SES - what does this mean?
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Anonymous
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Hi! So I've seen people referred to schools as low SES or high SES. What exactly does that mean? How do you know if it is low or high? Lastly, what does that have to do with AAP applications and admittance rate (if it doesn't, why do people make reference to it?)?
Sorry for all the questions. Just generally curious. Thanks in advance! |
Anonymous
| Socio economic status. People assume that it is both easier to get in from a low SES school and less important to go if you are in a high SES school |
Anonymous
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Socio economic status
There is a lot of research that points to educational differences based on SES. Kids who come from families with more money are more likely to attend pre-schools that prepare them for Kindergarten and school. Kids who come from families with more money have greater access to tutors to help kids with school work, enrichment programs, and specialized opportunities that support education. Kids who come from families with more money are more likely to have parents that have earned college degrees and advanced degrees. This means that their parents are more likely to be able to help with school work and are more likely to emphasize the importance of doing well in school and attending college. Lower SES schools tend to have a large number of kids who live in poverty or near poverty. The kids in those schools tend to be less prepared for school and have parents who are less able to help them with school. There are known trends with generational poverty and dropping out of high school. There are fewer opportunities for tutoring, enrichment or academic support. This shows up in the level of participation in programs like AAP, Honors classes, AP/IB classes, high school graduation, and college attendance. |
Anonymous
| That's an interesting perspective. Not sure where my kid school falls at. The boundary is quite divided- you have kids who live in nearly million dollar homes and then you have kids who have section 8 housing. |
Anonymous
Typically gets referred to as "mixed SES" on DCUM. Depends on the exact mix how DCUM would perceive that impacting AAP admissions, and reality may not be what DCUM thinks. |
Anonymous
Many schools with a high FARMs rate or a mixed SES group will end up with schools within the school. Herndon, Mt. Vernon, Lewis are high FARMs rate schools with a smaller number of higher SES schools and the higher SES kids end up on the AP/IB track and seem to enjoy their HS experience. The kids on the AP/IB track end up in classes with each other and end up not being in classes with the kids that are lower SES. |
Anonymous
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For purposes of DCUM, SES is not just about money, but the willingness and ability of parents to support and advance their kid's academics. Two tenured math/English professors at GMU won't be rich by DCUM standards, but boy will their kids have plenty of support that many others won't. So a neighborhood ES around GMU might have a student body that scores very high on standardized tests and have fewer disruptions in class due to at-home influences, relative to the rest of FCPS. This also leads to stiffer competition in this neighborhood for outcomes that have geographic quotas or quota-like admissions (e.g. TJ admissions).
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Anonymous
We're in one of those neighborhoods - lots of GMU professors at birthday parties my kids attend and indeed those kids are well supported at home - and yet I don't think DCUM considers us as anything more than mid-SES. |
Anonymous
| Since the move to local norms, it has become clear that the higher SES schools have higher in-pool score cutoffs and seem to have more stringent criteria for AAP acceptance. That’s why it keeps coming up on here. |
Anonymous
You might be in a bimodal neighborhood - lots of professors and also lots of blue-collar workers so you will have lots of kids at both the right tail and left tail. DCUM skews heavily right-tailed, so you might be comparing your neighborhood to e.g. McLean Hamlet, which has doctors/lawyers making $500K+ HHI living next to tenured Georgetown professors making $350K HHI. Those neighborhoods definitely have lots of right-tailed scores. But I would say that the professors' kids in your neighborhood face similar "competition" for coveted AAP/TJ spots - they are competing with the right-tailed kids, not the left-tailed kids. |
Anonymous
Very few blue collar workers in our neighborhood. The occasional lawn service owner, I guess? It's just that our high end is more like $350K HHI instead of $500K HHI. |
Anonymous
This is not 100% true. My kids attend MVHS. Yes, at MVHS, if you are taking all honors/IB courses, you will be a "school within a school." And typically, the UMC students who have professional parents are taking all honors/IB courses. But some of the highest achieving students at MVHS are often the URM, first generation, low SES students. They are extremely motivated and come from families that push their children and value education as a way to be successful. Just because they are poor does not mean they don't take the IB courses. Yes, the majority of the non-IB/honors students are probably lower SES students. Many come from families in generational poverty. There is a sizable population of recent arrivals who have little formal education and don't speak English. |
Anonymous
Are you sure you know the occupation of every household? Methinks there are more blue-collar workers than you might think -a plumber and a bedside nurse could easily bring in $200K combined. But occupation and/or income is secondary to the conversation about SES, insofar as DCUM AAP is concerned. The point is that there are ESs at which many families have the ability and willingness to provide their children with extracurricular support that bolster these children's academic resumes. If you are looking at high SES neighborhoods, you will need to deal with the pros and cons of that environment. |