Stuart Hobson

[Anonymous]

There are some Asian families in-boundary for Stuart Hobson. Our kid has won a music scholarship to a private middle school in VA we can afford with the scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're passing on Stuart Hobson for our son this coming fall for 6th grade, although the campus is a 5-minute walk from us, for two reasons.

We're both Asian-American and saw no Asian students on a recent visit to the school.

We don't like the fact there's no academic tracking outside math. We're told that the pre-Covid honors English classes have been ditched.

We know UMC IB families at Hobson who like it though.

Where is he going?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You sound hopelessly out of date. The inconvenient truth is that 3s on AP exams won't do a thing for your UMC kid when applying to colleges with highly competitive admissions here in 2023. This is as true of great public universities like Univ of NC at Chapel Hill, UVA, Univ of MI and Berkeley as SLACs and Ivies. Most colleges have stopped giving college credit for APs, period, even when grades of 4s and 5s are in the mix. How do I know this? I work as an admissions counselor at a competitive college in this Metro area that you've heard of.

Thanks for the update. Glad to know two decades after graduating from high school that my AP English 3 isn’t the asset I always thought it was. I’ll stop putting it on my professional resume and wearing my promotional T-shirt.

I don’t think I am the only mom here who believes there’s more to education than getting my kid into those schools or your local competitive college. Yes, the networks and experiences you get at a school like that can lead to great professional and life outcomes, but I don’t see it as the only path to a fulfilling career and stable income.

We are getting far from the point, which is whether Stuart Hobson and McKinley Tech are good schools. I will confess to knowing very little about either. And of course we all want our kids to have options and be well prepared for college and career. But I can’t help but wonder if the Harvard-or-Bust mentality of a lot of parents keeps them from giving schools like these a fair shake.

I don’t think my kid is Harvard or bust, but I want him to be educated to broaden his mind and make the most of it. Not to brag but my family is high IQ - not getting a 5 on the English AP exam would be unusual for us. Shrug. You do you.

Yes, those of us who only attained a 3 on the exam in the 1990s have hopelessly low IQs and are now reduced to menial, low wage work.

For someone who wants their kid to broaden his mind you sound remarkably narrow minded and elitist. Shrug. You do you.

NP. You should not be aiming for a three. That’s a terrible AP score. It means your kid only sort of grasped the material.

I’ll assume you’re correct and work as a psychometrician for the College Board, which views a 3 as a college level C.

A high schooler “sort of grasping” college level material is a win for their learning in my book. Would it be better if they got the equivalent of a college level A? Of course! But I don’t think a 3 means you’re some kind of moron or that your school is terrible or that you’ll never be able to support yourself.

Only about 1 in 5 high schoolers got at least a 3 on an AP exam last year. If that’s the type of standard McKinley Tech meets in its admissions, it’s not a low one at all and the
poster whose kid is dyslexic but good at STEM may have found a great fit.

And the poster whose family all has such high IQs that they would never get less than a 5 on any exam can look elsewhere.

I have a hard time knowing if you’re being sarcastic. A college C is awful, yes? Many schools have moved to only accepting 5s for credit; 3s? Not a chance. A 3 is not good. Like really not good. It means you barely grasped the material. Like a college C. A school aiming for/happy with 3s would obviously not be academically rigorous.

That PP seems very intent on making herself feel that 3s are fine and you will go on to have a good life, which is completely true! So many people who are not that academically inclined will have great lives and even make 6 figure incomes!

But for those of us who got 4s and 5s on our AP exams, we want our kids to be somewhere where they have a shot of doing the same thing, and coming away really understanding that material (and maybe even getting college credit! I went to UNC-CH and they gave me 23 credit hours for my APs). It does not mean that kids who get 3 won't be totally fine - they will. It just means we want our kids to have the same opportunities we had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound hopelessly out of date. The inconvenient truth is that 3s on AP exams won't do a thing for your UMC kid when applying to colleges with highly competitive admissions here in 2023. This is as true of great public universities like Univ of NC at Chapel Hill, UVA, Univ of MI and Berkeley as SLACs and Ivies. Most colleges have stopped giving college credit for APs, period, even when grades of 4s and 5s are in the mix. How do I know this? I work as an admissions counselor at a competitive college in this Metro area that you've heard of.

Thanks for the update. Glad to know two decades after graduating from high school that my AP English 3 isn’t the asset I always thought it was. I’ll stop putting it on my professional resume and wearing my promotional T-shirt.

I don’t think I am the only mom here who believes there’s more to education than getting my kid into those schools or your local competitive college. Yes, the networks and experiences you get at a school like that can lead to great professional and life outcomes, but I don’t see it as the only path to a fulfilling career and stable income.

We are getting far from the point, which is whether Stuart Hobson and McKinley Tech are good schools. I will confess to knowing very little about either. And of course we all want our kids to have options and be well prepared for college and career. But I can’t help but wonder if the Harvard-or-Bust mentality of a lot of parents keeps them from giving schools like these a fair shake.

I don’t think my kid is Harvard or bust, but I want him to be educated to broaden his mind and make the most of it. Not to brag but my family is high IQ - not getting a 5 on the English AP exam would be unusual for us. Shrug. You do you.

Yes, those of us who only attained a 3 on the exam in the 1990s have hopelessly low IQs and are now reduced to menial, low wage work.

For someone who wants their kid to broaden his mind you sound remarkably narrow minded and elitist. Shrug. You do you.

NP. You should not be aiming for a three. That’s a terrible AP score. It means your kid only sort of grasped the material.

I’ll assume you’re correct and work as a psychometrician for the College Board, which views a 3 as a college level C.

A high schooler “sort of grasping” college level material is a win for their learning in my book. Would it be better if they got the equivalent of a college level A? Of course! But I don’t think a 3 means you’re some kind of moron or that your school is terrible or that you’ll never be able to support yourself.

Only about 1 in 5 high schoolers got at least a 3 on an AP exam last year. If that’s the type of standard McKinley Tech meets in its admissions, it’s not a low one at all and the
poster whose kid is dyslexic but good at STEM may have found a great fit.

And the poster whose family all has such high IQs that they would never get less than a 5 on any exam can look elsewhere.

I have a hard time knowing if you’re being sarcastic. A college C is awful, yes? Many schools have moved to only accepting 5s for credit; 3s? Not a chance. A 3 is not good. Like really not good. It means you barely grasped the material. Like a college C. A school aiming for/happy with 3s would obviously not be academically rigorous.

That PP seems very intent on making herself feel that 3s are fine and you will go on to have a good life, which is completely true! So many people who are not that academically inclined will have great lives and even make 6 figure incomes!

But for those of us who got 4s and 5s on our AP exams, we want our kids to be somewhere where they have a shot of doing the same thing, and coming away really understanding that material (and maybe even getting college credit! I went to UNC-CH and they gave me 23 credit hours for my APs). It does not mean that kids who get 3 won't be totally fine - they will. It just means we want our kids to have the same opportunities we had.

Agree. However I am willing to let it play out a little longer for MS.