Tell me about Whitman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people on here feel the need to try to persuade others that the school their kid attends is “the best”? The vast majority of people in this country don’t have the opportunity to attend a HS anywhere near as good as Whitman or other Ws or the Big 3/5/10 or whatever. I sure didn’t when I was growing up. Are you all just terrified that your kids will end up starving in the street if you make the wrong choice? Or are you obsessed with impressing neighbors or coworkers? What legitimate reason could there be for this bizarre hostility toward a bunch of great options?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a typical suburban high school not significantly different from hundreds, even thousands, like it across the country.

Academics are good to excellent for the top 20% or 10% of the class. There’s a very large Asian presence at the top of the class.

Many of the richer families and more athletically gifted students choose private schools instead.

Sports teams and coaching are mediocre at best.

As you can see, OP, it’s hard to get good info re Whitman or other W schools because threads about them attract trolls and/or people with exes to grind. My older kids had a great experience at Whitman, and we are looking forward to sending our youngest next year. None of ours have LDs, but many of their friends did and were able to get various supports.

With respect to Whitman athletics, PPs statement is an odd one. Some teams are not historically strong, like football and lacrosse, but others are very competitive. The boys and girls’ soccer teams, for example, have been to or won the State championships several times over the last few years. If you name the sports your DS is interested in we can tell you more.

Hockey

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

Pedestrian? Snort. Say no more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

Just to put this into context, while it's true that there are a disproportionate number of private school students heading to Ivy's, GDS and Sidwell can afford to be choosy and pick only the best candidates. So these schools have a disproportionate number of highly able students, and to their detriment, a commensurate level of competition for college acceptances. There's also an acknowledged brain drain in Pyle, and therefore Whitman, into these privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

The numbers posted by Bethesda Magazine can be easily misunderstood. At first glance they can be easily read as matriculation but the data is only applications and acceptances.

As a result, if it says that there were 2 accepted to Yale, 3 to Harvard, there is actually no way to know if those are not same students getting acceptances to multiple Ivies and realistically they probably are.

At a school with the size, reputation for academically competitive students and affluence such as Whitman, there’s going to be a good dozen kids every year that are going to be mind blowingly perfect, and maybe a little too perfect, who I assume are collecting college admissions like trophies. So you have to keep that in mind when looking at those numbers in Bethesda Magazine.

[Anonymous]

Whitman publishes senior college destinations in the school paper (The Black & White) each spring for anyone who is curious. Always lots of kids going to great schools all over the country and lots of kids going to community college, which I’m assuming never happens at the top local privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a typical suburban high school not significantly different from hundreds, even thousands, like it across the country.

Academics are good to excellent for the top 20% or 10% of the class. There’s a very large Asian presence at the top of the class.

Many of the richer families and more athletically gifted students choose private schools instead.

Sports teams and coaching are mediocre at best.

As you can see, OP, it’s hard to get good info re Whitman or other W schools because threads about them attract trolls and/or people with exes to grind. My older kids had a great experience at Whitman, and we are looking forward to sending our youngest next year. None of ours have LDs, but many of their friends did and were able to get various supports.

With respect to Whitman athletics, PPs statement is an odd one. Some teams are not historically strong, like football and lacrosse, but others are very competitive. The boys and girls’ soccer teams, for example, have been to or won the State championships several times over the last few years. If you name the sports your DS is interested in we can tell you more.

Hockey

I don’t know much about the hockey program, though several of my son’s friends played and had a great time. Here’s their Twitter page: https://mobile.twitter.com/whitmanhockey

The more serious players all left for boarding school and juniors at some point in HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whitman publishes senior college destinations in the school paper (The Black & White) each spring for anyone who is curious. Always lots of kids going to great schools all over the country and lots of kids going to community college, which I’m assuming never happens at the top local privates.

Good points. Lots of kids going to lots of great schools and many are not as well and that’s okay. It’s really great outcomes for a public school.

When I looked at this more closely a few years ago, the difference was something like 5% of Whitman graduates attend Ivy or equivalent while for schools like GDS it’s about 15%.

The big difference though is that Whitman will frequently send students to MIT and sometimes CalTech while the private schools hardly ever do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

Oh yes and the numbers of kids from Blair are sooo much higher than any W or private too.

[Anonymous]

You guys are missing the point - it's about the qualifications of the students themselves that are getting into top colleges/universities, not the qualifications of the schools, public or private. A top notch student is going to get into a top school, whether they're from a private or a public high school. A well known private just has the ability to cherry pick its class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

Oh yes and the numbers of kids from Blair are sooo much higher than any W or private too.

They are pretty much on a par, actually. Because of the college policy of only taking so many from each HS. But I expect you knew that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

Oh yes and the numbers of kids from Blair are sooo much higher than any W or private too.

Of course they are. Affirmative action guarantees this.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I’d like to hear about people’s experiences there. Clearly from my original post, my excellent boy isn’t aiming to go to an Ivy League school, so I really don’t care about how many kids from Whitman end up at Harvard or whatever. What is the general atmosphere like there? Are the classes and teaching generally good? Is there a lot of bullying? Etc. I am not interested in debating if Whitman is on par with the privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming my DS will not get into any privates just because it’s almost impossible right now, we are turning to our inbounds HS, Whitman. I hear only great things. My DS is a very good student with some LD, great athlete who will no doubt make the team of his sport and may even play varsity freshman year. He’s super quiet. How will he do at Whitman? He’s never been in such a huge school. His current school is tiny. But he’s looking forward to HS.

Whitman is better than any private school in the area

Then why do so many families in the Whitman sending area send their kids to private schools at significant expense?

Are these people dumb?

In our Potomac neighborhood we see Landon, Prep, Gonzaga, Bullis, St Albans, Holton, etc. jackets and sweatshirts in abundance. And some Whitman ones, too.

Vanity.

If by "vanity" you mean a realization that Whitman has been trading on its reputation from 25 years ago for a while now, its recent acceptance results for top colleges have been pedestrian and no longer are even the best among MCPS high schools, and that MCPS is such a train wreck now that it's only going to get worse in years to come, then I agree 100%.

Look, Whitman is a good school. But it's not the best-in-class public school that it once was. To seriously wonder why families would choose to send their kids to some of the best private schools in the DMV over Whitman means you're either in denial and want to make yourself feel better about your personal decision, or you have no ability or desire to understand why it's not for everyone.

But it's still better than any private school acceptance results in the DMV.

PP - Where can I find data that shows this? We're trying to figure out the private vs. public question and trying to piece together college acceptance results seems impossible.

Bethesda Magazine posts all the destinations of all the Bethesda area schools, and you can compare them to the college acceptances as outlined on the private school websites (if they have them).

I did this one year and while it looked like 10-15 kids from Whitman were going to the Ivies + MIT & Stanford, there were similar numbers going from the privates like GDS and Sidwell. But those private schools as you know, have a far smaller student body, so statistically, they were sending more kids to those colleges than the publics. Hope that helps.

LOL
And where did you get the Sidwell list so you could compare?