Seminary Options takeoff #2 :) ?

I know it sounds crazy, but you are describing Ateres very much! Did you ever look into it? All areas you mentioned, teachers being approachable, the academics, and the girls are really exactly Ateres!

I won’t say that I know about Afikei Torah and Darchei Binah because I don’t. I know there was a thread about Afikei Torah a little while ago… Darchei Binah I know produces wonderful girls! Just don’t know much about the two.

I applied and got into Meohr and was extremely close to going, but then ended up deciding to go to Ateres for although they are both great places I felt Ateres would bring to the place I really wanted to be. So I do know about meohr because I have done a lot of research.

Bottom line is, they are going through a much needed change this year. It came to the point where although the school, teachers, and classes were out of this world, their crowd of girls was becoming lower and lower on the Bais Yaakov scale. So you may not be looking for a real Bais Yaakov seminary which is more then fine, but just explaining a main difference between that and Ateres, and that was a big part of the reason I didn’t end up going. I did go a bunch of times, and I found it to be more in towny for sure! There were a lot of girls doing a lot of things that the school was not impressed with, and many were dressing in ways that were not ok. They did not have a uniform. This year I know a lot of rules changed, and that they now have the dress code that all the other Bais Yaakov seminaries have. The teachers and classes are really great though! They only have midterms and finals, but do have reports and other assigments in the middle of the year. They have a lot of class. I know that I thought I had a lot compared to a lot of seminaries we had 3 night classes per week, but I believe Meohr has even more. The principal Rabbi Greenwald is supposed to be the most incredible person! I really enjoyed my interview with him immensely. I hope this helped you a little bit, but I really think you should look into Ateres as well, and not just because I went there! It sounds exactly like you are describing you want! I wrote a lot about it on the other seminary thread so feel free to read it. Also I think Meohr was the number one seminary that most of the Ateres girls had applied to as well! So wherever you decide on for real they are both wonderful and very special places and there are plenty others out there too, but I think you should look specifically at these two! Good Luck, and may it all go smoothly!

IMO meohr is total hefkeirus some of the girls have real issues and the principal addresses them so wrong and so I appropriately and I say this seeing it first hand how this is considered a decent bets yaakov semi ary is beyond comprehension many rabonim are against the principals approach I cannot comprehend that decent upright teachers would send good girls there. I am saying this first hand knowledge I have been there and spoken to some prominent rabonim about the situation there.

happym19, I do understand your concern about the music thing, but that is not something that should make you rule out ateres. There were girls who were not on the level that they were ready to give up their music and some that didn’t listen. The bottom line was that they said straight out that they don’t look on each girls i-pods but would not be ok if it was playing out loud. It could be Ateres still may not be the place, just felt I had to clarify that.

What about Seminar?

to trying my best:

What was it like in Beit Shemesh? Did you feel out of it?

How many times did you go to the kotel? what did you do for yom tov?

MOre info on the seminarey ateres anyone? is it out of towny? yeshivish?

both… I have a lot of drama going on. I could embarrass Rabbi Segel and entire seminary right now and talk about the girls this year in relation to my anxiety disorder and how those factors prevented me from being able to attend class (for very legit reasons due to innapropriate stuff that went on, that was not my fault at all, but rather because of the other girls_ and then I was asked to leave, or I can just be quiet on this matter and say nothing more because I already said enough as it is.

the girls were bullying me, and the school did nothing about it. They told me I was fat, and they went to the eim bayit and told her I was eating ice cream all day, and she accused me of having an eating disorder, then they wondered why I was not able to show up to class, because I was to scared of people making comments. On top of that, I was there for two months and the school did not know me at all, and considering how few people were there, they could have gotten to know me. The social worker told my friend medical information about me that she was not authorized to tell. Its embarrassing to have to go to a social worker to get ear plugs, on top of that we were forced to fill out medical forms in class, and girls kept on staring at me because it was taking me a long time to fill mine out (I am sorry I have ADHD and some other issues), it was humiliating and accused me of lying on my initial medical form, in front of the whole school.