FCPS high school choice - best strategy for college admisions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving to try to impact college acceptances is up there on the dumbest ideas I've heard.

+1

Helicopter and Tiger mom written all over it. WOW.

I can’t imagine that moving amongst Fairfax schools would give your kid that big of a leg up. If you have that flexibility, move to W. Virginia or better yet Idaho where there will be far fewer kids aiming at elite coastal colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be really interesting to see a comparison of UVA or VT scattergrams from the different FCPS high schools (similar to what the Oakton poster did in the VA Tech thread). I suspect you'd see some pretty significant differences.

Ok, I'll bite.

My DS is at Mount Vernon HS , the "lowest performing high school in FCPS" according to test scores. Our scattergram for
UVA:
1290 SAT, 4.37 GPA (this is the intersection of the two axis)

VT:
1155 SAT, 3.97 GPA

W&M:
1300 SAT, 4.41 GPA

You're welcome

You need a 4.5 1500 out of Langley for UVA unless maybe ED.

DP: Is that the intersection of the 2 axis on Naviance? I'm not seeing that when I look at it. It looks like 4.4 GPA 1420 SAT when I read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving to try to impact college acceptances is up there on the dumbest ideas I've heard.

+1

Helicopter and Tiger mom written all over it. WOW.

I can’t imagine that moving amongst Fairfax schools would give your kid that big of a leg up. If you have that flexibility, move to W. Virginia or better yet Idaho where there will be far fewer kids aiming at elite coastal colleges.

That's not what the data just posted seems to suggest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be really interesting to see a comparison of UVA or VT scattergrams from the different FCPS high schools (similar to what the Oakton poster did in the VA Tech thread). I suspect you'd see some pretty significant differences.

Ok, I'll bite.

My DS is at Mount Vernon HS , the "lowest performing high school in FCPS" according to test scores. Our scattergram for
UVA:
1290 SAT, 4.37 GPA (this is the intersection of the two axis)

VT:
1155 SAT, 3.97 GPA

W&M:
1300 SAT, 4.41 GPA

You're welcome

You need a 4.5 1500 out of Langley for UVA unless maybe ED.

DP: Is that the intersection of the 2 axis on Naviance? I'm not seeing that when I look at it. It looks like 4.4 GPA 1420 SAT when I read it.

Haha, McLean wins

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving to try to impact college acceptances is up there on the dumbest ideas I've heard.

+1

Helicopter and Tiger mom written all over it. WOW.

I can’t imagine that moving amongst Fairfax schools would give your kid that big of a leg up. If you have that flexibility, move to W. Virginia or better yet Idaho where there will be far fewer kids aiming at elite coastal colleges.

That's not what the data just posted seems to suggest.

It seems like GPA needs to be as high/nearly as high but SAT is less important. But SAT is strongly associated with high SES so it may be that you don't NEED a high SAT just that the kids with 4.4s at Langley and McLean that apply to UVA/WM have high SATs on average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving to try to impact college acceptances is up there on the dumbest ideas I've heard.

I agree that moving with hopes of impacting college decisions is not a great idea, but moving to impact how well the high school will prepare you for college might not be such a bad one. Here are links to the FCPS school profile test results pages for Westfield, Chantilly and Langley.

https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:16:::NO:0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:020,0

https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:16:::NO:0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:250,0

https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:16:::NO:0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:240,0

Test scores are probably higher at Langley mostly because the students are stronger, but some of it may have to do with instruction, too. Either way, it's going to be more of an academics-focused experience there.

Look, too, at the 'safe and secure' page, which will give you some idea of the kinds of issues each school faces and how frequent those problems are.

It's interesting to note, too, that Chantilly's student:counselor ratio is under 200:1, while Langley's is about 290. There's probably a reason for that. Westfield is closer to Langley at around 260.

Chantilly is a CSS high school so it has more counseling support available for the students in that program.

Thank you for clarifying that.

[Anonymous]

Would the decision on fcps school choice be different based on the race of your child - ie asian white or Hispanic etc... in terms of expected SAT scores, GPA, and what the racial and/or SES mix is at your fcps high school? (As opposed to just the top 5% criterion??)

Ie are the asian kids competing with each other across the county and the hispanic kids are the same, but the langley versus mount vernon versus chantilly differences are just masking (or masked) by the racial composition effects and would be "unmasked" if for example Naviance had racial breakdowns for its dat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would the decision on fcps school choice be different based on the race of your child - ie asian white or Hispanic etc... in terms of expected SAT scores, GPA, and what the racial and/or SES mix is at your fcps high school? (As opposed to just the top 5% criterion??)

Ie are the asian kids competing with each other across the county and the hispanic kids are the same, but the langley versus mount vernon versus chantilly differences are just masking (or masked) by the racial composition effects and would be "unmasked" if for example Naviance had racial breakdowns for its dat

No. The bigger difference might be First generation. The lower performing schools are much more likely to have kids who would be the first generation to go to college in their family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would the decision on fcps school choice be different based on the race of your child - ie asian white or Hispanic etc... in terms of expected SAT scores, GPA, and what the racial and/or SES mix is at your fcps high school? (As opposed to just the top 5% criterion??)

Ie are the asian kids competing with each other across the county and the hispanic kids are the same, but the langley versus mount vernon versus chantilly differences are just masking (or masked) by the racial composition effects and would be "unmasked" if for example Naviance had racial breakdowns for its dat

I assume a school like Mt. Vernon would have more URM applicants. Since URM may be admitted with slightly lower stats, that would tend to skew averages downwards (though I highly doubt this would account for the full discrepancy between schools). Would be better if you could compare entrance results across the county looking only at kids of the same race/ethnicity or first generation status but of course that info isn't available.

[Anonymous]

My kids go to Justice. My grandmother lives in Yorktown area and considered sending them there.

Glad I didn't. Justice has been good fit and really gives you boost with admissions because so few kids get the IB diploma.
Lots kids get into Virginia with 1,300 or better. The competition is really among the kids at the school rather than those at McLean, etc.