McLean HS college destinations 2021

[Anonymous]

I went to MHS ... in the 90s. I’m so happy there was no social media then.

[Anonymous]

This thread is everything that is wrong with the college process. The parent investment, especially in the school that complete strangers choose, is disgusting. No wonder our kids are stressed!

[Anonymous]

What's wrong about a bunch of high school kids choosing to share their excitement on social media about going to colleges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong about a bunch of high school kids choosing to share their excitement on social media about going to colleges?

Nothing wrong with the kids sharing their plans with each other. Seems they congratulate each other more or less equally across the board.

It can get a little icky when adults get too involved with the results or the process....see every other thread discussing the "we got admitted to X" posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong about a bunch of high school kids choosing to share their excitement on social media about going to colleges?

Nothing wrong with the kids sharing their plans with each other. Seems they congratulate each other more or less equally across the board.

It can get a little icky when adults get too involved with the results or the process....see every other thread discussing the "we got admitted to X" posts.

One can imagine the parents are excited about their kids going to colleges too. Gosh, they even run a risk of burning down their houses to announce the sex of their new born babies, they can't contain their excitement to announce the colleges their kids will be going to, whatever they are. I say cheers and congratulations!

[Anonymous]

The school newspaper just published the list of colleges for the class of 2021.

Va Tech 22
UVA 21
James Madison 17
William & Mary 11
VCU 10
Indiana 7
George Mason 6
Clemson 5
Georgetown 5
U Michigan 5
U Wisconsin 5
Christopher Newport 4
Delaware 4
Duke 4
Penn State 4
Purdue 4
UCLA 4
Boston U 3
Brown 3
BYU 3
Cornell 3
Mary Washington 3
NOVA 3
NYU 3
Shenandoah 3
Toronto 3
U Colorado 3
U Miami 3
UMCP 3
American 2
Bucknell 2
Carnegie Mellon 2
Catholic 2
Elon 2
GWU 2
Hollins 2
Howard 2
Liberty 2
Michigan State 2
NC State 2
Northeastern 2
Penn 2
Pitt 2
Radford 2
Richmond 2
SD State 2
St Andrews 2
Stanford 2
U Georgia 2
U Washington 2
UCI 2
Villanova 2
Wake Forest 2
Wash U 2
Arizona 1
Auburn 1
Babson 1
Baldwin Wallace 1
Citadel 1
Claremont McKenna 1
Colgate 1
Colombia/Sciences Po 1
Colorado Mines 1
Dartmouth 1
Drexel 1
Emory 1
Endicott 1
Florida State 1
Fordham 1
Hamilton 1
Harvard 1
Haverford 1
Ithaca 1
Kentucky 1
Lafayette 1
Marymount 1
Mercyhurst 1
MIT 1
North Carolina 1
Oberlin 1
Occidental 1
Ohio State 1
Ole Miss 1
Pepperdine 1
Rhode Island 1
RIT 1
Savannah College of Art 1
Scripps 1
Sewanee 1
South Carolina 1
Temple 1
Texas A&M 1
Tufts 1
U Chicago 1
U Southern Cal 1
U Tennessee 1
U Texas Austin 1
UC Berkeley 1
UC Davis 1
UCSB 1
Utah State 1
VMI 1
W&M/St Andrews 1
Wellesley 1
Wesleyan 1
West Virginia 1
Whitman 1
Woodbury 1
Xavier 1
Yale 1

Some pretty good HYPSM (Harvard, Yale, Stanford (2), MIT) , and some other good schools with multiple matriculations such as Duke, Brown, Penn, Michigan, Georgetown, UCLA, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Wake Forest, Wisconsin, as well as others such as Wesleyan, Dartmouth, Haverford, Tufts, Chicago, SouthernCal, UCB, UCSB, Wellesley, North Carolina, UT-Austin, etc. These schools showed up in 2020, and in similar numbers for the most part.

However, the really interesting datapoints are for the major Virginia schools:

VA Tech 22 (down from 35 in 2020)
UVA 21 (down from 27 in 2020)
George Mason 6 (down from 18 in 2020)

The number of matriculants for W&M, VCU, JMU, CNU and MWU are about the same from 2020.

From this, you can see the impact of the 1st generation and test-optional policies of UVA and VT on one of the better FCPS HS. We were not imagining this impact, despite those who said that this year is not so different from previous years.

The numbers for Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Clemson, UCLA, Penn State, Delaware and other public flagships went up significantly over 2020. These are probably DCs displaced from UVA and VT, since the numbers for other Virginia publics were stable.

I am not certain why GMU went down so much from 2020.

Finally, the class of 2021 was 579 students in total, and the above figures only include half of the class (as was the case last year) so some of the NOVA and community college numbers are probably underreported.

[Anonymous]

Safe to assume the number of students providing the information was lower this year and last year compared to prior years.

There is also a 2021 graduate going to Williams FWIW.

[Anonymous]

The numbers from 2016 onwards still show a decline in numbers for the main Virginia schools:

UVA
2016 33
2017 34
2018 35
2019 29
2020 27
2021 21

Overall 36% decline in matriculation since 2016

VT
2016 47
2017 48
2018 10
2019 45
2020 35
2021 22

Overall 53% decline in matriculation since 2016

W&M
2016 17
2017 17
2018 15
2019 16
2020 11
2021 11

Overall 35% decline in matriculation since 2016

GMU
2016 16
2017 16
2018 17
2019 21
2020 18
2021 6

Overall 38% decline in matriculation since 2016

JMU
2016 19
2017 17
2018 22
2019 15
2020 15
2021 17

Overall 10% decline in matriculation since 2016

[Anonymous]

Interesting. The decline seems mainly started from 2018. What could be the explanation?

[Anonymous]

Using the SNL church lady voice - could it be more Asians?

Year
2015 20.95% 424
2016 22.04% 458
2017 22.83% 467
2018 22.87% 495
2019 24.86% 560
2020 25.84% 605
2021 25.89% 592

Got this demographics data from the FCPS website.

[Anonymous]

I think that there are a lot of full-pay McLean graduates at OOS and privates too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that there are a lot of full-pay McLean graduates at OOS and privates too.

Yes, but even though McLean is a wealthy area, the plurality or even majority of McLean High School families do have to consider tuition costs as an issue, as many work for the government or military. McLean families for whom cost is not an issue will send their kids to private schools.

[Anonymous]

The post is missing a student headed to West Point.

Also, the JMU numbers seem a little low; there were at least 3 students who are JMU-bound but are not listed in the Highlander.

[Anonymous]

This year seemed heavy on the arts and lower on recruited athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This year seemed heavy on the arts and lower on recruited athletes.

How about the STEM this year? Wondering if it is harder for a STEM major kid to get in a top school