2008 College Placement for "Elite" DC Area Private Schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Way to go Wilson! That list ranks up there with any of the private schools around here. But I wonder what percentage of their students (a) graduate, and (b) go on to college? The dilemna is that many kids do very well at Wilson. But those kids often come from families where education is a priority and they'd do well anywhere. Also, most middle and upper-middle class black families won't send their kids there, and so the result is almost two separate schools: a high-achieving, largely white group of students, and lower-income, lower achieving African American and Hispanic students. As a parent of African American children, I felt like my children would have a hard time fitting in, and opted for private. Most of my friends took the same route.

That's the whole point isn't it, which is why OP if she is for real needs to reevaluate why she is sending her kids to private school. If it's for end game, drop a fraction of that 250k on SAT tutors and a college admissions advisor.

I like the post by someone earlier who said she's not in it for the end. She likes her kids' school and she can afford it. The truth is as simple as that.

[Anonymous]

To 15:53, the poster who provided the info on Wilson college admissions, can you give a source for that data? I would love to be able to share it but would want to be able to attest to its reliability. Also, do you know if that is acceptances (which could include multiple schools for one kid), or colleges seniors plan to attend?

thanks!

[Anonymous]

Different poster here. I can't locate the Wilson list but did find the school profile:

http://www.wilsonhs.org/pdf/05-06%20Brochure.pdf

if the college list is accurate, that really is pretty outstanding. At least 1/3 of the graduates will have gone to a pretty good school.

[Anonymous]

Note the brochure the pp cited was from 2005.

[Anonymous]

PP : do you mean Wilson kids got in even better colleges this year? Go wilson !

[Anonymous]

No the list is from 2008, but the school profile is from 2005. Based on the number of graduates in 2005 and the number of students cited on the 2008 list, about one-third will go to good schools. Of course there can be even more as the poster of the list did not cite the source. Presumably that is an incomplete list but I do hope accurate. I know of the student who was admitted to Columbia so I can attest that at least one Wilson student was admitted to Columbia.

[Anonymous]

an interesting study based on where Lafayette elementary students of 2000 went to college
http://www.wilsonhs.org/pdf/LafayetteStudyPaper.pdf

among the findings :

· Public versus private high school attendance and higher institution admissions.
There is no significant difference in the rankings of colleges or universities where
students were admitted based on public versus private high school attendance.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting that, the analysis is very interesting. I can't speak for his methodology, but better than "I heard...".

[Anonymous]

I just saw this post about Wilson on the COMMUNIT-E listserv:

Wilson Senior High School has had its share of bad press lately. There
is however another side of Wilson which the neighborhood needs to know
about and to be proud of. For those of us who have sent our children
to DC public schools (for us, Janney, Deal and Wilson) and worked to
try to make the system better, I thought it was important to share the
following:

1. You may have seen the coverage recently about Newsweek's
best public schools in the US (of a total of 1300). In the press
coverage, only suburban schools were named. Absent from the press was
the fact that Wilson went from #359 last year to #129 this year. See
http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380. All these rankings are subjective,
but worth noting.

2. Not subjective is the Wilson's senior class '08 fabulous college
acceptance results at the nation's top schools. Not all the returns
are in, but here is a sampling, in no particular order, of colleges
where the Wilson class of '08 has received acceptances:

Yale (3)
Princeton (1)
Stanford (1)
University of Pennsylvania (3)
Columbia (1)
Dartmouth (1)
UC Berkeley (2)
Cornell (2)
Duke (1)
Georgetown (1)
Univ Virginia (5)
University of Chicago (2)
Barnard (3)
Univ Michigan (17)
Williams (1)
Wesleyan (3)
Amherst (2)
Swarthmore (1)
Washington University (St Louis) (3)
Vassar (2)
Vanderbilt (2)
Tufts (4)
Oberlin (1)
McGill (2)
Davidson (1)
St. Johns (7)
George Washington (6)
University of NC (2)
Penn State (15)
University Colorado (12)
University of Wisconsin (15)
University of Texas (2)

[Anonymous]

Anyone who actually does their research on individual DC public schools would not be surprised by this. There is plenty of opportunity for motivated kids from homes with educated parents and lots of resources at places like Wilson (and Banneker and Walls and Ellington, among others).

Again, as people have been saying, it's important to match the kid to the school (and that's more important than looking at a list of college admissions). No doubt, some kids would not flourish at Wilson. But the point is that while some people may prefer to go private, in the end most of us don't *have* to go private -- it's a choice we make.

[Anonymous]

What is the COMMUNIT-E list serv referred to by PP?

[Anonymous]

i saw a similar list at tenleytown listserv

[Anonymous]

COMMUNIT-E is a neighborhood newsletter published by Kathy Smith. It deals primarily with issues of interest to American University Park, Friendship Heights, and Tenleytown -- the area included in Police Service Area (PSA) 202. Public safety is of particular interest.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/communit-e/

[Anonymous]

Did you notice on the Wilson list that "University of Wisconsin (15)." Do you know why so many DC public school kids are going there??? Its not like its some great school...

[Anonymous]

Can't speak for the undergrad program but they have one of the top graduate programs in sociology in the country.

Then again, Madison is supposed to be a great place to live. I hear people love it. Maybe they're going for the lifestyle.

(On another note, DC pays 10,000 towards the out of state tuition -- hip hip hooray!)