No benefit for attending a top ranked high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

I mostly agree with this. Ds is at blair science magnet and it is very hard to get straight As and extremely hard to stand out We thought about whether we should send him to our Bethesda area high school to improve his college admissions chances but we never considered it seriously. Ds would not have been happy at his home high school. He loves the challenging curriculum, the other students and the teachers are very good. 40%!of the program goes onto UMD where they typically enroll in their honors program and most get considerable merit aid. This is a definite possibility for ds. We know he will be in good company, and he will have most of his college fund available for grad school. These kids do well upon graduation from UMD so that is reassuring. He will apply to a range of schools mostly top 30 but we don't have tunnel vision

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The admit rate includes people with geographic diversity. Compare to a local HS admit rate. We are in the same boat - extremely challenging, highly-ranked school that is smaller than local HS. From what I can tell, we are sending a higher percentage to top schools compared to the local HS.

why do red staters who hate race-based affirmative action never talk about the geographic affirmative action they/their kids receive when it comes to applying to top schools?

Funny, but those blue state folks from Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Minnesota, etc. likewise have no problem with geographic affirmative action when applying to East Coast schools. Why is that?

I can't speak to all of the states you mentioned but Washington state kids don't really get that much if any bump - there are too many high scoring people in WA, especially high scoring asians.

You aren't getting any geographically adjustment applying out of Lakeside School, Redmond High, Bellevue High, Mercer Island High, etc.

I'm from Minnesota. On what Planet would someone from Minnesota benefit from geographic affirmative action? Suburban MPLS/St. Paul is home to some of the most affluent, high achieving high schools in the nation- Edina, Minnetonka, Wayzata etc. Tons of kids go to prestigious universities.

[Anonymous]

I'm impressed and surprised that several posters have considered what is best for their child's development, and not just purely academics, when choosing a school.

I went to a run of the mill high school in the mid West and all of the smart kids went to very average universities (think VTech). They all became engineers, professors, lawyers, doctors, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recently learned about Naviance and explored it for S's HS, which is ranked in the top 30 by US News and has been for the last 5 years. Said school is widely regarded as the best in a (very large) city, and it is acclaimed for supposedly preparing graduates for college. 100% pass district tests and on average students take 6 AP exams with a pass rate of over 95%. The average SAT and ACT are upwards of 1900/28. The top 10% take nearly 14 APs on average and most get near perfect scores on testing. I took a look at Naviance data and was surprised to see that across the top LACs and universities, there was seemingly no benefit of attending this HS. Actually, more places had LOWER admit rates than the usual average and the few with higher ones were barely higher. Keep in mind that a 4.4+ is equivalent to the top 15% and a 4.6+ the top 5%. With these statistics, what's the point of going to a supposedly more rigorous HS? Many people in this HS could easily be in the top 10% or even valedictorian at other schools.

This is very interesting. But to conclude that rates are actually higher or lower for each college you need confidence intervals around your averages. Most of your differences are probably not different at a statistically significant level (like when the rate varies by 1-4 percentage points). Overall I agree there is probably something going on, though. Very interesting analysis and I'd love to see this done for other high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oh one other thing about the magnets

I hate to break it to you but the so called teacher quality and curriculum are the exact same at the AP/honors track at almost any decent high school vs what is being taught at the magnet.

For those local to DC this even goes for TJ for most of the kids. There are only a handful of students who actually complete a second year of Calculus there most finish with one year of Calculus just like the top track at any other school in Fairfax County.

This is not true. The curriculum at some magnets like TJ/Blair and some privates is not the same as base high school. At TJ, the honors classes are taught at AP level and AP classes are taught at college level. Tests are harder, just like many top colleges. DC's tests in TJ routinely contains questions for which he has to read second year colleges material from MIT, Cal, Mich etc.

As far as only a handful completing second year of Calculus, that is fake news. Majority complete Calculus BC (which is taught at college level) or beyond like multi var and diff equations. Only a handful finish high school with Calculus AB. Majority enter TJ taking geometry or Algebra 2, add 4 years of math and they graduate with Calculus BC or beyond.

[Anonymous]

The crux of the issue is whether the middle or lower ranked students at this great HS would have fared worse in the college admissions game. In other words, going to a Sidwell or GDS or STA/NCS might prevent these children from falling through the cracks and likely give them a major boost in terms of college admissions (and graduation, in terms of the rigorous academic prep). The well-off and academically strong students at the Big-3 will do well in college admissions regardless. There are very, very few HS in the country where 100% of graduates go onto college--think big picture here, not just about how an already highly privileged kid might do even better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is precisely why my DD did not consider TJ. There is no life-time advantage. She is probably in the top 5% of her FCPS high-school (mostly all A's.) More importantly, she is happy and relaxed. She will do fine.

Silly way of looking at things. Polished TJ kids that don't get into the elites still breeze through colleges like UVA, UMich, Wisconsin, VTech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm impressed and surprised that several posters have considered what is best for their child's development, and not just purely academics, when choosing a school.

I went to a run of the mill high school in the mid West and all of the smart kids went to very average universities (think VTech). They all became engineers, professors, lawyers, doctors, etc.

"all the smart ones" i.e. the top 10-20%? I went to a similar public. The 90+ percentile became successful, but the bottom half are losers. 50-80 percentile tried college then dropped out or took 5 or 6 years to finish.

My oldest daughter is five years out of a premier private high school. Basically all of her classmates have graduated from selective colleges and are either working good professional jobs or in medical-law-grad school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

+100 I will never understand those who say they skipped an opportunity like TJ for those reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

I mostly agree with this. Ds is at blair science magnet and it is very hard to get straight As and extremely hard to stand out We thought about whether we should send him to our Bethesda area high school to improve his college admissions chances but we never considered it seriously. Ds would not have been happy at his home high school. He loves the challenging curriculum, the other students and the teachers are very good. 40%!of the program goes onto UMD where they typically enroll in their honors program and most get considerable merit aid. This is a definite possibility for ds. We know he will be in good company, and he will have most of his college fund available for grad school. These kids do well upon graduation from UMD so that is reassuring. He will apply to a range of schools mostly top 30 but we don't have tunnel vision

I will never understand parents who skip out on opportunities like TJ to game the system of college admissions. Life does not end when the college letters arrive in May. You are investing in your child's education with a challenging environment and cohort that they will take into college and the workplace. It's a disservice to the student for parents to have this anxiety then consequently steer them away from "hard" things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is precisely why my DD did not consider TJ. There is no life-time advantage. She is probably in the top 5% of her FCPS high-school (mostly all A's.) More importantly, she is happy and relaxed. She will do fine.

Silly way of looking at things. Polished TJ kids that don't get into the elites still breeze through colleges like UVA, UMich, Wisconsin, VTech.

124 TJ seniors were rejected by UVA this year. Your statement is false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

+100 I will never understand those who say they skipped an opportunity like TJ for those reasons.

One can easily perform an objective analysis in the pros and cons of TJ and conclude it is not in their kid's best interest. One should be aware of the cons before you make such a statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recently learned about Naviance and explored it for S's HS, which is ranked in the top 30 by US News and has been for the last 5 years. Said school is widely regarded as the best in a (very large) city, and it is acclaimed for supposedly preparing graduates for college. 100% pass district tests and on average students take 6 AP exams with a pass rate of over 95%. The average SAT and ACT are upwards of 1900/28. The top 10% take nearly 14 APs on average and most get near perfect scores on testing. I took a look at Naviance data and was surprised to see that across the top LACs and universities, there was seemingly no benefit of attending this HS. Actually, more places had LOWER admit rates than the usual average and the few with higher ones were barely higher. Keep in mind that a 4.4+ is equivalent to the top 15% and a 4.6+ the top 5%. With these statistics, what's the point of going to a supposedly more rigorous HS? Many people in this HS could easily be in the top 10% or even valedictorian at other schools.



Interesting that the OP skipped Notre Dame. Wonder why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Interesting that the OP skipped Notre Dame. Wonder why?

Just forgot about it. Here's the data.

HS admit rate 11% (GPA 4.4)
Average admit rate for all students 21%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

+100 I will never understand those who say they skipped an opportunity like TJ for those reasons.

One can easily perform an objective analysis in the pros and cons of TJ and conclude it is not in their kid's best interest. One should be aware of the cons before you make such a statement.

You're correct that "one" may do that. However, if your biggest "con" is that you are worried about the perceived competition into college, then you're priorities are wacko.