Oakton versus Langley college admissions

[Anonymous]

We are buying a house this summer and are trying to decide between oakton (10 min closer to work) than langley pyramids (5-bedroom housing 200K more on average and older housing stock). Our kids are in elementary school and apart from lifestyle factors and how good the teaching and the peer groups are, we want to be in the pyramid with the best college admissions on average to top 20 or top 50-type colleges. Since we don't have access to the high school college admission statistics directly, I thought I would ask here. So what are your thoughts - oakton or langley?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are buying a house this summer and are trying to decide between oakton (10 min closer to work) than langley pyramids (5-bedroom housing 200K more on average and older housing stock). Our kids are in elementary school and apart from lifestyle factors and how good the teaching and the peer groups are, we want to be in the pyramid with the best college admissions on average to top 20 or top 50-type colleges. Since we don't have access to the high school college admission statistics directly, I thought I would ask here. So what are your thoughts - oakton or langley?

Depends more on your kid than the schools. Langley is going to have more kids going to expensive private schools, and Oakton will have more kids going to in-state public universities.

[Anonymous]

Unless it's TJ, college admissions committees aren't going to care which public HS your kid went to. He/she will be evaluated on courses chosen, grades, GPA, and SAT. Public schools are not viewed like a small private prep school where colleges just assume a kid is well prepared if they attended.

[Anonymous]

I honestly don't think there would be any difference at all between Langley and Oakton.

If you were focusing on in-state in VA, then your dc would have a better chance coming from one of the poorer, less-white FCPS high schools, because the in state schools only take so many kids from Langley, so many kids from West Springfield, etc.

[Anonymous]

Personally I think it's too early to worry about getting a leg up on college admissions when your kids are in ES. They're both very good schools with a lot of opportunities to excel. It's hard to predict what will happen in the next 6-12 years, and if +/- $200K is no big deal for you, you could always consider private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless it's TJ, college admissions committees aren't going to care which public HS your kid went to. He/she will be evaluated on courses chosen, grades, GPA, and SAT. Public schools are not viewed like a small private prep school where colleges just assume a kid is well prepared if they attended.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Some admissions officers are quite familiar with which NoVa public high schools are regularly ranked near the top by US News, Newsweek, etc.

[Anonymous]

They are both good schools and will each have a very large GT cluster of kids who are involved in the school and are dedicated to studies although Langley will have an even greater percentage. Both have plenty of rich kids too. It depends on what you want out of the neighborhood and the school beyond just college prospects.

[Anonymous]

The "better" the school the higher the expectations of individual achievement will be. College admissions officers will assume a student from certain schools will have had all the advantages in life, so will expect higher achievement from the student in terms of coursework, standardized tests, and extracurricular activities. Students from schools with a more average socioeconomic standing are assumed to have worked hard for their achievements without necessarily having the advantage of parents with higher incomes and education levels.
A friend who is an alum of an ivy-level school was told this by and admissions rep at a workshop for alums and their children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "better" the school the higher the expectations of individual achievement will be. College admissions officers will assume a student from certain schools will have had all the advantages in life, so will expect higher achievement from the student in terms of coursework, standardized tests, and extracurricular activities. Students from schools with a more average socioeconomic standing are assumed to have worked hard for their achievements without necessarily having the advantage of parents with higher incomes and education levels.
A friend who is an alum of an ivy-level school was told this by and admissions rep at a workshop for alums and their children.

You could just as easily find another admissions officer who thinks it's an advantage to attend a school known for its academic quality. Anecdotes abound.

Really, if parents thought their kids would have a leg up in the admissions process by attending a school with high-poverty, low SES numbers, half of you would have enrolled your kids in DCPS or PG schools years ago. It just doesn't work that way. The collective wisdom is that the benefits of sending your kids to schools with high-achieving peers outweigh the possibility that some college admissions officer may claim he or she considers them "a dime a dozen" and favors students from schools with lower SES numbers.

As between Langley and Oakton, of course, there's not a big enough difference to spend much time worrying about which school is "better."

[Anonymous]

I agree with the posters. I think admissions officers for the state schools for sure and for many private schools in our region are going to be familiar with the high schools in this area. I do not think that it was a coincidence when I was a high school senior (in this area) that there only seemed to be a certain number of kids in our senior class that got in to the major universities (UVA, W&M, Va Tech) and of those, only a handful ended up going to each because some went to their other options.

I think for schools like Oakton and Langley there is probably going to be a set number of kids each year that will get accepted and if your kid applies to a certain school and does well enough compared to their peers they may too get accepted. You could argue they might have an easier time being accepted at Oakton because Langley is perceived as more "elite" but by the same token, if we're talking about state schools, they might have an easier time at Langley because more of the kids from Langley might not apply to state schools and might be more interested in private or out of state schools. So hard to know.....if it were me I wouldn't split hairs over this one. I'd make a decision based on your other "now" life factors.

[Anonymous]

Haven't seen a similar list for Langley or Oakton, but here's a list of the schools McLean graduates plan to attend:

http://mclean.patch.com/articles/mclean-high-students-attend-nearly-130-different-colleges

There's a lot of variety, with Ivy League schools, NoVa and everything in between.

[Anonymous]

They are not that much different and the kids will have peers that are more alike at each. Having said that, I really don't understand why people think going to a top 20-50 ranked college means anything. I know plenty of people that went to state schools and never had any advance degree after that and are prominent individuals who make well into triple figures and actually like their jobs.