Freemason-​like preponderance of SJCI alums in Buffalo power positions may very well be due to the old-​money loyalty to this school, and to its still-​valuable brand name.
TL;DR: SJCI’s reputation is mostly self-​perpetuated and without realistic merit.
Like taking Ritalin over generic Methylphenidate (plenty did), the brand name is worth… what, again?