Please tell me about Lake Braddock, South County, and Robinson HS

[Anonymous]

We are looking at next year and for various reasons these are the main choices we have. Based on simple academic rankings, it looks like Robinson is best, and we don't mind the IB program (but don't care one way or another really). BUT, we have a very introverted child with severe social anxiety and are concerned about the size of Robinson. Moreover, DC has only two interests - Japanese language and swim/dive - and Robinson doesn't have Japanese (or many world languages at all) and we've heard swim/dive there is unusually competitive to even be on the team, especially freshman year. LB and SC offer Japanese (according to the fcps website), but LB is also very large, and SC has low rankings. Any thoughts from people with some real-life experience with these schools?

If it matters, DC is into computer science and will probably have a stem major in college, and currently takes all honors and has an unweighted 4.0 (but I don't want to imply DC is a super student or really advanced, as it's just more that the current school isn't very demanding).

[Anonymous]

All of the HS sports teams here are very competitive and difficult to get a spot on apart from maybe football at the smaller schools. So I wouldn’t let that be a defining factor because your kid will have to be very good to make a team anywhere.

Part of the reason LB and Robinson are larger is that they are secondary schools meaning the 7th and 8th graders also attend. Now that said, Robinson in particular is very large. the campus is huge and it takes up the physical area of basically a small liberal arts college. Lake Braddock never “felt” as large to me, but I’m not as familiar with it. South county has a separate middle and HS but they are located very physically close in the same area.

Are you coming from outside the area? Have you checked out the areas at all and what is your housing budget? I wouldn’t let South County’s “ranking” affect your opinion - I do think the school is generally improving and on a gradual upswing. There are some very nice areas zoned for all three high schools.

[Anonymous]

South County physical building is nice and new.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't Lake Braddock have more than 4,000 students now? I read that somewhere. I wouldn't want my kids in a school that big, personally.

[Anonymous]

We are districted for lake Braddock and my kids are too young to go there but all of our neighbors seem really happy with the school. Have you looked at the neighborhoods that feed into the schools? We like the LB neighborhoods more than the Robinson ones but it’s obviously a preference and budget issue. (Not sure about south county at all).

[Anonymous]

All three are big schools- I think south county is the smallest but it still has over 2k kids. I know families who have been happy with SC and they are supposed to have good supports for kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the HS sports teams here are very competitive and difficult to get a spot on apart from maybe football at the smaller schools. So I wouldn’t let that be a defining factor because your kid will have to be very good to make a team anywhere.

Part of the reason LB and Robinson are larger is that they are secondary schools meaning the 7th and 8th graders also attend. Now that said, Robinson in particular is very large. the campus is huge and it takes up the physical area of basically a small liberal arts college. Lake Braddock never “felt” as large to me, but I’m not as familiar with it. South county has a separate middle and HS but they are located very physically close in the same area.

Are you coming from outside the area? Have you checked out the areas at all and what is your housing budget? I wouldn’t let South County’s “ranking” affect your opinion - I do think the school is generally improving and on a gradual upswing. There are some very nice areas zoned for all three high schools.

Robinson is larger physically but it has a smaller enrollment than Lake Braddock. Grades 9-12 at Robinson is right below 2500 while Lake Braddock 9-12 is closer to 3000. Robinson is big but it doesn't feel crowded and the middle school is pretty much self-contained in one section of the building.

South County HS is smaller and the middle school is in a separate building, so that's a good portion of the size difference.

[Anonymous]

It seems to me that if Japanese is a priority, that rules out Robinson. Swim teams everywhere are pretty competitive, but dive teams less so. Even a school like Oakton which consistently wins and has a highly competitive team, this year has low turnout for dive (DD dives, and knows divers trying out for their team).

The other thing to consider is that if language is that important, and you end up buying in the Robinson pyramid, you might be able to have your child go to a different HS through a language transfer program. It is NOT guaranteed, although it's likely they'll be accepted as long as the other school is not over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Robinson is close to the average size for high schools in Northern Virginia, at about 2,500. High schools in general are increasing in size but should remain below 3,000, except for the mega schools like Alexandria HS.

Robinson at 2,500 high school students sounds reasonable to me.

Regarding sport, I always thought swim was no cut, but I could be wrong. The summer swimming leagues are very competitive and thus the high school teams are ultra competitive. But do enquire with the school’s athletic director or the coach via email.

Dive teams are small on purpose, so I’m not sure what it would take to make the cut.

[Anonymous]

All fine. Choose based on: #1 commute. #2 house.

[Anonymous]

If you have more flexibility, and really want a small high school, Falls Church City’s Meridian High School is very small at about 850 students total. It is the smallest public high school in the region (except application public schools like HB Woodlawn or Walls).

Making sports teams like swimming should be easier. The school has Mandarin but not Japanese.

[Anonymous]

Our introverted kid is doing just fine at Robinson--found a niche. Teachers are generally really supportive and seem fairly happy there. It's large, but not only is the middle school separate, the high school is even divided up so that each grade is more likely to have most of their classes in one section. Our kid is very sound-sensitive, shy, very good student and has had no problems and has found a group of similar friends. The IB program is excellent--and you can take courses a la carte without doing the diploma. There is also a handful of AP courses. They have so many tech electives for CS interested kid.

Lake Braddock is very similar to Robinson--biggest difference is IB/AP. We've lived here over 17 years-- one year LBSS is considered slightly academically stronger, another year Robinson is. In reality it seems a fairly meaningless distinction.

[Anonymous]

If your child swims club and wants to make swim team, Robinson is the most difficult, then LB, then South County.

We are at LB, and there is Japanese.

[Anonymous]

We have a kid at Robinson, but have friends with kids at LB and SC. All are happy and fwiw, MS and HS at Robinson and LB are kept largely separate, even though they’re in the same buildings.

The flip side of large size is that all kinds of kids can find their crew. That said, it sounds like lack of Japanese would be problematic for you. I personally would worry less about sports teams, because there are opportunities to pursue that outside of school if necessary.

I also don’t pay much attention to rankings. We zeroed in on Robinson/LB when we were looking based on commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that if Japanese is a priority, that rules out Robinson. Swim teams everywhere are pretty competitive, but dive teams less so. Even a school like Oakton which consistently wins and has a highly competitive team, this year has low turnout for dive (DD dives, and knows divers trying out for their team).

The other thing to consider is that if language is that important, and you end up buying in the Robinson pyramid, you might be able to have your child go to a different HS through a language transfer program. It is NOT guaranteed, although it's likely they'll be accepted as long as the other school is not over capacity.

Hi, OP here - we are not buying in any pyramid, so that's not an issue. We can choose whichever one, as it's only for a few years. We have already been told by Robinson and LB that transfer between the two is OK right now, and they are close together, so that's helpful.