Frost Middle or Carson?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We plan to buy a house either within Carson Middle AAP or Frost AAP. I like the fact that Carson is more rigorous and sends more kids to TJ, but it's 20 miles away from TJ high. Frost is a good school and much closer to TJ. I do think DS has a good chance to be admitted to TJ even being at Frost. However, my concern is that kids from Carson would have stronger foundation than those from Frost. Then, my DD is not as advanced. She might just go to the high school within the boundary. Woodson is great as well as Oakton, but I feel that Oakton is stronger academically. I am not too sure about Chantilly. Southlake seems quite far behind.

I would appreciate your insights.

Carson has a huge number of students admitted to TJ each year, but that's mostly because they have by far the biggest applicant pool to TJ. Their admission rate is not appreciably better than Kilmer, Rocky Run, Luther Jackson, Frost, Longfellow, or Cooper.

The community is much better at Frost - Carson's is toxic and hyper-competitive, basically a mini-TJ both in terms of demographic and attitude. And if you don't happen to get into TJ, Woodson is a much better academic HS than any of the ones you'd have access to in Carson's AAP catchment.

I dont hink Carson is toxic and hyper competitive and not a mini TJ. All these descriptions apply only to Long Fellow.

DP. No middle school has a larger number or percentage of AAP kids than Carson, plus Longfellow kids still get to attend one of the top high schools in the county if they don’t get into TJ. It seems like it would be tougher to be a Gen Ed kid at Carson than anywhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, but I know hundreds of kids from Carson and dozens of kids from Frost (who all went to TJ) and I trust their assertions

If this is your idea of “data” you really shouldn’t talk about admission to a rigorous science school.

“Some kids said...” Oy.

One learns about a community by talking to its members. That's not exactly controversial. Nor is the assertion that Carson's AAP environment is hyper-focused on TJ admissions. People know this to be a thing and it's borne out in the application numbers and the crowds at their TJ information sessions. If you want, you know, data.

Carson's kids are no more or less "prepared" than those from any other AAP school. There are just way the hell more of them because TJ is such an enormous part of the culture there and basically everyone applies.

It’s a bit odd that FCPS has some AAP centers that only serve a single pyramid, while Carson has AAP kids whose base schools include parts of Chantilly, Oakton, South Lakes and Westfield. Not surprisingly, it’s the biggest AAP MS in the county and has the most applicants.

I wonder about this as well! Oakton high school has more kids than most other FCPS high schools. Is Oakton physically larger than other high schools?

Oakton has a big campus and will be larger physically than average when they finish the renovation.

[Anonymous]

I found Carson to be a toxic environment. It really is very TJ focused. If that's your goal, then that might be a good environment for you, but I didn't like it. Most of them ultimately didn't make it into TJ, so I think they wasted away precious childhood years. My cousin went to Hughes, and he went to TJ, but didn't needlessly obsess over it. His way seemed much healthier. Also, we used to compare experiences, and it didn't really seem much different between Carson and Hughes. The curriculum was the same, so I don't really get why Carson would be more rigorous. Actually, there were some of my cousins classes that seemed more rigorous than mine. And vice versa for some of my classes. I really think it's highly dependent upon the teacher you get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found Carson to be a toxic environment. It really is very TJ focused. If that's your goal, then that might be a good environment for you, but I didn't like it. Most of them ultimately didn't make it into TJ, so I think they wasted away precious childhood years. My cousin went to Hughes, and he went to TJ, but didn't needlessly obsess over it. His way seemed much healthier. Also, we used to compare experiences, and it didn't really seem much different between Carson and Hughes. The curriculum was the same, so I don't really get why Carson would be more rigorous. Actually, there were some of my cousins classes that seemed more rigorous than mine. And vice versa for some of my classes. I really think it's highly dependent upon the teacher you get.

A lot of folks don't realize that the Carson environment is toxic - either because they are the reason why it's toxic, or because they're so used to that mentality that they don't understand what it's like to go to a school where everyone isn't obsessed with TJ. Or both.