Anyone care to compare Woodson, Lake Braddock, and West Springfield for me?
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Anonymous
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We're looking at homes that feed to these schools and I'm wondering how they compare. I think they are all great schools, but I'd like to know some details behind the statistics. For instance, Woodson has better test scores - is it way more competitive than LB and WS? That scares me a bit. Is LB just too big? Are any known for particularly good programs? I've heard LB has a fantastic music program, what about the others? For the DC area, we don't make a ton of money (about $120,000 HHI) - are our kids going to be totally out of place at any of these schools?
Thanks for any and all info! I wish I had a crystal ball to tell me which school would end up working best for my sons! |
Anonymous
I bet they'd all be fine and that you wouldn't feel out of place in any of those communities. In terms of size, as you probably know, LB is a very big secondary school (around 2600 students in 9-12 and an additional 1450 in 7-8), West Springfield HS has around 2300 students and Woodson HS has about 2100. Woodson has higher test scores because it draws almost entirely from SFH neighborhoods. In Fairfax, at least, the reality is that test scores go down when more students come from low-income homes, which usually means multi-family units in the county. Lots of motivated students at each of these schools. If I were moving into the area, and my kids were already HS age, I would probably pick LB or WS because they have more military families and more new students every year. Woodson has a somewhat clique-ier (is that a word?) reputation. On the other hand, if your kids were younger, they'd have plenty of time to make friends. One other consideration, however, might be that Woodson was recently renovated, whereas West Springfield is in lousy hysical condition right now and isn't going to be renovated for a few more years. Hope that helps. |
Anonymous
Anonymous
| My oldest is 4, but we live in an area that feeds Woodson, and I can tell you that you wouldn't be out of place in my neighborhood with a $120K income. |
Anonymous
I agree with the previous posters, the three schools are pretty comparable. Woodson's better test scores has more to do with the way the school district boundary lines are drawn, I don't think it is a pressure cooker or anything. Are sports a priority for your sons? I think LB is known for having a pretty successful sports program overall, on the other hand it is also the largest and your sons may have an easier time getting onto the teams at the other schools. We live in the Woodson district on your income, have friends in both WS and LB, all in the same income range- so no worries there about not fitting in. |
Anonymous
| Can we add Robinson to this list? What are your thoughts on that? Trying to decide between Robinson/Woodson as we look for new homes. |
Anonymous
| Robinson is also very similar to Woodson / Lake Braddock / W. Springfield. It does have the IB program, which some love and others love to hate. However, on a social and socio-economic level, it's basically the same as the others. It's as big as Lake Braddock. The US News rankings had Robinson above Langley this year but, that's US News, so you need to take it with a grain of salt. I don't think you can go wrong with any of them. |
Anonymous
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We live in the Robinson pyramid (my kids are in elementary school now) and our HHI is just at 120,000. The nice thing about this area is that it is diverse so no worries about fitting in socially/economically.
Although I don't personally have children at Robinson, plenty of my friends/neighbors do and they all seem very happy with RS. Good luck house hunting. |
Anonymous
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I won't repeat what other PPs have already said, but I do want to add that you might find a big difference in housing prices - the WTW pyramid will be $20K more or you can find a similar house on the other side of Braddock Road (LB or WS high schools) and pay less. Just something to think about.
We live in the LB pyramid. My kids are still all under age 5 so we've got a long way before high school, but our neighbors all are happy with LB. To me, it's like deciding between a honda and toyota. They're both really good, few complaints, and have traditionally done really well. |
Anonymous
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All of these are good schools, with grads that go off to good colleges. LB seems big because it combines a middle school and a high school into one campus, but each school is really similar to other middle and high schools in the area.
LB middle school has the AAP center for the area, if that matters to you. So, if your child is an AAP student, s/he can stay in the same school from 7th through 12th grade. |
Anonymous
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I live in RS and have heard the same thing, RS, LB an WS are all very good. I believe WSF is lower ranked. We just moved to RS too from LB and plan to send our kids, currently 3, 7 and 9 to RS and are happy knowing that.
As for home prices you get the most for your money in this order...WSF, RS, LB, WS. Same size house in WS could cost 5-10% less in LB and so on. I think the larger size leaves RS behind LB and WS in terms of home prices. |