In 2022, a $1.1-1.2M housing budget means you're below-average economically in the Langley HS district. But someone has to be, as there's always a distribution. The Langley district is spread out and I don't think people are spending much time keeping tabs on who lives in the more affordable areas, which in Langley's case means (1) western Great Falls near Loudoun, (2) the Vienna neighborhoods off Route 7, and (3) the Kings Manor townhouses in McLean. Teaching your kids they can't always have everything some other kid has is a valuable lesson. |
I live in Great Falls (moved here at the beginning of the pandemic), and I've never even seen my neighbors. We joke that they're foreign spies. |
GF resident here. I haven't heard of most of these things either. The Safeway here is not nice, so I do most of my grocery shopping in Sterling (Coco's, Target, Giant, Lidl, Indian market) with an occasional trip to H-Mart. Anything unusual I can get delivered. |
Yep! We are in GF near Rt 7 and family income is just not something kids dwell on (maybe some do, but my kids’ friends don’t). Some of my kids friends are massively wealthy, but they still come over to our tiny house to hang with my kids. They also like my cooking. ![]() |
GF wasn't having any issues in the home sales department prior to Covid - what a weird post. And many - if not most - people in GF have short commutes to their jobs in the Reston/Tysons/Vienna corridor - or from home. Sour grapes are so unbecoming. |
DP. You are correct that no one who actually goes to Langley thinks about or talks about the wealth of their peers. Curiously, that seems to be the sole purview of people whose kids go to school elsewhere. |
+1 We go to the Reston Giant or Harris Teeter, as well as Sterling Costco and Target. I sometimes shop at the GF Safeway, but rarely these days. |
DP. Same here. My kids' friends live all over the area and no one cares how big one house is compared to the other. Such a ridiculous thing to obsess over. And we also live in a small house. |
Nope. GF was lagging behind other areas for many years. |
We go to the Wegman's in Tysons and the Harris Teeter in Tysons, among other places. We are also excited to try out the Lidl in McLean. I cook from scratch, so I can get most of my ingredients for ethnic food at the grocery stores I visit. If there is something they don't carry, I can usually find it at one of the ethnic stores in Sterling, Merrifield, or Herndon, or I order it. |
How fantastic that OP has the benefit of the views of some random Langley mom who constantly pretends she knows what everyone in her pyramid thinks or says. |
Barf. |
Our DC went to Willow, Lanier (KJMS), and now FHS. I'm not sure the issue. We have higher income that OP and there are certainly lots of people with more money than we have (since social status seems to be a concern). It's a great school, and we loved out pyramid. Great community feel and you don't get lost in the super large HSs. But you want to go? Bye. I'll keep my thoughts on Langley, and the people I know who went there, to myself. |
I am a child of poor Asian immigrants. My parents wanted me to attend a school in the best school district so we lived in the cheapest house in a neighborhood similar to Langley. I feel very comfortable around rich people even though I didn’t grow up rich.
We now live in the Langley pyramid. You will find an excellent peer group with well educated parents. The parents are all fairly successful. Lots of doctors, lawyers, tech executives, etc. We have a seven figure income and my kids have a very different childhood than we did. If OP moved to Langley, they would be on the lower end of income and house. The cheapest home you can live in feeding into Langley is $1.2m. McLean High is full of very smart Asian kids whose parents stretch to send them to the best school district just as my parents did for me. |
So, we earned about $230k combined when we first moved to GF and there were a lot of other families like us (i.e. dual feds or some combination like that). While we were probably in the “lower” spectrum in terms of income, it really wasn’t an issue. My kids made friends and have had a great education. As far as social circles go, your children don’t have to hang out with other Asian kids — their friend group will be whatever club, sport or activity they are involved in. The only downside I can think of is there are a lot of high-achievers at the school, so it will be hard to stand out when you are searching for colleges to go to. |