Where's Walter Johnson?

[Anonymous]

The new US News high school ranking is out. I see all the usual suspects, but Walter Johnson is nowhere to be found. What happened?

[Anonymous]

It was unranked. Just search for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was unranked. Just search for it.

Why?

[Anonymous]

I'm perplexed too. If you go to the actual list in the U.S. News and World Report article, its numbers (college readiness, algebra, and reading) are above BCC, which would place it about 5 or 6 in the state. It's almost like they made a mistake.

[Anonymous]

It says that to be eligible for ranking, a school has to earn a gold or silver medal. I'm not sure what that means, but could that be why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm perplexed too. If you go to the actual list in the U.S. News and World Report article, its numbers (college readiness, algebra, and reading) are above BCC, which would place it about 5 or 6 in the state. It's almost like they made a mistake.

I think No.5 is what it was ranked as previously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm perplexed too. If you go to the actual list in the U.S. News and World Report article, its numbers (college readiness, algebra, and reading) are above BCC, which would place it about 5 or 6 in the state. It's almost like they made a mistake.

I think No.5 is what it was ranked as previously.

Well I'm just saying that the numbers that they supposedly use for rankings would place it pretty high in he rankings -- around 5, 6, or 7 -- and yet it is not even appearing on the list at all.

[Anonymous]

It just goes to show what those rankings are worth.

[Anonymous]

These rankings are silly - there was a NYer piece on college rankings a few years ago and it made a very compelling case that depending on how you devise the formula you can come up with just about any outcome you want. I'm probably not explaining that well but it really undermined the credibility of these kinds of lists for me.

But fwiw I don't think that WJ is quite in the same league as the other area HS. It may well be by the time the kids who are moving into $1m+ houses nowadays outside the Beltway get to HS, but if you look at the annual college admission stats they generally seem a step or so behind BCC, which itself isn't quite as competitive as the Ws.

[Anonymous]

Wheaton HS is on the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These rankings are silly - there was a NYer piece on college rankings a few years ago and it made a very compelling case that depending on how you devise the formula you can come up with just about any outcome you want. I'm probably not explaining that well but it really undermined the credibility of these kinds of lists for me.

But fwiw I don't think that WJ is quite in the same league as the other area HS. It may well be by the time the kids who are moving into $1m+ houses nowadays outside the Beltway get to HS, but if you look at the annual college admission stats they generally seem a step or so behind BCC, which itself isn't quite as competitive as the Ws.

I agree with both of your points. I think there are great students at all 3 of the Bethesda high schools, and of course the other Ws, but Whitman and Churchill especially just have more of them. I suspect the education for the top 100-200 kids per grade in each school is pretty similar, setting aside the IB option at BCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wheaton HS is on the list.

Well it is a W school so it was eventually going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was unranked. Just search for it.

Why?

The methodology seems to see how well different types of groups do in the school on state wide exams/ap score etc. compared to similar groups in other MD schools. If WJ did not show up it means that the groups in the school did not perform as well as they would have been expected to perform. They could still be very high performing, just not as high as would be expected based on their demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wheaton HS is on the list.

Well it is a W school so it was eventually going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Funny--this was big talk in our house last night too. WJ was ranked fairly high last year and then off the list completely this year. Was there a change in their methodology between years?