better to be big fish in a little pond or vice versa

[Anonymous]

Looking at the gender stats, it looks like there are about 2800 students enrolled at Westfield. I'm not sure why it differs from the type of education breakout which is around 3200.

[Anonymous]

PP here. I realize now that Sp. Ed and English numbers are likely part of the General Ed numbers as opposed to separate tracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield High School has an enrollment of 3200+, so that's 800 per grade. Robinson and Lake Braddock have larger enrollments, but they are secondary schools.

No, that's the school's capacity, not its actual enrollment. Westfield had about 650 seniors last year. TC Williams also graduated around 650 seniors last year. None of the Arlington or Loudoun schools have graduating classes as big as Westfield or TC.

You can't measure class size by the number who graduate. There is a significant drop out problem. In other words, there is a significant difference between how many students are enrolled in school and how many graduate. TC's and all the schools' classes are larger than the number of seniors who graduate each year. Westfield's enrollment is indeed over 3200. Capacity is not part of this.

http://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:141182626038579::::P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID:240

For these purposes, which is the size of the pond for college admissions, it does seem that only graduates would matter since the drop outs are probably not moving on to competitive colleges.

[Anonymous]

As an earlier poster suggested, small pond may mean that recommendations are more personal and persuasive, and a kid may have more chance to make an impression in class as well as in extracurriculars, than when teachers are writing for a ton of students.