HB Woodlawn HS questions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you combine an AP class and a non-AP class. Can someone explain how that works.

For one of the AP/regular English classes... You teach towards the bottom. Then, for example, you give an assignment, for which you can read literally a choice of comic book, a 2nd grade reading level book, a middle grade book, or one or two actual books. I'm not sure of the exact number for each assignment but I know for sure there were at least the comic book, 2nd grade, middle grade, and one famous regular book. It's sad. And the fact that everyone probably gets graded the exact same is unfair and embarrassing. Oh yeah, there was also a choice to watch a movie instead.

Not an exaggeration. And don't complain if your kid does poorly on the AP test because I don't think anyone (parent or kid) officially complains at the beginning of school or during the year, according to our kids. (They could be doing the "privacy" nonsense and trying to pretend that your kid is the only one complaining, where parents clam up because of shame. This happened pre-Covid at an APS elementary school and they got away with it for several years before more than a few parents started meeting at school events and comparing notes. Its harder for them to get away with it now.)

I think I know which class you’re talking about. It was very disappointing. They mostly watched films instead of reading. I chalked it up to a bad teacher— which we’ve had from time to time over the years in public schools. HB isn’t immune to the usual public school problems.

Which grade was this? Offering a 2nd grade book vs. a regular book for that level is horrifying, and then everyone gets graded the same, as if it was the same difficulty? Is this how they “hide” the non-achievements of kids who have certain reasons (like medical) or is this done to hide language inadequacies? Or WHY?! Why would a school do this in English AP in HS? Or did I misunderstand the PP?

You misunderstood. I have no idea if there is a different grade book. Where did you get that from? And if there is, why is that so horrifying when there are two different classes. What difference would it make?

I don’t see how this co teaching hides anything. Can you explain that? It’s a matter of resources. The school isn’t big enough to offer separate classes so they have to teach them together.

Weird that some people think this is some big conspiracy. But that’s par for the course!!! It’s definitely not an advantage but if you don’t like it don’t go to HB

I don't think it's an advantage at all if you actually care about your child's education. It sounds terrible mostly.

+1
There are some great things about HB, but having fewer class options and combined regular AP classes are definitely not advantages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you combine an AP class and a non-AP class. Can someone explain how that works.

For one of the AP/regular English classes... You teach towards the bottom. Then, for example, you give an assignment, for which you can read literally a choice of comic book, a 2nd grade reading level book, a middle grade book, or one or two actual books. I'm not sure of the exact number for each assignment but I know for sure there were at least the comic book, 2nd grade, middle grade, and one famous regular book. It's sad. And the fact that everyone probably gets graded the exact same is unfair and embarrassing. Oh yeah, there was also a choice to watch a movie instead.

Not an exaggeration. And don't complain if your kid does poorly on the AP test because I don't think anyone (parent or kid) officially complains at the beginning of school or during the year, according to our kids. (They could be doing the "privacy" nonsense and trying to pretend that your kid is the only one complaining, where parents clam up because of shame. This happened pre-Covid at an APS elementary school and they got away with it for several years before more than a few parents started meeting at school events and comparing notes. Its harder for them to get away with it now.)

I think I know which class you’re talking about. It was very disappointing. They mostly watched films instead of reading. I chalked it up to a bad teacher— which we’ve had from time to time over the years in public schools. HB isn’t immune to the usual public school problems.

Which grade was this? Offering a 2nd grade book vs. a regular book for that level is horrifying, and then everyone gets graded the same, as if it was the same difficulty? Is this how they “hide” the non-achievements of kids who have certain reasons (like medical) or is this done to hide language inadequacies? Or WHY?! Why would a school do this in English AP in HS? Or did I misunderstand the PP?

You misunderstood. I have no idea if there is a different grade book. Where did you get that from? And if there is, why is that so horrifying when there are two different classes. What difference would it make?

I don’t see how this co teaching hides anything. Can you explain that? It’s a matter of resources. The school isn’t big enough to offer separate classes so they have to teach them together.

Weird that some people think this is some big conspiracy. But that’s par for the course!!! It’s definitely not an advantage but if you don’t like it don’t go to HB

Horrifying - or in other words, inexplicable and inexcusable; that a second grader book would be read in MS or HS - the PP explicitly mentioned “a comic book, a 2nd grader book and a regular book” - that’s why I asked which grade it was. Co-teaching the class (and they also mentioned teaching to the lowest denominator), especially allowing such vastly different materials for the same credit, hides the underachievement within their statistics and test scores, and it hides how kids do overall in the class, unless they break it down further, which APS usually does not do.
I’m not that PP and neither are you, so it would only be helpful if they clarified.

Yes comics and children's books are types of literature. There are college classes on children's literature.

How does teaching two classes in the same room hide the underachievement exactly? The kids are enrolled in two separate classes.

The way it would hide the underachievement is the teacher is forced to teach to the lowest common denominator at least some of the time and likely spend more time with the non-AP students, which is what any teacher has to do in that situation in any classroom at any grade level. Therefore the kids enrolled in the AP class are a) getting lower level instruction and work than what should be provided in an AP class and b) probably getting a good grade for doing said lower level work, which others on this thread have said leads to lower AP scores.

This is not even complicated. It's baffling people are not getting it.

Except there an AP exam at the end of the course, so any underachievement would be obvious via AP scores. Also kids submit their AP scores to colleges for admissions purposes. So not having the same opportunity of getting higher AP scores to submit to colleges is a significant downside for HB.

The HBW students have ample time to study or take prep courses for their handful of AP courses, its a completely different experience than the AP/IB slog of the neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

You’re making a lot of assumptions here. The TAs know very little about the college process. Because they are teachers not counselors. My kid’s TA gave zero input on where to apply— elite or not. Literally zero. No one at HB did. The only person who encouraged him to consider elite schools was me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to know about HB- scheduling conflicts come up more. My kid couldn’t take a class because it conflicted with a different class. Same with their friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

Respectfully, all this tells me is that that student didn’t belong at HB in the first place. The school makes very clear that it is designed for self motivated and self directed students—not ones that need to be “pushed.”

And hundreds of hours to research colleges? Really? We sent four kids to college, all of them to very good ones, and we didn’t spend hundreds of hours collectively between the four researching colleges. It’s not that difficult. I suggest you look inward instead of outward when evaluating your student’s experience at HB.

—Parent of 2 HB grads

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

Respectfully, all this tells me is that that student didn’t belong at HB in the first place. The school makes very clear that it is designed for self motivated and self directed students—not ones that need to be “pushed.”

And hundreds of hours to research colleges? Really? We sent four kids to college, all of them to very good ones, and we didn’t spend hundreds of hours collectively between the four researching colleges. It’s not that difficult. I suggest you look inward instead of outward when evaluating your student’s experience at HB.

—Parent of 2 HB grads

Weird take. We got no college counseling at HB so we had to do it on our own. Not sure how that makes my kid a bad fit for HB?

Please tell me which TAs at HB recommended a list of elite colleges for your kid to apply to. If you really are an HB parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

Respectfully, all this tells me is that that student didn’t belong at HB in the first place. The school makes very clear that it is designed for self motivated and self directed students—not ones that need to be “pushed.”

And hundreds of hours to research colleges? Really? We sent four kids to college, all of them to very good ones, and we didn’t spend hundreds of hours collectively between the four researching colleges. It’s not that difficult. I suggest you look inward instead of outward when evaluating your student’s experience at HB.

—Parent of 2 HB grads

Weird take. We got no college counseling at HB so we had to do it on our own. Not sure how that makes my kid a bad fit for HB?

Please tell me which TAs at HB recommended a list of elite colleges for your kid to apply to. If you really are an HB parent.

Full time Counselors are way more likely to direct them to sure thing schools, as they are more familiar with the odds. The do-whatever-you-want teacher approach means kids take that long shot without discouragement from an overworked counselor. Yes teachers are busy too, but for counselors application season everything ramps up at once vs running a steady class over two semesters.

[Anonymous]

advisors at H-B are explicitly told not to give students a list of schools to apply to. That has always been the case. Anyone who went to the guidance nights offered by the principal would have heard this message. Is that what the counselors at Yorktown and W-L and Wakefield do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:advisors at H-B are explicitly told not to give students a list of schools to apply to. That has always been the case. Anyone who went to the guidance nights offered by the principal would have heard this message. Is that what the counselors at Yorktown and W-L and Wakefield do?

They definitely discourage reach schools — 1/3 of the class are Valedictorians at WL, so many will have lofty goals but the counselors don't want to have to deal with hundreds of long shots so dampen expectations, strictly limit the number they can apply to, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

Respectfully, all this tells me is that that student didn’t belong at HB in the first place. The school makes very clear that it is designed for self motivated and self directed students—not ones that need to be “pushed.”

And hundreds of hours to research colleges? Really? We sent four kids to college, all of them to very good ones, and we didn’t spend hundreds of hours collectively between the four researching colleges. It’s not that difficult. I suggest you look inward instead of outward when evaluating your student’s experience at HB.

—Parent of 2 HB grads

Thank you. I have one in HB and I'm asking them where do they want to go geographically. These next 4 are for fun and a very basic credential. Any good school will do. Also, I saw that 100 hours and was like...who? Me? No. No way. naaaa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

Respectfully, all this tells me is that that student didn’t belong at HB in the first place. The school makes very clear that it is designed for self motivated and self directed students—not ones that need to be “pushed.”

And hundreds of hours to research colleges? Really? We sent four kids to college, all of them to very good ones, and we didn’t spend hundreds of hours collectively between the four researching colleges. It’s not that difficult. I suggest you look inward instead of outward when evaluating your student’s experience at HB.

—Parent of 2 HB grads

Ok well some non HB person was claiming that the TAs at HB and the other kids push kids towards applying to elite colleges. I was saying that didn't happen AT ALL, and also we barely got any college counseling at all at HB. Just worked with us on the process to submit recs and transcripts. That's really it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So yet another nugget about HB is these kids are not even operating at the level of kids at the home high schools and college admission is probably easier for them as a result.

In the end, in theory people should want their kids well prepared for college but I'm sure plenty of people love that they're getting AP lang and lit on their transcript with an A and meanwhile doing nothing in class.

Hold on tiger. who said they are doing nothing in class? and who said college admissions are easier? the kids at HB are less prepared for the AP exams and get lower scores. That hurts them with college admissions, not helps them

It sounds like they are not doing nearly as much as kids at the other schools in AP classes.

It 100 percent makes college admissions easier. Kids are compared against their peers at their same school. HB kids are taking easier classes that are labeled "most rigorous" for their school. To recap, they are not working as hard and taking fewer challenging classes (since so many fewer are offered at HB to begin with) and then getting into the same schools as kids from the larger high schools. Compare a UVA admit from HB to a UVA admit from W-L IB and the W-L IB kid is a far more impressive and higher achieving student. You clearly don't know anything about the college admissions process.

Right but AP scores are AP scores and these would be compared against the applicant pool more globally. It does not seem like a strong point that AP classes are not taught as well resulting in kids getting lower schools. But you seem to disagree and this that it is, so I probably won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Proof is in the pudding: HBW dominates college admissions

https://www.scribd.com/document/757378704/Where-Arlington-s-Class-of-2024-Applied-to-College-and-Got-In

Yorktown High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~36
Top-50 accepts: ~110
Estimated class size: ~600
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~18% Top-50

Washington-Liberty High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~34
Top-50 accepts: ~95
Estimated class size: ~550
Approx. rates: ~6% Top-20, ~17% Top-50

Wakefield High School:
Top-20 accepts: ~12
Top.-50 accepts: ~45
Estimated class size: ~480
Approx. rates: ~2.5% Top-20, ~9% Top-50

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program:
Top-20 accepts: ~10
Top-50 accepts: ~30
Estimated class size: ~120
Approx. rates: ~8% Top-20, ~25% Top-50

Arlington Career Center / Arlington Tech:
Top-20 accepts: ~3
Top-50 accepts: ~12
Estimated class size: ~100
Approx. rates: ~3% Top-20, ~12% Top-50

Districtwide estimate (≈1,850 graduates):
Top-20 acceptances: ~95–100 (~5%)
Top-50 acceptances: ~290–300 (~16%)

What year is this and where did you get the estimated class size? Did you pick out top 20 and top 50 manually from the chart or is there another source where it’s summarized?

Agree, plus the class size is not a good denominator. Numbers of applications would be a better one. I calculated it for UVA and ….its exactly the same from all schools and programs. Consistently ~ over 17%-19% from each, no matter where the kid went.

Counselors and peers at HBW push kids to take the shot at elite schools, whereas neighborhood schools counselors are focused on getting students to pass the SOL and graduate, not apply to elite schools. If you only count the kids who actually applied, you’re missing the invisible students who were guided away or never encouraged to apply to elite schools entirely. Class size is a much better measure of a school's overall ceiling.

Well, HB doesn't even have counselors so try again.

The teachers act as counselors, everyone knows that. But in their ROLE as counselors, they are more likely to encourage elite schools since they spend most of their time involved in education, rather than discipline and administrative fire drills like at neighborhood schools.

From experience, this is not an absolute truth. In fact we'd claim it skews heavily the other way. A lot of HB teachers, including the ones that we've had as "counselors" AKA TAs, meet each kid where the kid is, where the kid wants to be, or where the kid thinks they are. The more mature kids (and there obviously aren't that many) can take advantage of this--hence the few kids that get admitted to elite schools. However, one could argue (say, if they knew anything about the top kids from the past 5+ graduating classes) that many of those kids would have excelled at larger schools and would probably have done better over there given the increased resources and opportunities over there.

For us, there has been no real push from HB teachers to take harder classes nor is there any direct communication with parents with any concerns, except from one teacher who every kid takes and would say, "oh yeah that one's not surprising" given their background. Some of the teachers have been fantastic. However, even when they do care, I doubt that these TAs are sophisticated enough to research a kid's academics and ECs, and then match them up with elite colleges that are a best fit to apply to. They are not experienced college counselors with metadata from 1000s of internal alumni data points. The TAs can only look at Naviance and now SchooLinks (which is garbage) just like we do. As a parent, it's taken literally 100s of hours of research and college visits for us to get a sense of which colleges to shoot for and how the colleges select their applicants. The latter time and money expense/waste is because of the nonsense of holistic admissions at the top colleges.

+1
If you want college counseling you won’t get it at HB. Hire a private coach or do your own research.

Respectfully, all this tells me is that that student didn’t belong at HB in the first place. The school makes very clear that it is designed for self motivated and self directed students—not ones that need to be “pushed.”

And hundreds of hours to research colleges? Really? We sent four kids to college, all of them to very good ones, and we didn’t spend hundreds of hours collectively between the four researching colleges. It’s not that difficult. I suggest you look inward instead of outward when evaluating your student’s experience at HB.

—Parent of 2 HB grads

Thank you. I have one in HB and I'm asking them where do they want to go geographically. These next 4 are for fun and a very basic credential. Any good school will do. Also, I saw that 100 hours and was like...who? Me? No. No way. naaaa

I assume the PP was counting trips to see colleges. It's easy to get over 100 hours that way. I'm sure we were there too. Are you not planning to visit any colleges?