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Big 5 = "most desired" schools, not necessarily "the best"
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Anonymous
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After having followed numerous threads on this subject, I've drawn a few personal conclusions that I'll share:
1. I think the Big XX schools designation really refers to the schools which are the "most desired" in the DC area, not necessarily those schools which are "the best". "The best" is too subjective a measure, as many posters are quick to point out that the best school for one kid might not be the best school for another (and I agree). Of course, there is some correlation between the most desired schools and the schools which offer the most complete experience (top tier schools typically are larger and have more resources than other middle tier schools and thus can afford to have more classes, sports offerings, field studies, speakers, events, technology, etc, etc.) 2. Many posters are quick to point out that unless you are a legacy, a top tier independent school does not necessarily help your kids chances at Harvard or Yale (and in fact may hurt them due to more competition from legacies). I agree with this assessment... however, in my opinion the real benefit of a top tier school is not for the top 5% of a class, but rather for the 50%-70% percentile. A kid graduating from a public or mediocre private in the 60% of the class might make their way to a community college or to a middle tier public university. A kid graduating in the 60% from a top tier private, however, will have many more options including some top tier universities and liberal arts colleges (not Harvard... but an Emory, or William & Mary, etc) 3. I agree with others that in DC you really have 5 schools, not just 3, that should be included in any discussion of the top tier. In my opinion, these include Sidwell, Cathedral schools, Maret, Potomac, and GDS. I agree that trying to limit it to just 3 is problematic as these schools are all so close to each other on the "most desired" scale. Thus, I advocate a "Big 5" terminology if we are going to use a "Big XX" designation. 4. The most accurate hard data for confirming which schools are in the Big 5 (as defined as the "most desired") is the number of applications and the acceptance rates of students coming from the top K-8 schools in the DC area. This data is hard to come by, but one top K-8 school - Norwood - has published a detailed breakdown on their website http://www.norwoodschool.org/welcome/admission/next_school_placement/index.aspx The data from this school seems to confirm the list of Big 5 schools above. It would be nice to have data from other top K-8 programs to see how much consistency there is... but I think Norwood is probably fairly representative as its a good school, and the Big 5 get a large % of the applications yet none of them are even in the same state as Norwood so that controls for geography. 5. Many top K-8 programs (the Norwood's, the Langley's, etc) offer an experience that is likely equal to those of the Big 5 for lower and middle schools. These can be a very good choice and fit for many families. One measure of a top K-8 program is how well the school does at placing its students in Big 5 upper schools, or top competitive public high schools like TJ. Again, this is simply my view after having read and digested a lot of comments about this subject over the past few weeks. |
Anonymous
| I disagree with #4. What are you implying? That the Most Desired schools only become so at Grade 9? Grade 7 is a huge entry year at many schools. GDS adds a class at Grade 4, Sidwell at Grade 5, Maret at Grade 6. The competition at those entry points is fierce. |
Anonymous
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I don't really agree with this whole effort to define or rank certain top schools, whether it's Big 2 or Big 3 or Big 5. All the schools mentioned above, plus several others in the DC/VA/MD area, are really really good schools. If your child is fortunate enough to attend one of them, she almost certainly will receive an amazing education. Trying to rank or tier them is an exercise in futility and doesn't really serve much purpose. The differences in quality among these schools are relatively small, and probably are less significant than individual family-specific preferences that come into play (i.e., "fit").
However, if you really want to use objective data to tier schools, I'd suggest looking at how students fare on the National Merit Scholarship tests. That's the same test for all the schools, and I assume all students try to do well. I did a quick google search and pulled up the number of Semifinalists from each of these schools for one recent year (all available on Washington Post website), and then checked what percentage of each class made the cut for semifinalist. At most of them, it ranges about 7-14% of the class. I chose not to consider data on how many students were actually named National Merit Scholars because so few people reach that level -- with a sample size that small, the margin of error would be huge. Also, even though I looked at one year, that sample size was really too small to make any good comparison between schools. If someone is really motivated to do some research, she could count up the number of Semifinalists for the past 5 years for each school to get a pretty decent average for comparison. For the reasons stated above, I'm not really motivated to do all the research. Good luck to anyone who is motivated though. |
Anonymous
| I bet you'd find more at TJ than anywhere else! |
Anonymous
That's definitely correct. In the one year of data I saw, TJ had 150+ semifinalists out of a class of approximately 450 (37%). Pretty impressive. It's unfortunate that TJ is a viable option only for certain people in certain Virginia counties. I've never understood how TJ gets justified from a tax/public funding basis. I assume the state is not allocating a bigger piece of the school funding budget to TJ, since that would create problems with other schools. So does the extra funding come from private enterprise? That also seems to smack of favoritism that would create political issues in Virginia. My understanding is that most states/counties/districts insist that private funding be sent to the general school budget and then allocated equally among schools, to prevent any impression that wealthy school districts are paying for higher qulity public education for themselves. |
Anonymous
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I'm assuming that the allocation of resources for TJ falls under its designation as a magnet school and has a whole set of special rules to go along with its testing and admissions requirements.
The pp's thoughts bring up a question. It is known that families from outside of Fairfax County will rent a home in the county as there are residency rules during the application process. Does this really mean that the County's/state's residents are then subsidizing families from near and far for their kids to attend TJ? |
Anonymous
| 15:20 - where is this data available on the Post website? Can't seem to find it... |
Anonymous
Available via google search: http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=%22national+merit%22+semifinalist+%22washington+post%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi= |
Anonymous
I think the OP's point was that its impossible to try and rank schools by who is "best" -- so the BIG 5 is really more a measure of which schools are in the most demand (which CAN be measured -- by the # of applications and acceptance rates). Trying to reduce these schools down to one data point (# of National Merit Scholarships finalists) is making an attempt to try to rank who is "best" -- which goes against what the OP was saying. It also is way too limiting a view - as it only evaluates one aspect of the school. Many people evaluate top schools based on a host of balanced factors - academics being an important one, but also arts, sports, character development, facilities, technology, extra-curricular offerings, etc. |
Anonymous
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Last year's "big 5" National Merit semifinalists
Sidwell 18 Gds 14 St Albans 10 NCS 9 Potomac 6 Maret 2 Drop in the bucket compared to TJ (or Blair which had 43, I think). Supporting the point that public magnet is probably the way to go if what you are looking for is a critical mass of high-performing kids with similar interests. Also suggests that Big 3 makes more sense than the Big 5. But that's only if you're asking where the kids who do best on aptitude tests go/come from. |
Anonymous
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Oops, forgot to include the other schools in DC with NM semifinalists. They were:
Visitation 5 Wilson 5 Gonzaga 4 Burke 2 That's the complete list for DC. Each state has its own cutoff point and DC's cutoff is always the equivalent of the highest state cutoff (usually MA). DC/MD/VA are usually pretty similar but in that order. So last year the cut offs for were 221/220/219. The year before they were 223/221/217. Apropos of other discussions, Holton Arms had 7. Charles E Smith was the only other MoCo private with more than 1 or 2 -- it had 6. It looks like the high-scoring MoCo kids either go to public school or to privates in DC. Potomac had the most semifinalists of the VA privates. |
Anonymous
While the critical mass argument holds, I think comparing Montgomery Blair with these schools is a little unfair. Blair had a class size of 600 in 2008. St. Albans has about 80. Obviously, there are other important things to consider, but it's a little misleading to just look at the absolute number of National Merit Scholars (or semifinalists) the school turns out. |
Anonymous
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PP here -- I agree that # of National Merit SF isn't the crucial issue (which is why I framed the analysis in terms of "if what you're looking for is..."? and I don't even think it's a good measure of how well-educated someone is. That said, I do think it's a step in the right direction compared to vague claims about excellence and selectivity, which is why I followed up on an earlier poster's suggestion that it would be worth doing this kind of comparison. If people want to rank, then let's articulate criteria and apply them consistently. And let's put public schools side-by-side with privates.
On the whole, with this particular data set, I don't really see the utility of percentages. The real issue is absolute numbers -- i.e. how many kids in the cohort in the school because that determines what kind of classes can be offered and what you kids' peer group looks like. I did look at ratios a bit to think through the GDS vs "Cathedral Schools" issue, though I had to estimate the size of NCS's senior classes (anybody actually know?). It looks like GDS's numbers hold strong even when you combine STA+NCS for the comparison. National Merit doesn't publish these lists (it hands them out in a press release), so it's a PITA to track this stuff down. Here are links for last year: VA 2009: http://chesterfield.k12.va.us/ccps/news/awards/09%20VA%20Semifinalists-NatlMeritProgram.pdf DC 2009: http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/N0910080120%201.pdf p. 4 MoCo 2009: http://connectedcommunities.us/showthread.php?t=21300 |
Anonymous
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I applaud the attempt. To be honest, I don't know why this information isn't more readily available. The problem with trying to do it piecemeal here is that it's lost in too many threads. Would be nice to have a spreadsheet which could be updated with data as it becomes available.
But then, I'm a geek and love this kind of stuff. |
Anonymous
If you, like seemingly so many others on this thread, only evaluate a top school by how many eggheads - pardon me - National Merit Scholars a school graduates... then you are likely a geek in good company. I'm with the PP who believes a top independant schools education is SOOOO much more than just academics, it's the full package of experiences that you are paying $30k per year, per child, for. Otherwise, by the data shown above, you should save the $400k-$1.2M in tuition ($30k x 3 kids x 13yrs) and send your kid to a top public. |