Colegio Nacional De Buenos Aires ?

[Matiasba]

Did you have vuelta olimpica at your private school or is that a privilege that stems out of learning Ancient Greek?
What about toilet seats in the boy s room?

In fact, I had the last vuelta olimpica. They suspended every single student, and it was a great deal, front page in La Nacion, in Gente, they were all expelled.
The first one I had, when I was 12, it was directly vandalism. They threw a fish, a big salmon fish in our Latins teacher head. Lots of bombs, time bombs, petards, bombas de olor, eggs threw to the people with violence (they couldnt identify them cause they were wearing masks), getting dirty on walls with ketchup, mustard, graffitis with aerosol, it was a dissaster, they were probably on drugs, they chased young guys till hunt them down... so much violence!

The original idea of the vuelta olimpica started at CNBA but the ILSE ones were the hardest, they even called the police!!! till the last one, when they expelled every single student.

PS: ILSE is semi-private, cause it depends on UBA, and you have to pay very little, Id say simbolic. In my times (90s) was 100 pesos.

 

[Matiasba]

Pros: your son will meet people from all walks of life, and with a certain degree of intelligence (most private schools in BA are just about money). Critical thinking is encouraged, and the school will make your son street smart.

Cons: there are 3 shifts to attend school, and there is a "lottery" to determine where your son may go... so he may end up going to school from 5 to 9 pm in a not-so-nice area of town.

Actually, it depends on your marks. If your exams were excellent, you can choose the shift. If they were fine, they assign you one shift by draw (morning or afternoon), and if your exams were at the bottom (always talking of the people who made it through, to get in, which is like 20% of 1500) you go at night.
Thats what happened to me, I passed the exams but I couldnt choose or go to "sorteo", I went directly at night, so I decided to go to ILSE, which was at that time pretty much the same exams.

In my times, also, the turno noche was up to 11 o clock at night, and San Telmo wasnt what it is today, it was waaaay more dangerous. Thats why I refused to CNBA.

 

[Matiasba]

my question is have they substantially lowered their standards and expectations in line with the times? Has the private school sector passed CNBA by? Are the academics, experience and contacts to be had at CNBA still valuable in today’s Argentina?

I think you have to ask yourself what do you want for your kid.
If you want knowledge, or an excellent training for college, if you want your kid to handle easily university level, to be prepared to learn how to study, to learn how to sacrifice and assume responsibility, yes, the three high schools are the better option. Just as an example, in every high school to pass, you need a 6 of 10, which multiplied for three trimesters, is 18. In ILSE, CNBA and Pellegrini, to pass you need a 7, for three = 21. If you have a 1, you need two tens, while in other high schools you need a 9 and and an 8. Also, you cant owe more than one subject to pass the year, when in the rest you can owe 3.

There are tons of kids, me included, who can not resist the level of these schools. Very demanding. As I said, sacrifice lots of weekends.

This is the academic part. Clearly, superior than any other private school. Perhaps San Andres is at the same level, but its pretty expensive and if you dont live in Zona Norte, difficult to travel.

But if what you want is your son to make contacts, as you said, to be his friends for the rest of his life people with a comfortable monetary situation, if you like that people, his future friends, to be bussinessmen, or sons of some kind of entrepreneur class, or, to say it simple, rich people, these three high schools are not the right option. See, what its different from Europe and the US in Argentina, is that probably the most prepared people, the most learned, cultured, educated people, is not the people who have money. I mean, yes, they have money, lots of them go to the more prestigious universities abroad then, but they are upper middle class, they are not the rich people.

So what you will find in CNBA is sons and daughters of professional middle class, probably with some tendency to the left, who confront with the economic power. Its the UBA vs UCA in a small scale.

And if your son like maths, the best bet would be Pellegrini, famous at its maths, while CNBA is good at Humanities, history, etc. ILSE is good at latin.

Edit: the three of them totally SUCK! in english