No benefit for attending a top ranked high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is precisely why my DD did not consider TJ. There is no life-time advantage. She is probably in the top 5% of her FCPS high-school (mostly all A's.) More importantly, she is happy and relaxed. She will do fine.

Silly way of looking at things. Polished TJ kids that don't get into the elites still breeze through colleges like UVA, UMich, Wisconsin, VTech.

124 TJ seniors were rejected by UVA this year. Your statement is false.

However, almost 2/3 were accepted to UVA and almost 90% to Va Tech (and many of those to the engineering program) and William & Mary. What other school in Northern VA can claim admission #s like that?

Your assertion is totally meaningless. You can not compare TJ acceptances to base acceptances...it is silly. What is of interest to me is...if the TJ students had attended their base schools and applied to the same colleges would the results have been similar? I would suspect that those in the lower half at TJ would have done better on average at the base school.

VT is a fine school, but it has an admission rate of over 72%.

That 72% is for the school overall. TJ kids go to the engineering school which is much tougher to get into.

This is your assumption, not based of facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a good question. My own experience probably reflects both sides of the coin.

Like a previous poster, I went to a regular public school (good by California standards, but California public schools are pretty middling by national standards). I went on to Harvard. I'm guessing admissions-wise, I had an easier time standing out than I would have at a top private high school. I had near perfect tests scores and grades and never felt like I had to kill myself to get them.

Arriving at Harvard was a WHOLE other story. My freshman year was completely traumatizing. I was cocky and wildly unprepared -- a dangerous combination. I jumped immediately into sophomore-year advanced-track physics because I assumed I could figure out any prerequisite knowledge on the fly. Yeah, sorry kiddo, I don't think so. I gave up on going to lectures after 6 weeks and barely eeked out a C+ in the class, frantically trying to learn how to study when just sitting in class isn't enough to master the material.

The next 3 years was a slow painful toil as I figured out first how to study at all, and then how to study efficiently, surrounded the whole time by peers who has locked these skills down long ago. I was often jealous of their more rigorous high school educations.

Today, I honestly don't know where I stand. I learned so much in college and being pushed to my edge and learning to push it right back was invaluable, if torturous. I wonder what it would have been like to be in such a stimulating environment from a younger age. But there are also many things I value about my high school experience, not the least of which is that it may well have helped me to get into college in the first place. But also, more of my prep-school friends seem to have chosen "tracky" career paths (lawyer, doctor, banker) compared to those college friends who came from other backgrounds (journalists at high profile publications, scientists, teach entrepreneurs). I don't know if that's because kids who get into prep schools tend to be good at/drawn to excelling in well-defined tracks or if being on such a track in your formative years has an influence. Or it could be entirely a fluke!

Ultimately, I guess I would aim for an environment that balances intellectual-rigor with room for curiosity and exploration and then trust that to lead a child to whatever college experience is right for them.

I had the exact same experience at my ivy, except I wasn't cocky but majorly insecure and too embarrassed to ask for help or go to study groups.

I think non-prep school types go to more understandable jobs (i.e. What person in Midwest knows IB) or jobs that are professional out of college (don't need debt of law or medical school). I became a scientist out of idealism but didn't realize how low an income that would provide in high CoL areas.

[Anonymous]

Did you really just ask what person in the Midwest knows what IB is?

OMFG. The ignorance on this forum never ceases to amaze me, but I think this one takes the cake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you really just ask what person in the Midwest knows what IB is?

OMFG. The ignorance on this forum never ceases to amaze me, but I think this one takes the cake.

Obviously I meant small town, not Chicago. I was valedictorian but I know nothing me of my friends or classmates had an inklings into what investment banking entails. I had never heard of it at all until ivy college -- nowadays either internet and financial crisis it is more well known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

I mostly agree with this. Ds is at blair science magnet and it is very hard to get straight As and extremely hard to stand out We thought about whether we should send him to our Bethesda area high school to improve his college admissions chances but we never considered it seriously. Ds would not have been happy at his home high school. He loves the challenging curriculum, the other students and the teachers are very good. 40%!of the program goes onto UMD where they typically enroll in their honors program and most get considerable merit aid. This is a definite possibility for ds. We know he will be in good company, and he will have most of his college fund available for grad school. These kids do well upon graduation from UMD so that is reassuring. He will apply to a range of schools mostly top 30 but we don't have tunnel vision

I will never understand parents who skip out on opportunities like TJ to game the system of college admissions. Life does not end when the college letters arrive in May. You are investing in your child's education with a challenging environment and cohort that they will take into college and the workplace. It's a disservice to the student for parents to have this anxiety then consequently steer them away from "hard" things.

To suggest that TJ is the only place in NoVA/Blair (or another magnet) in MoCo where a student can experience "a challenging environment and cohort they will take into college and the workplace" or "hard things", or that a child who elects to attend their base/home school will be unprepared for the rigors of college and career is silly to the point of absurdity.

You do realize that the premise of this thread is "why bother going to a top high school when you can just go to a 'lesser' high school and stand out?". Reading comprehension is useful.

I find this thread fascinating. My kid goes to Wilson high school in DC and when I go on Naviance the rate of acceptance at Ivy's is higher than what the OP posted. I think the bottom line is that the top schools are looking for more than high SATs and grades. Students coming from a diverse urban school district probably have a leg up on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The admit rate includes people with geographic diversity. Compare to a local HS admit rate. We are in the same boat - extremely challenging, highly-ranked school that is smaller than local HS. From what I can tell, we are sending a higher percentage to top schools compared to the local HS.

why do red staters who hate race-based affirmative action never talk about the geographic affirmative action they/their kids receive when it comes to applying to top schools?

Can you provide a source for a "red stater" who is opposed to race-based affirmative action while simultaneously supporting geographic diversity? Of course you can't. This is is blatant strawman argument.

It is more likely that these people hate race-ONLY based diversity measures, without considering other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is precisely why my DD did not consider TJ. There is no life-time advantage. She is probably in the top 5% of her FCPS high-school (mostly all A's.) More importantly, she is happy and relaxed. She will do fine.

Silly way of looking at things. Polished TJ kids that don't get into the elites still breeze through colleges like UVA, UMich, Wisconsin, VTech.

124 TJ seniors were rejected by UVA this year. Your statement is false.

However, almost 2/3 were accepted to UVA and almost 90% to Va Tech (and many of those to the engineering program) and William & Mary. What other school in Northern VA can claim admission #s like that?

Your assertion is totally meaningless. You can not compare TJ acceptances to base acceptances...it is silly. What is of interest to me is...if the TJ students had attended their base schools and applied to the same colleges would the results have been similar? I would suspect that those in the lower half at TJ would have done better on average at the base school.

VT is a fine school, but it has an admission rate of over 72%.

That 72% is for the school overall. TJ kids go to the engineering school which is much tougher to get into.

Admission rate is not how you judge a school's selectivity. You have to look at the freshman profile. Though VT is certainly less selective than UVA, UMich, Wisconsin and W&M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child goes to high school to grow up and have an education. You don't send them to a school just for college admissions. How is sending your child to a less resourced school with less experienced teachers and weaker classmates going to improve their education? Pick the best education you can for your child. If they love the sciences, send them to a specialized magnet program. Even if they end up at the state land grant, they will start with a better foundation than most of their college classmates. No school is going to automatically get them into a top tier college. Exeter and Andover may send 25% of their class to HYPS, but 20% are legacy development cases.

I mostly agree with this. Ds is at blair science magnet and it is very hard to get straight As and extremely hard to stand out We thought about whether we should send him to our Bethesda area high school to improve his college admissions chances but we never considered it seriously. Ds would not have been happy at his home high school. He loves the challenging curriculum, the other students and the teachers are very good. 40%!of the program goes onto UMD where they typically enroll in their honors program and most get considerable merit aid. This is a definite possibility for ds. We know he will be in good company, and he will have most of his college fund available for grad school. These kids do well upon graduation from UMD so that is reassuring. He will apply to a range of schools mostly top 30 but we don't have tunnel vision

I will never understand parents who skip out on opportunities like TJ to game the system of college admissions. Life does not end when the college letters arrive in May. You are investing in your child's education with a challenging environment and cohort that they will take into college and the workplace. It's a disservice to the student for parents to have this anxiety then consequently steer them away from "hard" things.

To suggest that TJ is the only place in NoVA/Blair (or another magnet) in MoCo where a student can experience "a challenging environment and cohort they will take into college and the workplace" or "hard things", or that a child who elects to attend their base/home school will be unprepared for the rigors of college and career is silly to the point of absurdity.

You do realize that the premise of this thread is "why bother going to a top high school when you can just go to a 'lesser' high school and stand out?". Reading comprehension is useful.

I find this thread fascinating. My kid goes to Wilson high school in DC and when I go on Naviance the rate of acceptance at Ivy's is higher than what the OP posted. I think the bottom line is that the top schools are looking for more than high SATs and grades. Students coming from a diverse urban school district probably have a leg up on this.

Do you have a sense of how many of those Ivy acceptances are kids who are URMs or recruited athletes or legacies? Our school has really great acceptance rates to a lot of top schools as well, but once they publish the list of which kids are attending which colleges, the picture looks different. With that info you can tell that a small handful of kids--most URMs--were accepted to a large number of top schools. Unhooked kids with impressive stats and ECs do extremely well (much better than the national average) at most of the USNWR 10-30 range schools though and I've assumed that some of that is due to our HS's strong academic reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I recall when my DC was accepted to TJ there was a meeting for parents who were deciding whether to send their kids to TJ. During the meeting, the principal or counselor giving the presentation told all assembled parents that if we (parents) thought sending our child to TJ was a ticket to the Ivy League, we were mistaken and that it could in most cases make it tougher for our kids to get in. However, if your child had a love of STEM, TJ is a wonderful place to learn for 4 years with the best and brightest, and they will come out well prepared for the rigors of any college.

This. And it's true. My kid is finishing his freshman year. He worked so hard, but he grew and matured so much. The extracurricular activity he did, and did, and did some more. The IBET group project and tjSTAR symposium presentation. The never.flipping,ending robot project. The sixth act of Romeo and Juliet group project. (At time, TJ seems like a never ending series of group projects). He will walk away with a B and a B+ in addition to the As. And he probably would have had an easy 4.0 at his base school. He will graduate from TJ with a lower GPA than he would from his base school. And his college possibilities will likely be pretty similar. But I bet he ends up at a different college, because he is finding his STEM niche, and will likely do research in that area, and attend a college that specializes in advanced work he does in HS.

And, the PP who said TJ is no added value is dead wrong. He got his year long writing evaluation back in English today, and the progress is shocking. And he is so proud of taking on TJ and holding his own. He has grown academically and grown as a person more than I would have though possible. During incredibly important formative years, he has an amazing peer group. Even if at the end of 4 years he ended up at the exact same same college, it would be as a better version of himself.

I feel sorry for kids who would trade that away for their kid to have a perceived chance at a slightly more prestigious college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is precisely why my DD did not consider TJ. There is no life-time advantage. She is probably in the top 5% of her FCPS high-school (mostly all A's.) More importantly, she is happy and relaxed. She will do fine.

Silly way of looking at things. Polished TJ kids that don't get into the elites still breeze through colleges like UVA, UMich, Wisconsin, VTech.

124 TJ seniors were rejected by UVA this year. Your statement is false.

However, almost 2/3 were accepted to UVA and almost 90% to Va Tech (and many of those to the engineering program) and William & Mary. What other school in Northern VA can claim admission #s like that?

Your assertion is totally meaningless. You can not compare TJ acceptances to base acceptances...it is silly. What is of interest to me is...if the TJ students had attended their base schools and applied to the same colleges would the results have been similar? I would suspect that those in the lower half at TJ would have done better on average at the base school.

VT is a fine school, but it has an admission rate of over 72%.

That 72% is for the school overall. TJ kids go to the engineering school which is much tougher to get into.

This is your assumption, not based of facts.

DP. Based on knowing many of the seniors in this years graduating class, every kid I know going to VT is going to the engineering school. TJ kids not in engineering seem to prefer WM (or UVA) for in state. I do not know every single kid. But the VT admits are largely engineering.

This should shock no one. TJ has a strong engineering cadre. The send a bunch of kids to all the major engineering schools. VT is the in State engineering school.

[Anonymous]

I don't know anyone who attended a mediocre public high school, who went on to become really successful, and then sent their kids to a mediocre public high school. It's ridiculous to even entertain this debate.

There aren't any do-overs in life or education. The very real risks of sending your children into less favorable atmospheres far outweigh any perceived or real ding to Ivy League prospects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know anyone who attended a mediocre public high school, who went on to become really successful, and then sent their kids to a mediocre public high school. It's ridiculous to even entertain this debate.

There aren't any do-overs in life or education. The very real risks of sending your children into less favorable atmospheres far outweigh any perceived or real ding to Ivy League prospects.

Why are the choices extreme? There are good schools without high percentage of Asian students that are not all about competition and have no need to grade on the curve. I don't see any reason for my kid to be in a class where 97 is a B- (unless the kid has desire to do it). I would definitely not suggest STEM to a kid as an option (again, unless kid decided by himself).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recall when my DC was accepted to TJ there was a meeting for parents who were deciding whether to send their kids to TJ. During the meeting, the principal or counselor giving the presentation told all assembled parents that if we (parents) thought sending our child to TJ was a ticket to the Ivy League, we were mistaken and that it could in most cases make it tougher for our kids to get in. However, if your child had a love of STEM, TJ is a wonderful place to learn for 4 years with the best and brightest, and they will come out well prepared for the rigors of any college.

This. And it's true. My kid is finishing his freshman year. He worked so hard, but he grew and matured so much. The extracurricular activity he did, and did, and did some more. The IBET group project and tjSTAR symposium presentation. The never.flipping,ending robot project. The sixth act of Romeo and Juliet group project. (At time, TJ seems like a never ending series of group projects). He will walk away with a B and a B+ in addition to the As. And he probably would have had an easy 4.0 at his base school. He will graduate from TJ with a lower GPA than he would from his base school. And his college possibilities will likely be pretty similar. But I bet he ends up at a different college, because he is finding his STEM niche, and will likely do research in that area, and attend a college that specializes in advanced work he does in HS.

And, the PP who said TJ is no added value is dead wrong. He got his year long writing evaluation back in English today, and the progress is shocking. And he is so proud of taking on TJ and holding his own. He has grown academically and grown as a person more than I would have though possible. During incredibly important formative years, he has an amazing peer group. Even if at the end of 4 years he ended up at the exact same same college, it would be as a better version of himself.

I feel sorry for kids who would trade that away for their kid to have a perceived chance at a slightly more prestigious college.

Yeah, he has a peer group of nerds. Who cares about all of his freakin projects? Yes, these are formative years, but becoming a responsible and well adjusted adult isn't just about academics. Getting good grades can put you on a path to getting a good job, but the only thing it proves is that you are good at academics. Stop obsessing about your kids academics so that your boy can actually turn into a well rounded man. And sorry PP, this really isn't directed at you so much.

[Anonymous]

NP. What matters about PP's projects is not the project per se but the experiences of working as a team, working hard to achieve a specific outcome, working on the same project over a long period of time, overcoming obstacles, and ultimately producing/achieving something you can be proud of. Most teens don't have these experiences in HS. And they are experiences that can really make a difference in all facets of adult life.

[Anonymous]

Ooops, PP's kid's projects.