Which schools in the DMV are really “highest rigor?”

[Anonymous]

The rigor of the school doesn't matter just that you took the most rigorous courses available at your school. The Title 1 where I work always sends the top kids to elite colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

"highest rigor" means "highest rigor among other students at the school" not "highest rigor among all schools in the state". It would be unfair for colleges to penalize students zoned to mediocre high schools who are doing the best they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The rigor of the school doesn't matter just that you took the most rigorous courses available at your school. The Title 1 where I work always sends the top kids to elite colleges

Do you track how they do one inside? How well does your school prepare them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ The point is not to make your student take these. The school will encourage those that are ready! Teachers steer top kids into the hardest path, no parental intervention or knowledge about paths needed.
The point is to assess where your student falls in the context of what is possible at their school and have an honest conversation with the counseling dean on what is possible as foar as colleges for your student where they are not where you wish they were.
No sense pushing ivy+ on your kid with their 1520 and 12 APs that you think is max rigor when those APs are
AP precal, APGeo, Art History, AB cal, Stats, Econ, Gov, CompSci, APBio, APES, APush and APLit in 12th when the strong kids have it 11th.
They are not top rigor. They are likely a little above average or average rigor at most privates or magnets like TJ, MGLWS.
They are not on the path in line for UVA in-state, let alone T20/ivy+

Teachers steer top white and Asian kids to those top classes. There is lots of bias in that decision.

[Anonymous]

TJ head and shoulders above everyone else. Then the MoCo magnets (also I would argue since it’s less concentrated, it doesn’t have the same competition level as TJ). I agree with Sidwell, NCS, and WIS. Those schools are well known by colleges for having hard curriculums and true grading.
The W schools have way too much grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ head and shoulders above everyone else. Then the MoCo magnets (also I would argue since it’s less concentrated, it doesn’t have the same competition level as TJ). I agree with Sidwell, NCS, and WIS. Those schools are well known by colleges for having hard curriculums and true grading.
The W schools have way too much grade inflation.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The rigor of the school doesn't matter just that you took the most rigorous courses available at your school. The Title 1 where I work always sends the top kids to elite colleges

This is completely wrong. Rigor of the school matters a huge amount. The Title 1 school may send a couple kids to elite colleges but TJ many times that number to top colleges. The percentage that Sidwell or Philips Exeter send to elite colleges is completely different from an average public high school. Yes yes, students are judged within the context of the school, but their school is also judged within the context of other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, people, why do you do this???

I’ll bite, as the OP. My DC is a rising senior who has the “highest rigor” at their school. Every college and college counselor says high school rigor is the top thing that AOs look at, above everything including the countless threads on honors and ECs. I want to understand what how my DC’s rigor will be rated when applying to a few elite colleges that are reaches. So, no need to vomit. It’s just a question to try and understand an important feature AOs are assessing.

"highest rigor" means "highest rigor among other students at the school" not "highest rigor among all schools in the state". It would be unfair for colleges to penalize students zoned to mediocre high schools who are doing the best they can.

Unfair or not, they do.

[Anonymous]

The thing is that when people are talking about how rigorous a school is they are often talking about about how rigorous it is for the average student. On that question, schools like NCS, for example, stand out. But if you are talking about what is the most rigor available to the top cohort of students. The analysis is a little different. That top set of students can increase rigor at a lot of different ways at different schools. So you really can’t make school-wide statements very accurately. To take NCS just for the sake of argument if you followed the least rigorous path or a middle path that might be less rigorous than the top path at a school less known for rigor. It depends on the specific path followed for different students.

[Anonymous]

Are you trying to determine which schools are the hardest? Which are most prestigious? What curriculum offers the most rigor? These are all different questions. Rigor refers to taking the highest level of courses in each core subject that your school offers. It is school specific and you are compared to your classmates at your school based on what is offered. This is determined by the AO using the school profile and knowledge of the school. Kids are not penalized for not taking what their school doesn’t offer. That said, are there “better” schools? Absolutely. Can a kid with top grades and rigor from a less rigorous school get in a top school? Absolutely. Will the college make multiple offers to kids at that school? Usually not. So a kid at Sidwell or TJ or xxx “top” school has a better chance based on the college going deeper in the class with offers BUT it can be much more difficult due to the sheer number of high achieving kids. You see this play out over and over at schools like TJ where kids with a 4.3 are denied UVA but would have been top kids at their home school. But are they better prepared due to the rigor they undertook at TJ? Almost always.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ The point is not to make your student take these. The school will encourage those that are ready! Teachers steer top kids into the hardest path, no parental intervention or knowledge about paths needed.
The point is to assess where your student falls in the context of what is possible at their school and have an honest conversation with the counseling dean on what is possible as foar as colleges for your student where they are not where you wish they were.
No sense pushing ivy+ on your kid with their 1520 and 12 APs that you think is max rigor when those APs are
AP precal, APGeo, Art History, AB cal, Stats, Econ, Gov, CompSci, APBio, APES, APush and APLit in 12th when the strong kids have it 11th.
They are not top rigor. They are likely a little above average or average rigor at most privates or magnets like TJ, MGLWS.
They are not on the path in line for UVA in-state, let alone T20/ivy+

Teachers steer top white and Asian kids to those top classes. There is lots of bias in that decision.

Oh come on, this is silly, dont put down the hard working, capable kids. Not right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like many posts speak about how their DC has the highest rigor. Still, I would assume the definition of highest rigor is different based on both what schools offer and how challenging those classes really are. What schools in the DMV would be in the top echelon of highest rigor, assuming a kid takes the hardest classes there? TJ? Sidwell/NCS/STA/GDS? Others?

This isn't what highest rigor is. Highest rigor is a judgment call made by counselors to describe whether a particular student took the hardest classes offered in their particular school. So yes the definition is different school by school. A school may offer 2 AP classes or 20. A student who took both classes at school A would have taken the highest rigor. A student who took just 2 AP classes when 20 were offered did not. If you want to know what it takes to have your kid's counselor note your kid as taking highest rigor you would have to ask your counselor where they draw the line in that school.

It seems you are asking something else to compare schools to other schools. You can compare AP or IB offerings of course, but it gets hard if you add in privates because a lot of privates stopped offering AP courses. But maybe their own courses are similarly rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The rigor of the school doesn't matter just that you took the most rigorous courses available at your school. The Title 1 where I work always sends the top kids to elite colleges

This is completely wrong. Rigor of the school matters a huge amount. The Title 1 school may send a couple kids to elite colleges but TJ many times that number to top colleges. The percentage that Sidwell or Philips Exeter send to elite colleges is completely different from an average public high school. Yes yes, students are judged within the context of the school, but their school is also judged within the context of other schools.

Hm. Are you trying to say that if you took a B+ public school kid with a 1200 SAT and sent him to Sidwell or Philips Exeter, he’d get into an elite college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll throw Visitation in the mix. Not often mentioned in this context but they’re still old-school with grade deflation, lots of work outside of class, very high standards to get As. Sometimes ridiculously so, to be honest.

Absolutely not

Science is not taught at a high level

[Anonymous]

Public school OP

Stem there is no private that comes close