Excellent, but not crazy competitive school districts in VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t want competitive schools but you do want gifted and talented program. It shows that you are a very competitive parent and want to pave an easy way for your kids. In that case, find a school pyramid like South Arlington, and I will guarantee your kids will get all As and be selected into the gifted service with no effort.

I think as one poster has repeatedly shown, avoid the TJ mania areas and you will likely be fine.

Sounds like racist code for “what are the upper middle class areas with fewer Asians?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t want competitive schools but you do want gifted and talented program. It shows that you are a very competitive parent and want to pave an easy way for your kids. In that case, find a school pyramid like South Arlington, and I will guarantee your kids will get all As and be selected into the gifted service with no effort.

I think as one poster has repeatedly shown, avoid the TJ mania areas and you will likely be fine.

Sounds like racist code for “what are the upper middle class areas with fewer Asians?”

No it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the WS posters here.

Hayfield and South County are fine. Haven't really heard much either way about them. Kingstowne is great and they have Wegmans.

The thing is, the default argument for the stressed school areas seems to be "...but TJ! You aren't sending as many kids to TJ!"

And when that is your go to argument in a thread asking for laid back schools, that just emphasizes that maybe your focus is a little to high pressure to give a valuable recommendation for this thread about laid back schools.

No one has made that argument on this thread.

However, when a WS (or Lake Braddock or Robinson) poster goes out of their way to argue that their school is so great that kids from the pyramid don't want to go to TJ (arguably the best high school in the nation), it's not unfair to point out that this is likely a bit of a spin job. The reality is surely more nuanced.

The kids Don't want to go to TJ in this pyramid, with the exception of a small number.

They want to do sports and theater. They want to focus on madrigals and orchestra and take extra music theory classes instead of multivariable calculus. They want to have jobs and social lives and be able to walk to their friends houses after school. They want to spend their weekends travelling with club lacrosse instead of doing two solid days of extra homework. They do robotics and science olympiad, but for fun. They want to waste a weekend gaming line with their friends who moved out of the area.

They really, truly do not want to go to TJ.

Kudos to the kids (and parents) who really want that experience. Most kids (and parents) do not.

About the same number of kids apply to TJ from Lake Braddock as from Frost and Jackson, two other middle schools with large AAP programs. The LB kids just aren’t admitted in large numbers compared to those admitted from Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run, Kilmer, and Frost.

You can keep claiming these kids deserve congratulations for largely getting turned down, but it’s not very convincing when the numbers tell a different story. If the number of TJ applications from LB drop, it’s just as likely that the kids there don’t think they’ll get in as that they don’t want to go there.

Well...

Since you had to keep poking.

I looked up the stats for the 2020 class and plotted the middle schools that had more than 50 kids who applied to TJ. I included Nysmith because even though only 23 applied their acceptance rate of 5u% Is the highest and blows the next highest Carson (37%) out of the water.

I was correct. The kids in that area are mostly not interested in applying for TJ. Both Irving and Robinson have fewer than 50 kids applying. 36 for Robinson and 43 for Irving are dwarfed by the TJ mania areas. Lake Braddock is 7th for applications, about 1/3 of the number that applies from Carson. Of the big center for that pyramid (serving 3 middle schools) the interest in TJ is lukewarm at best.

Lake Braddock has about the same acceptance rate Kilmer/Twain/Jackson, lower than Kilmer but higher than the other two.

Here is the order by acceptance based off that fps GT parent group with all the documents:

It is ordered by school/#applied/acceptance and sorted by acceptance.

Top tier:

1) Nysmith/23/57%

2nd Tier:

2) Carson/264(Wow!)/37%

3rd Tier

3) Longfellow/155/29%
4) Rocky Run/155/24%
5) Frost/102/22%

Fourth Tier
6) Kilmer/132/18%
7) Lake Braddock/100/14%
8) Twain/85/13%
9) Jackson/102/11%

Fifth Tier
10) Glasgow/62/8% and Sandberg/64/8%

[Anonymous]

^^^ All.of the others had fewer than 50 kids apply. Many schools had no kids or single digits apply. TJ mania is really concentrated in a few really competitive areas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the WS posters here.

Hayfield and South County are fine. Haven't really heard much either way about them. Kingstowne is great and they have Wegmans.

The thing is, the default argument for the stressed school areas seems to be "...but TJ! You aren't sending as many kids to TJ!"

And when that is your go to argument in a thread asking for laid back schools, that just emphasizes that maybe your focus is a little to high pressure to give a valuable recommendation for this thread about laid back schools.

No one has made that argument on this thread.

However, when a WS (or Lake Braddock or Robinson) poster goes out of their way to argue that their school is so great that kids from the pyramid don't want to go to TJ (arguably the best high school in the nation), it's not unfair to point out that this is likely a bit of a spin job. The reality is surely more nuanced.

The kids Don't want to go to TJ in this pyramid, with the exception of a small number.

They want to do sports and theater. They want to focus on madrigals and orchestra and take extra music theory classes instead of multivariable calculus. They want to have jobs and social lives and be able to walk to their friends houses after school. They want to spend their weekends travelling with club lacrosse instead of doing two solid days of extra homework. They do robotics and science olympiad, but for fun. They want to waste a weekend gaming line with their friends who moved out of the area.

They really, truly do not want to go to TJ.

Kudos to the kids (and parents) who really want that experience. Most kids (and parents) do not.

About the same number of kids apply to TJ from Lake Braddock as from Frost and Jackson, two other middle schools with large AAP programs. The LB kids just aren’t admitted in large numbers compared to those admitted from Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run, Kilmer, and Frost.

You can keep claiming these kids deserve congratulations for largely getting turned down, but it’s not very convincing when the numbers tell a different story. If the number of TJ applications from LB drop, it’s just as likely that the kids there don’t think they’ll get in as that they don’t want to go there.

Well...

Since you had to keep poking.

I looked up the stats for the 2020 class and plotted the middle schools that had more than 50 kids who applied to TJ. I included Nysmith because even though only 23 applied their acceptance rate of 5u% Is the highest and blows the next highest Carson (37%) out of the water.

I was correct. The kids in that area are mostly not interested in applying for TJ. Both Irving and Robinson have fewer than 50 kids applying. 36 for Robinson and 43 for Irving are dwarfed by the TJ mania areas. Lake Braddock is 7th for applications, about 1/3 of the number that applies from Carson. Of the big center for that pyramid (serving 3 middle schools) the interest in TJ is lukewarm at best.

Lake Braddock has about the same acceptance rate Kilmer/Twain/Jackson, lower than Kilmer but higher than the other two.

Here is the order by acceptance based off that fps GT parent group with all the documents:

It is ordered by school/#applied/acceptance and sorted by acceptance.

Top tier:

1) Nysmith/23/57%

2nd Tier:

2) Carson/264(Wow!)/37%

3rd Tier

3) Longfellow/155/29%
4) Rocky Run/155/24%
5) Frost/102/22%

Fourth Tier
6) Kilmer/132/18%
7) Lake Braddock/100/14%
8) Twain/85/13%
9) Jackson/102/11%

Fifth Tier
10) Glasgow/62/8% and Sandberg/64/8%

Some of these are boundary issues that are changing. Carson is getting broken up. Kilmer and Longfellow are now lower because Cooper is a center.

[Anonymous]

00.01

Your post just emphasizes the difference in competitiveness.

You see these numbers for your schools and think "There is a boundary issue and our numbers are too low." And probably lots of other parents from the Carson/Longfellow/Kilmer side of the county would say the same thing.

Over on the LB/RSS/WAYS side of the county (and South County, Hayfield, etc) we thing "Dang, that is a lot of kids over there wanting to get into TJ!"

And if you combined all 3 middle schools from this pyramid, you only get a few more kids (roughly 175 to 150s) applying to TJ compared to just one of your schools. If you add Hayfield and South County to LB/RSS/WSHS you still would not have as many kids applying for TJ as are applying from Rachel Carson.

The hard numbers show that there is just not the same interest in TJ out this way as there is in the TJ madness zone.

[Anonymous]

WSHS not Ways. Autocorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the WS posters here.

Hayfield and South County are fine. Haven't really heard much either way about them. Kingstowne is great and they have Wegmans.

The thing is, the default argument for the stressed school areas seems to be "...but TJ! You aren't sending as many kids to TJ!"

And when that is your go to argument in a thread asking for laid back schools, that just emphasizes that maybe your focus is a little to high pressure to give a valuable recommendation for this thread about laid back schools.

No one has made that argument on this thread.

However, when a WS (or Lake Braddock or Robinson) poster goes out of their way to argue that their school is so great that kids from the pyramid don't want to go to TJ (arguably the best high school in the nation), it's not unfair to point out that this is likely a bit of a spin job. The reality is surely more nuanced.

The kids Don't want to go to TJ in this pyramid, with the exception of a small number.

They want to do sports and theater. They want to focus on madrigals and orchestra and take extra music theory classes instead of multivariable calculus. They want to have jobs and social lives and be able to walk to their friends houses after school. They want to spend their weekends travelling with club lacrosse instead of doing two solid days of extra homework. They do robotics and science olympiad, but for fun. They want to waste a weekend gaming line with their friends who moved out of the area.

They really, truly do not want to go to TJ.

Kudos to the kids (and parents) who really want that experience. Most kids (and parents) do not.

About the same number of kids apply to TJ from Lake Braddock as from Frost and Jackson, two other middle schools with large AAP programs. The LB kids just aren’t admitted in large numbers compared to those admitted from Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run, Kilmer, and Frost.

You can keep claiming these kids deserve congratulations for largely getting turned down, but it’s not very convincing when the numbers tell a different story. If the number of TJ applications from LB drop, it’s just as likely that the kids there don’t think they’ll get in as that they don’t want to go there.

Well...

Since you had to keep poking.

I looked up the stats for the 2020 class and plotted the middle schools that had more than 50 kids who applied to TJ. I included Nysmith because even though only 23 applied their acceptance rate of 5u% Is the highest and blows the next highest Carson (37%) out of the water.

I was correct. The kids in that area are mostly not interested in applying for TJ. Both Irving and Robinson have fewer than 50 kids applying. 36 for Robinson and 43 for Irving are dwarfed by the TJ mania areas. Lake Braddock is 7th for applications, about 1/3 of the number that applies from Carson. Of the big center for that pyramid (serving 3 middle schools) the interest in TJ is lukewarm at best.

Lake Braddock has about the same acceptance rate Kilmer/Twain/Jackson, lower than Kilmer but higher than the other two.

Here is the order by acceptance based off that fps GT parent group with all the documents:

It is ordered by school/#applied/acceptance and sorted by acceptance.

Top tier:

1) Nysmith/23/57%

2nd Tier:

2) Carson/264(Wow!)/37%

3rd Tier

3) Longfellow/155/29%
4) Rocky Run/155/24%
5) Frost/102/22%

Fourth Tier
6) Kilmer/132/18%
7) Lake Braddock/100/14%
8) Twain/85/13%
9) Jackson/102/11%

Fifth Tier
10) Glasgow/62/8% and Sandberg/64/8%

Mic.Drop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:00.01

Your post just emphasizes the difference in competitiveness.

You see these numbers for your schools and think "There is a boundary issue and our numbers are too low." And probably lots of other parents from the Carson/Longfellow/Kilmer side of the county would say the same thing.

Over on the LB/RSS/WAYS side of the county (and South County, Hayfield, etc) we thing "Dang, that is a lot of kids over there wanting to get into TJ!"

And if you combined all 3 middle schools from this pyramid, you only get a few more kids (roughly 175 to 150s) applying to TJ compared to just one of your schools. If you add Hayfield and South County to LB/RSS/WSHS you still would not have as many kids applying for TJ as are applying from Rachel Carson.

The hard numbers show that there is just not the same interest in TJ out this way as there is in the TJ madness zone.

Carson and Longfellow are on completely different sides of the county. How can you pull them together geographically. These areas have more jobs near them than LB etc. further south in the county and so more people moved in there and certain elementary schools became AAP magnets which then led to a concentration at middle school. Those are getting broken up though and generally have not been an issue at most of the other elementary schools in those pyramids or at middle and nonexistent as a large cohort after TJ kids leave. From what I understand the LB area is a very high transient area due to military so that is another reason why there aren't a lot of TH applicants. It is also a huge school with a ton of diversity. Keene Mill is the only AAP elementary school to have an AAP only field trip as if AAP students need their own field trip as well as academic class so to say that somehow other elementary schools are more cut throat is not based on anything except ra cism. Yes not a lot of Asians have moved into the LB area because there aren't a lot of jobs and apartments there. Otherwise I see little difference at the high school level when AAP has gone away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you have lot of $$$, go to Churchill ES/Cooper MS/Langley HS enclave. Not so much money, Kent Garden ES/Long Fellow MS/Mclean HS

This is terrible advice if you’re looking to avoid a pressure-cooker environment.

DP here. We didn't find either Longfellow or McLean to be "pressure cookers." And Kent Gardens isn't an AAP center, so I assume it's fine, too.

Kent Gardens has its own local level 4, like most elementary in McLean. Also check out Chesterbook. AAP Center designation does not matter as much in McLean. Even so, some still choose the centers (Churchill Road and Haycock) over their own schools. These two centers tend to have higher concentration of Asian students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t want competitive schools but you do want gifted and talented program. It shows that you are a very competitive parent and want to pave an easy way for your kids. In that case, find a school pyramid like South Arlington, and I will guarantee your kids will get all As and be selected into the gifted service with no effort.

I think as one poster has repeatedly shown, avoid the TJ mania areas and you will likely be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in Centreville in the Westfield pyramid and have been very happy with the schools.

No one wants to move from DC to Centreville.

A lot of the places with good schools that aren't pressure cookers are further out. I wouldn't want to live there (and really, if money was no
object I doubt Centreville or Springfield or Annandale or Fairfax city would be anyone's first choice). But OP didn't ask for close-in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you have lot of $$$, go to Churchill ES/Cooper MS/Langley HS enclave. Not so much money, Kent Garden ES/Long Fellow MS/Mclean HS

This is terrible advice if you’re looking to avoid a pressure-cooker environment.

DP here. We didn't find either Longfellow or McLean to be "pressure cookers." And Kent Gardens isn't an AAP center, so I assume it's fine, too.

Same here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you have lot of $$$, go to Churchill ES/Cooper MS/Langley HS enclave. Not so much money, Kent Garden ES/Long Fellow MS/Mclean HS

This is terrible advice if you’re looking to avoid a pressure-cooker environment.

DP here. We didn't find either Longfellow or McLean to be "pressure cookers." And Kent Gardens isn't an AAP center, so I assume it's fine, too.

Kent Gardens has its own local level 4, like most elementary in McLean. Also check out Chesterbook. AAP Center designation does not matter as much in McLean. Even so, some still choose the centers (Churchill Road and Haycock) over their own schools. These two centers tend to have higher concentration of Asian students.

Chesterbrook is having its own issues at the moment, but they should be short term as soon as they find a Principal willing to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t want competitive schools but you do want gifted and talented program. It shows that you are a very competitive parent and want to pave an easy way for your kids. In that case, find a school pyramid like South Arlington, and I will guarantee your kids will get all As and be selected into the gifted service with no effort.

I think as one poster has repeatedly shown, avoid the TJ mania areas and you will likely be fine.

So every area served by a middle school AAP center that has a higher acceptance rate to TJ than Lake Braddock has "TJ Mania," but you're "normal" and have a map to prove it?

That seems a tad insecure. OP, make sure this is really what you want.