Buying a House/Raising Kids/Education in DC vs. MD vs. VA

[Anonymous]

Commute is king
Nothing else, in the the comparison between the two locals, is nearly as important

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're staying put in the city in an analogous situation. We bought in 2011 and with basement rental income we pay off most of our mortgage. We can comfortably afford two private school tuitions whereas in the neighborhoods mentioned by OP we would struggle. Giving the DCPS/charter lottery one last chance next year!

Conceivable we may move as we get a couple more promotions and could then comfortably live in upper NW or Bethesda or Arlington but not until then. Current HHI is $400k and potential to go up to $700k in next 4 or 5 years.

OP, most people make your choice to flee to the burbs as oldest approaches K. The ratio is shrinking as (1) commuting from burbs only gets worse with suburban sprawl, poor infrastructure, (2) more people, especially dual earners with jobs in/near the city choose city vs. suburb tradeoff, and (3) suburban school systems decline. Take a look at PARCC scores for top MCPS and DCPS and same demographics often have better scores in DCPS.

This. This gets lost in these discussions. Apples to apples demographic comparisons reveal comparable scores.

ah yes, the "upper class white kids will do well at any school" posters. but not all the people who post on DCUM are white, and many parents prefer not to send their kids where half their classmates aren't meeting basic proficiency standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're staying put in the city in an analogous situation. We bought in 2011 and with basement rental income we pay off most of our mortgage. We can comfortably afford two private school tuitions whereas in the neighborhoods mentioned by OP we would struggle. Giving the DCPS/charter lottery one last chance next year!

Conceivable we may move as we get a couple more promotions and could then comfortably live in upper NW or Bethesda or Arlington but not until then. Current HHI is $400k and potential to go up to $700k in next 4 or 5 years.

OP, most people make your choice to flee to the burbs as oldest approaches K. The ratio is shrinking as (1) commuting from burbs only gets worse with suburban sprawl, poor infrastructure, (2) more people, especially dual earners with jobs in/near the city choose city vs. suburb tradeoff, and (3) suburban school systems decline. Take a look at PARCC scores for top MCPS and DCPS and same demographics often have better scores in DCPS.

This. This gets lost in these discussions. Apples to apples demographic comparisons reveal comparable scores.

ah yes, the "upper class white kids will do well at any school" posters. but not all the people who post on DCUM are white, and many parents prefer not to send their kids where half their classmates aren't meeting basic proficiency standards.

PP here. I'm not white, I'm AA. There is not a large enough contingent of MC/UMC AAs in DC to make the comparison with their VA or DC counterparts. Therefore, with white students being the largest group, they lend themselves to this comparison.

I do agree with you that low PARCC scores among lower SES students (majority of whom are minority) are problematic in either jurisdiction--most schools in DC/MD/VA do not seem to serve these students well. However, the larger point is that since most posters here of any race/ethnicity tend to be well-educated, it's likely that their academic experiences will not be measurably worse in DC vs. crossing Western/Eastern Ave.

[Anonymous]

When we moved to the DC area we absolutely took into account the quality of VA's colleges in making a decision on where to live. We never considered Maryland for this reason. I don't understand why so many posters start college savings plans when their kids are still in the womb, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars extra for houses in top public school districts, or shell out tens of thousands of dollars a year for private schools -- but then think you're going overboard for taking into account the fact that Virginia has such excellent state colleges when deciding where to move.

When the time came, we didn't force our kids to stay in state, but we did encourage them to be smart about their college selection and to take value for dollar into account. In the end, two ended up at UVA, turning down top 15 universities in the process. A third knew UVA wasn't a good fit and didn't even apply -- with our blessing -- and ultimately turned down William & Mary for an excellent private liberal arts colleges that offered significant merit aid. All were very happy with their choices, and the family saved a huge amount of money.

[Anonymous]

Selecting is difficult....

We opted for MD (Kensington). Kids (Middle and high school) in a magnet and a zoned school - both work well. Commute works for us, we like the outdoor space available in suburbs and ease of movement of kids from early age to visit friends, play outside in evenings and walk to town. Plus, Nice, normal down-to-earth people. Kid-wise one starting college consideration and she is thinking out of state anyway.

Itnia worth noting that we both were raised in suburbs outside of large cities, so it might have felt more homey/ familiar because of that.

VA would have been fine- we loved a few areas- but in the end, we opted for MD because of work location and for us VA commute would have been longer commute.

Good luck with your priorities!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four (two kids ages 4 and 1) who own a house in Petworth, Washington, DC. Our 4-year-old is at a charter that we've been happy with for PK, but is having administration drama. It also doesn't have any feeders and our in-bound schools for Middle and High get low GreatSchools scores. We own our house, but it is a starter home and not the house we want to be in forever. We want to have more space for our children and also want the house to have good public schools. We love DC, but the housing costs keep getting higher for neighborhoods with better schools, which is making us looks at Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Kensington neighborhoods. However, my in-laws are stressing that Virginia suburbs would be better because of all the public universities once our kids are college-aged. My in-laws happen to live in VA, go figure. I really like Maryland, but it does seem like the only great public university option is UMD. With tuition costs rising and rising, I do think they make a good argument. Anyone else having these debates or have any words of wisdom to provide to me? Even with DC's DCTAG program, that's a little promising, but hard to know if it'll still be in place 20 years from now or what the state of higher ed will look like.

All of this is why we moved to Bethesda/CC/Ktown directly and skipped the middleman.

On the issue of college, if you are willing to limit your child's educational to opportunities to UVA you might as well move to MD, have a better quality of life, and plan on UMD as your in state option.

Virginia has other schools than UVA and UVA. UMD doesn't compare to UVA. I say this as a parent in MD who would be thrilled if my kids could get in UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're staying put in the city in an analogous situation. We bought in 2011 and with basement rental income we pay off most of our mortgage. We can comfortably afford two private school tuitions whereas in the neighborhoods mentioned by OP we would struggle. Giving the DCPS/charter lottery one last chance next year!

Conceivable we may move as we get a couple more promotions and could then comfortably live in upper NW or Bethesda or Arlington but not until then. Current HHI is $400k and potential to go up to $700k in next 4 or 5 years.

OP, most people make your choice to flee to the burbs as oldest approaches K. The ratio is shrinking as (1) commuting from burbs only gets worse with suburban sprawl, poor infrastructure, (2) more people, especially dual earners with jobs in/near the city choose city vs. suburb tradeoff, and (3) suburban school systems decline. Take a look at PARCC scores for top MCPS and DCPS and same demographics often have better scores in DCPS.

We fled the city because we had more earning potential in the Dulles corridor. It was a winning situation, we are the McLean pyramid with a 600k HHI and a 20min commute when we are not working from home. Despite having plenty of money to send our kids out of state or private we strongly encourage our kids towards va colleges. Both DH and I went to George Mason and as a direct result of our alumni network in our field (technology) we have had many excellent career opportunities, including life changing stock grants from one of our jobs at AWS.

[Anonymous]

Leaving DC for MD. Did not even consider VA.

1. Commute crosses water. Bottlenecks inevitable. The end.
2. All the fine VA institutions mentioned here (or even pointed to from a distance) are residential party campuses. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

I’m a MD native who went to UVA and now lives in DC and sends kids to DCPS. Oldest at Deal. No regrets about our decision to live in DC, although I recognize that access to Deal/Wilson makes a difference.

If the only reason you’re interested in VA is because of state university access, go MD. VA state schools are incredibly hard to get into from NoVa these days—harder than out of state. NoVa valedictorians are getting rejected from JMU! Don’t assume that your kid, even if very bright, will get into a VA school they want to attend.

[Anonymous]

I am biased because I lived in Northern Virginia since 1985. I had kids in 1992. Here in Alexandria City nothing has improved with ACPS.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all the thoughtful responses! I work from home or at various client sites, so commute isn’t a big factor for me. I work in tech though and most jobs I would consider in the future are in McLean area. My husband works downtown DC so commute is a consideration for him.

[Anonymous]

We chose Moco so we could choose between publics and the good privates if we felt our kids may be better in private. We've used Mater Dei, Holy Child, Prep and QO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four (two kids ages 4 and 1) who own a house in Petworth, Washington, DC. Our 4-year-old is at a charter that we've been happy with for PK, but is having administration drama. It also doesn't have any feeders and our in-bound schools for Middle and High get low GreatSchools scores. We own our house, but it is a starter home and not the house we want to be in forever. We want to have more space for our children and also want the house to have good public schools. We love DC, but the housing costs keep getting higher for neighborhoods with better schools, which is making us looks at Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Kensington neighborhoods. However, my in-laws are stressing that Virginia suburbs would be better because of all the public universities once our kids are college-aged. My in-laws happen to live in VA, go figure. I really like Maryland, but it does seem like the only great public university option is UMD. With tuition costs rising and rising, I do think they make a good argument. Anyone else having these debates or have any words of wisdom to provide to me? Even with DC's DCTAG program, that's a little promising, but hard to know if it'll still be in place 20 years from now or what the state of higher ed will look like.

I find there are better/more middle road suburbs in VA than MD. At the higher end, three is really not much of a difference between Bethesda in MD and McLean in VA. We live in Bethesda and go to our friends places in McLean and it’s basically the same type of people, same quality schools, etc. but there are more neighborhoods in that middle category with decent schools in VA (North Arlington, Vienna, Falls Church, Alexandria, Great Falls) than in Maryland (Kensington, Silver Spring, Potomac).

[Anonymous]

^ you left out , north Bethesda , Potomac, North Potomac, Darnestown , Rockville, Olney, Clarksburg, Damascus and Poolesville.

[Anonymous]

We picked Maryland because you get better value for money for a home purchase and you get to live in pretty leafy historic neighborhoods

UMD is better than UVA if your kid wants to study STEM instead of becoming a lawyer or something