Buying a House/Raising Kids/Education in DC vs. MD vs. VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a MD native who went to UVA and now lives in DC and sends kids to DCPS. Oldest at Deal. No regrets about our decision to live in DC, although I recognize that access to Deal/Wilson makes a difference.

If the only reason you’re interested in VA is because of state university access, go MD. VA state schools are incredibly hard to get into from NoVa these days—harder than out of state. NoVa valedictorians are getting rejected from JMU! Don’t assume that your kid, even if very bright, will get into a VA school they want to attend.

NoVa “valedictorians” aren’t getting rejected from JMU if they attend a decent high school in APS or FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a MD native who went to UVA and now lives in DC and sends kids to DCPS. Oldest at Deal. No regrets about our decision to live in DC, although I recognize that access to Deal/Wilson makes a difference.

If the only reason you’re interested in VA is because of state university access, go MD. VA state schools are incredibly hard to get into from NoVa these days—harder than out of state. NoVa valedictorians are getting rejected from JMU! Don’t assume that your kid, even if very bright, will get into a VA school they want to attend.

NoVa “valedictorians” aren’t getting rejected from JMU if they attend a decent high school in APS or FCPS.

+1 I would like to see evidence that a valedictorian of a high school is getting rejected from JMU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a MD native who went to UVA and now lives in DC and sends kids to DCPS. Oldest at Deal. No regrets about our decision to live in DC, although I recognize that access to Deal/Wilson makes a difference.

If the only reason you’re interested in VA is because of state university access, go MD. VA state schools are incredibly hard to get into from NoVa these days—harder than out of state. NoVa valedictorians are getting rejected from JMU! Don’t assume that your kid, even if very bright, will get into a VA school they want to attend.

NoVa “valedictorians” aren’t getting rejected from JMU if they attend a decent high school in APS or FCPS.

+1 I would like to see evidence that a valedictorian of a high school is getting rejected from JMU.

OK, take out “valedictorian” and replace with “very smart, well-rounded kids.” The point is that it’s getting much harder to get in from NoVa because of numbers; UVA and W&M are only about two-thirds in-state (many/most state flagship schools are 80%+ in-state), and they have to distribute admissions for geographic diversity. It’s just really, really hard.

[Anonymous]

UMD has an honors college that is great. I would happily send my kid there.

[Anonymous]

We were in exactly the same boat. We moved a bit earlier because we got tired of the routine sketchy stuff in the alley and street - drug deals, kids being noisy really late at night, occasional violent crime. We weren't scared off by this (I'd lived in DC for 25 years in EOTP NW) - but we knew we weren't going to stay because of schools & indoor/outdoor space. So we decided to just move and not have to explain the crack for sex deal in the alley which they would eventually see.

We chose Arlington, for some reasons like OP - family closer than in MD, but also the housing seemed like a better value than MoCo for similar commutes to DC. That is, Chevy Chase & close-in Bethesda were well over $1M for anything we could live in, which was out of our price range. We stayed under $1M in N. Arlington without too much trouble.

We've been very happy with the choice. Though we occasionally miss some things like better dining options & walkability in DC, honestly, once you have kids you don't spend all that much time at restaurants and bars. They'd rather be hanging out with the other neighborhood kids -- and you'd rather they were doing that too.

We can now walk to several amazing parks, we live in a community that has very low crime, nice neighbors and plenty of open space, we have a much bigger house, and we can walk to our kids' excellent elementary school. Driving commute to downtown DC is under 30 minutes. Commute home from downtown on a really bad day might be 45, but it's usually less. This isn't all that much longer than our door-to-door metro commutes when we lived in DC. One of us now works in VA and has a much shorter commute too.

Sure, Arlington has plenty of its own local problems (as anywhere does) but the quality of life is much higher for us overall. We've been happy with the schools, we love having a neighborhood school & no lottery so children go to school with other neighborhood kids, love the community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Virginia has other schools than UVA and UVA. UMD doesn't compare to UVA. I say this as a parent in MD who would be thrilled if my kids could get in UVA.

Both are fine schools, but there's a whole lot of private universities out there that many would hope their kids can attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four (two kids ages 4 and 1) who own a house in Petworth, Washington, DC. Our 4-year-old is at a charter that we've been happy with for PK, but is having administration drama. It also doesn't have any feeders and our in-bound schools for Middle and High get low GreatSchools scores. We own our house, but it is a starter home and not the house we want to be in forever. We want to have more space for our children and also want the house to have good public schools. We love DC, but the housing costs keep getting higher for neighborhoods with better schools, which is making us looks at Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Kensington neighborhoods. However, my in-laws are stressing that Virginia suburbs would be better because of all the public universities once our kids are college-aged. My in-laws happen to live in VA, go figure. I really like Maryland, but it does seem like the only great public university option is UMD. With tuition costs rising and rising, I do think they make a good argument. Anyone else having these debates or have any words of wisdom to provide to me? Even with DC's DCTAG program, that's a little promising, but hard to know if it'll still be in place 20 years from now or what the state of higher ed will look like.

All of this is why we moved to Bethesda/CC/Ktown directly and skipped the middleman.

On the issue of college, if you are willing to limit your child's educational to opportunities to UVA you might as well move to MD, have a better quality of life, and plan on UMD as your in state option.

No one can count on their kids getting into UVA or UMC, particularly if the kids are young and no stats are known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ you left out , north Bethesda , Potomac, North Potomac, Darnestown , Rockville, Olney, Clarksburg, Damascus and Poolesville.

Most of these are not DC metro. They are too far out. Who really wants to commute into DC from Poolesville or Rockville.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ you left out , north Bethesda , Potomac, North Potomac, Darnestown , Rockville, Olney, Clarksburg, Damascus and Poolesville.

Most of these are not DC metro. They are too far out. Who really wants to commute into DC from Poolesville or Rockville.

I agree Clarksburg and Poolesville are kind of out there, Rockville? There's even a metro station! And it's not even the end of the line. Rockville is barely outside the beltway.

Even areas further like Gaithersbug and Germantown are considered part of the metro area.

[Anonymous]

"Most of these are not DC metro. They are too far out. Who really wants to commute into DC from Poolesville or Rockville."

This might be the biggest misconception out there.

During our careers of 30 or so years, we have commuted into DC from up near Baltimore, from Alexandria, from Germantown, Gaithersburg and Rockville.

All of these commutes have taken basically ONE hour. The further ones were on MARC, the medium ones were on METRO but had different amounts of driving and the shortest involved a METRO transfer.

As all riders will tell you, a certain number of days a year, they drive. We have kept this number of days pretty small but pretty much these drive are also around an hour unless there is an accident.

I'm sure your exact circumstances will vary and the early 90s won't be the early 20s. But we did our homework before each move to make sure our commute wouldn't explode. Part of the key is being Very early risers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're staying put in the city in an analogous situation. We bought in 2011 and with basement rental income we pay off most of our mortgage. We can comfortably afford two private school tuitions whereas in the neighborhoods mentioned by OP we would struggle. Giving the DCPS/charter lottery one last chance next year!

Conceivable we may move as we get a couple more promotions and could then comfortably live in upper NW or Bethesda or Arlington but not until then. Current HHI is $400k and potential to go up to $700k in next 4 or 5 years.

OP, most people make your choice to flee to the burbs as oldest approaches K. The ratio is shrinking as (1) commuting from burbs only gets worse with suburban sprawl, poor infrastructure, (2) more people, especially dual earners with jobs in/near the city choose city vs. suburb tradeoff, and (3) suburban school systems decline. Take a look at PARCC scores for top MCPS and DCPS and same demographics often have better scores in DCPS.

This. This gets lost in these discussions. Apples to apples demographic comparisons reveal comparable scores.

No, it doesn't. Different PARCC tests.
One is customized to MD standard, the other to DC standard.
DC standard is not that strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of four (two kids ages 4 and 1) who own a house in Petworth, Washington, DC. Our 4-year-old is at a charter that we've been happy with for PK, but is having administration drama. It also doesn't have any feeders and our in-bound schools for Middle and High get low GreatSchools scores. We own our house, but it is a starter home and not the house we want to be in forever. We want to have more space for our children and also want the house to have good public schools. We love DC, but the housing costs keep getting higher for neighborhoods with better schools, which is making us looks at Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Kensington neighborhoods. However, my in-laws are stressing that Virginia suburbs would be better because of all the public universities once our kids are college-aged. My in-laws happen to live in VA, go figure. I really like Maryland, but it does seem like the only great public university option is UMD. With tuition costs rising and rising, I do think they make a good argument. Anyone else having these debates or have any words of wisdom to provide to me? Even with DC's DCTAG program, that's a little promising, but hard to know if it'll still be in place 20 years from now or what the state of higher ed will look like.

All of this is why we moved to Bethesda/CC/Ktown directly and skipped the middleman.

On the issue of college, if you are willing to limit your child's educational to opportunities to UVA you might as well move to MD, have a better quality of life, and plan on UMD as your in state option.

Virginia has other schools than UVA and UVA. UMD doesn't compare to UVA. I say this as a parent in MD who would be thrilled if my kids could get in UVA.

Yeah, if you want your kid to study humanities or liberal arts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a MD native who went to UVA and now lives in DC and sends kids to DCPS. Oldest at Deal. No regrets about our decision to live in DC, although I recognize that access to Deal/Wilson makes a difference.

If the only reason you’re interested in VA is because of state university access, go MD. VA state schools are incredibly hard to get into from NoVa these days—harder than out of state. NoVa valedictorians are getting rejected from JMU! Don’t assume that your kid, even if very bright, will get into a VA school they want to attend.

NoVa “valedictorians” aren’t getting rejected from JMU if they attend a decent high school in APS or FCPS.

+1 I would like to see evidence that a valedictorian of a high school is getting rejected from JMU.

SCHEV statistics for fall entering class 2017 at JMU: top 25% median: 3.90; median 3.73; bottom 25% 3.52. Them's damn high scores no matter how you cut it. http://research.schev.edu/enrollment/B10_FreshmenProfile.asp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're staying put in the city in an analogous situation. We bought in 2011 and with basement rental income we pay off most of our mortgage. We can comfortably afford two private school tuitions whereas in the neighborhoods mentioned by OP we would struggle. Giving the DCPS/charter lottery one last chance next year!

Conceivable we may move as we get a couple more promotions and could then comfortably live in upper NW or Bethesda or Arlington but not until then. Current HHI is $400k and potential to go up to $700k in next 4 or 5 years.

OP, most people make your choice to flee to the burbs as oldest approaches K. The ratio is shrinking as (1) commuting from burbs only gets worse with suburban sprawl, poor infrastructure, (2) more people, especially dual earners with jobs in/near the city choose city vs. suburb tradeoff, and (3) suburban school systems decline. Take a look at PARCC scores for top MCPS and DCPS and same demographics often have better scores in DCPS.

This. This gets lost in these discussions. Apples to apples demographic comparisons reveal comparable scores.

No, it doesn't. Different PARCC tests.
One is customized to MD standard, the other to DC standard.
DC standard is not that strong.

This, 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leaving DC for MD. Did not even consider VA.

1. Commute crosses water. Bottlenecks inevitable. The end.
2. All the fine VA institutions mentioned here (or even pointed to from a distance) are residential party campuses. No thanks.

Oh the ignorance on this forum! Let's see, any good real estate agent will tell you the commute from McLean to D.C. or Arlington to D.C. is preferable over anything in Maryland because VA has the George Washington Parkway which has no lights. You get on, speed into town )yes I see you Marylanders breaking the speed limit there daily because you figured it out) - the rest is a mess dowtown but that isn't due to Virginia. There is no "crossing of water" unless you consider that blip on the Roosevelt bridge to be a problem, which it rarely is. On the Maryland side you have to do a mess of a commute involving Conn. Ave., Wisconsin, the Clara Barton - all huge messes in the mornings with lights. You couldn't pay me to commute from Potomac or Bethesda into D.C.

Which Va institutions are "residential party campuses"? What a weird phrase! Do you even know how many public colleges and universities there are in Virginia? Did you know that UVA routinely now ranks 1, 2, or 3 against Berkeley and UCLA for best public university in the United States? (always above Michigan now) Did you know Virginia and California have the two best university systems in the United States and serve students from all walks of life? (no you don't because you are an elitist snob). Did you know that the median top 25% students at UVA and William and Mary have 4.44 GPAs? That it is becoming almost impossible to get in even if you are Ivy material (and especially from Nova). Do you even know about the terrific guarantee of admission to the top Virginia universities if you attend a community college, maintain a certain GPA and fulfill all the requirements? How many states offer that? Maryland certainly doesn't. And I'm dying to know which Virginia public universities are "residential party campuses" because I've taught on several of them and have had children attend. Maybe the private Wash. & Lee but I wouldn't pay to send my kid there anyhow.

To OP - you don't know how long you will be settled in your new home before you have to move again for whatever reason. One of the most important factors in resale value is public school system. Even if you go private, you will reap the benefits of being in the "Langley pyramid" or "McLean Pyramid" or any of the other xlnt public school systems in Virginia. Do your homework and find out where they are when you purchase because that WILL be a big issue when you go to sell.