Which schools in the DMV are really “highest rigor?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

Oh, just stop. Clearly you're all over this website and know full well which high schools have the better track records when it comes to kids getting into the top colleges. No need to start another pointless pissing match.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I mean is a 4.0 from Sidwell Friends, for example, likely impresses more than a 4.0 from Sandy Spring Friends. No disrespect to SSFS - just using the two Friends schools as an example. Considering there are so many good schools in this area, which schools impress college AOs more - assuming kids are taking the hardest classes/maximum rigor there.

Yea, sure. No disrespect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

It is in the context of the school: is the kid taking the highest courses in all cores. It is not a checkbox it is a determination the AO makes looking at the HS and what is offered, what other students take. They track all of it.
It is also how that high school is viewed and if that HS has a track record--thought that is less important than 15 yrs ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

Selingo's book from 2018 explains it from his view inside admissions at Davidson Emory and others.
As do many AO's who do vlogs on reading apps, including ivy-types. They get a list of courses the high school offers and they see the ones yours took.Some have a set scoring system that takes 1-2 minutes for an experienced AO. Some have staff that prescore for the readers.

A quick albeit narrow example
Does the high school offer AP-Physics C, AP Chem, APCalcBC , AP literature, AP Euro, APUSH? These are generally thought of as the hardest. Which did your kid skip among those that were offered? At many schools 1-2 dozen take all of these and many other AP and postAP. If that is possible then yours should have done it.
Next Q at some schools AP lit is offered to top kids in 11th, not quite top kids take it in 12th. What did yours do?
Next Q did they take their language up to AP level?
Next Q is BC calc possible in 11th or 12th? or even 10th? where did yours take it and was it the hardest path? Did they follow it with the hardest courses offered (MVC/DiffEq or LinearAlgebra/Calc-based stats Modeling? Or AP stats whichis the easiest and not calc based).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

Best to look at SCOIR data from your school and ask college counseling.

[Anonymous]

^ The point is not to make your student take these. The school will encourage those that are ready! Teachers steer top kids into the hardest path, no parental intervention or knowledge about paths needed.
The point is to assess where your student falls in the context of what is possible at their school and have an honest conversation with the counseling dean on what is possible as foar as colleges for your student where they are not where you wish they were.
No sense pushing ivy+ on your kid with their 1520 and 12 APs that you think is max rigor when those APs are
AP precal, APGeo, Art History, AB cal, Stats, Econ, Gov, CompSci, APBio, APES, APush and APLit in 12th when the strong kids have it 11th.
They are not top rigor. They are likely a little above average or average rigor at most privates or magnets like TJ, MGLWS.
They are not on the path in line for UVA in-state, let alone T20/ivy+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LCPS

Nah

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I mean is a 4.0 from Sidwell Friends, for example, likely impresses more than a 4.0 from Sandy Spring Friends. No disrespect to SSFS - just using the two Friends schools as an example. Considering there are so many good schools in this area, which schools impress college AOs more - assuming kids are taking the hardest classes/maximum rigor there.

4.0 at sidwell is not impressive.

Those kids have all the wealth and privilege in the world, true privilege. Of course they should have good grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No where had more rigor than the Blair magnet, nowhere.

TJ has far more rigor.

Let's be honest here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

You'll "bite"? You're the OP!

[Anonymous]

My kids have only attended one HS. Can't pretend to know the rigor of any other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No where had more rigor than the Blair magnet, nowhere.

TJ has far more rigor.

Let's be honest here

What are you basing that on? Be honest.

[Anonymous]

Blair and TJ offer the most rigorous curriculum options. The W schools also offer a lot of rigorous AP options and have a large number of students who choose to max out on APs. My guess is there are some similar publics in VA. In general, public schools offer a lot more options for kids who want to accelerate. My extremely bright niece at a very prestigious all-girls private school wasn’t able to access the same advanced math options as our public school offered so she took classes outside of the school day. She could certainly check the most rigorous box because rigor in the context of admissions is based on what other students at your HS do. But if she were somewhere like Blair I’m not sure she would have stood out in the same way. By the way, I don’t have a dog in this fight. My kids are public school kids who are quite average!

[Anonymous]

What’s your HS’ AP exam profile? That’s a huge factor for colleges assessing rigor,

Our private requires students to sit for AP exams or they fail the course. Even with 100% exam participation, the scores are 4-5s. My own kids scored 5s on ever Ap exam with no indoor debt study outside of course work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s your HS’ AP exam profile? That’s a huge factor for colleges assessing rigor,

Our private requires students to sit for AP exams or they fail the course. Even with 100% exam participation, the scores are 4-5s. My own kids scored 5s on ever Ap exam with no indoor debt study outside of course work.

^ it’s a Catholic private and they also don’t get “re-dos” like our public. They read many novels, have extensive writing, etc.