Yorktown HS vs Private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see paying the money for private if you want a religious (e.g., Catholic) education for your DC, but otherwise it doesn't make economic sense and in no way guarantees better college matriculation. Yorktown is very strong, and offers more AP classes than any private in the entire DC area, so for a motivated student, Yorktown doesn't take a backseat to anyone.

Does Yorktown offer more AP courses than Wakefield? It's a decent second-tier public, but the brain drain to other schools keeps it from being a top area school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those schools are facing overcrowding, plus Yorktown loses many of its top students to W-L for IB, whereas W-L gets to offer both AP and IB.

This just isn't true.

W-L has a total of 247 IB transfer students for IB this year. Assuming 50/50 split for Yorktown and Wakefield (which is unlikely -- more would seek to flee Wakefield), that's an average of just under 31 students per class. Factor in the fact that IB plays second fiddle to Advanced Placement in terms of college placement, and no, it doesn't track that "many" Yorktown students choose to go to W-L for IB.

IB appeals to a certain kind of student for sure. But it's not exactly considered to be high rigor, at least not compared to AP.

https://www.apsva.us/statistics/pupil-transfer-report/


Plus- it is much easier to get college credit for AP classes than IB. Most colleges don't even look at standard level courses.

Mother of recent W-L grad here, who took a mix of AP and IB classes.

IB is considered by virtually every one that matters (i.e., colleges) to be as high rigor as AP.
My DS has had no difficulty getting credit for IB classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS admissions rates to Ivies seem to be below-average except for Cornell and maybe Penn: http://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/September-October-2016/Where-Arlington-Grads-Applied-and-Were-Accepted-to-College/index.php?cparticle=8&siarticle=7#artanc

Brown - 3.6%
Columbia - 4.9%
Cornell - 20%
Dartmouth - 4.5%
Harvard - 2.6%
Princeton - 3.0%
Penn - 7.3%
Yale - 2.8%

These numbers are meaningless without knowing what's happening in FFX.

Yes, below average compared to what?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yorktown parent here. My impression of the school is neutral but I don't see significant issues due to overcrowding in the near future. My kids really felt overcrowding in PE and at lunch in elementary school and gym, particularly at Williamsburg during the construction of Discovery.

I do find that kids at Yorktown are very conformist and don't want to seen as trying too hard (being a "try hard" is the ultimate social disgrace). My kids certainly do not receive much individual attention from their teachers. Also, you see the more intellectual kids going to Jefferson and the nerdier kids (I mean it in a good way as kids who are less conformist) transfer to W&L for IB.

I had looked into O'Connell but I did not see/feel much difference between the teaching and students there versus Yorktown.

I think this conformist thing is intensely common.

That's exactly what you'd expect to happen at a high-income school when you have an outflow of bright and/or quirky students to TJ, HB and W-L, and aren't getting an inflow of similar kids.

Again, there isn't a real outflow of kids from Yorktown to W-L (which has its own conformity issues, natch). Nor to TJ for that matter. And HB is by lottery so it's not like there's "oh and I'm bright and quirky so I'll go to HB instead" at play. You're just being silly.

LOL. You are the "try hard" (trying not to admit the obvious) here.

I'm a W-L parent (in boundary, not by transfer), and while I can't speak to the 'conformist' nature of Yorktown kids, I can attest to the fact that PP is correct about the number of transfers out of Yorktown. There just aren't that many per class. It's hard to imagine it makes that much difference. Maybe the parents are all conformist, LOL?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Again, there isn't a real outflow of kids from Yorktown to W-L (which has its own conformity issues, natch). Nor to TJ for that matter. And HB is by lottery so it's not like there's "oh and I'm bright and quirky so I'll go to HB instead" at play. You're just being silly.

The IB program at W-L is a lottery as well

Is it lottery if W-L is your home school?

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see paying the money for private if you want a religious (e.g., Catholic) education for your DC, but otherwise it doesn't make economic sense and in no way guarantees better college matriculation. Yorktown is very strong, and offers more AP classes than any private in the entire DC area, so for a motivated student, Yorktown doesn't take a backseat to anyone.

Parent of current YHS senior. I agree that YHS offers more APs classes than any student could possibly take. The quality of these classes varies. The AP World History class my child took was first rate - 5 on the test with minimal outside preparation. On the other hand, AP Computer Science is known to be a total joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yorktown parent here. My impression of the school is neutral but I don't see significant issues due to overcrowding in the near future. My kids really felt overcrowding in PE and at lunch in elementary school and gym, particularly at Williamsburg during the construction of Discovery.

I do find that kids at Yorktown are very conformist and don't want to seen as trying too hard (being a "try hard" is the ultimate social disgrace). My kids certainly do not receive much individual attention from their teachers. Also, you see the more intellectual kids going to Jefferson and the nerdier kids (I mean it in a good way as kids who are less conformist) transfer to W&L for IB.

I had looked into O'Connell but I did not see/feel much difference between the teaching and students there versus Yorktown.

I think this conformist thing is intensely common.

That's exactly what you'd expect to happen at a high-income school when you have an outflow of bright and/or quirky students to TJ, HB and W-L, and aren't getting an inflow of similar kids.

Again, there isn't a real outflow of kids from Yorktown to W-L (which has its own conformity issues, natch). Nor to TJ for that matter. And HB is by lottery so it's not like there's "oh and I'm bright and quirky so I'll go to HB instead" at play. You're just being silly.

LOL. You are the "try hard" (trying not to admit the obvious) here.

I'm a W-L parent (in boundary, not by transfer), and while I can't speak to the 'conformist' nature of Yorktown kids, I can attest to the fact that PP is correct about the number of transfers out of Yorktown. There just aren't that many per class. It's hard to imagine it makes that much difference. Maybe the parents are all conformist, LOL?

There are about 75 transfers per grade from Yorktown to HB, W-L and TJ. In a school with 433 seniors, that makes an impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yorktown parent here. My impression of the school is neutral but I don't see significant issues due to overcrowding in the near future. My kids really felt overcrowding in PE and at lunch in elementary school and gym, particularly at Williamsburg during the construction of Discovery.

I do find that kids at Yorktown are very conformist and don't want to seen as trying too hard (being a "try hard" is the ultimate social disgrace). My kids certainly do not receive much individual attention from their teachers. Also, you see the more intellectual kids going to Jefferson and the nerdier kids (I mean it in a good way as kids who are less conformist) transfer to W&L for IB.

I had looked into O'Connell but I did not see/feel much difference between the teaching and students there versus Yorktown.

I think this conformist thing is intensely common.

That's exactly what you'd expect to happen at a high-income school when you have an outflow of bright and/or quirky students to TJ, HB and W-L, and aren't getting an inflow of similar kids.

Again, there isn't a real outflow of kids from Yorktown to W-L (which has its own conformity issues, natch). Nor to TJ for that matter. And HB is by lottery so it's not like there's "oh and I'm bright and quirky so I'll go to HB instead" at play. You're just being silly.

LOL. You are the "try hard" (trying not to admit the obvious) here.

I'm a W-L parent (in boundary, not by transfer), and while I can't speak to the 'conformist' nature of Yorktown kids, I can attest to the fact that PP is correct about the number of transfers out of Yorktown. There just aren't that many per class. It's hard to imagine it makes that much difference. Maybe the parents are all conformist, LOL?

There are about 75 transfers per grade from Yorktown to HB, W-L and TJ. In a school with 433 seniors, that makes an impact.

This isn't accurate.

TJ admitted 15 kids TOTAL to the freshman class from APS in 2015.
HB admits like 25 kids TOTAL in 9th grade. The rest have been in since 6th grade and, again, this is lottery not merit.
We already talked about the W-L inbound transfers for IB. There simply aren't that many.

There are more like 35-40 transfers per grade. And, while the senior class may be at 433 today, the freshman class is at 510.

It's not a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yorktown parent here. My impression of the school is neutral but I don't see significant issues due to overcrowding in the near future. My kids really felt overcrowding in PE and at lunch in elementary school and gym, particularly at Williamsburg during the construction of Discovery.

I do find that kids at Yorktown are very conformist and don't want to seen as trying too hard (being a "try hard" is the ultimate social disgrace). My kids certainly do not receive much individual attention from their teachers. Also, you see the more intellectual kids going to Jefferson and the nerdier kids (I mean it in a good way as kids who are less conformist) transfer to W&L for IB.

I had looked into O'Connell but I did not see/feel much difference between the teaching and students there versus Yorktown.

I think this conformist thing is intensely common.

That's exactly what you'd expect to happen at a high-income school when you have an outflow of bright and/or quirky students to TJ, HB and W-L, and aren't getting an inflow of similar kids.

Again, there isn't a real outflow of kids from Yorktown to W-L (which has its own conformity issues, natch). Nor to TJ for that matter. And HB is by lottery so it's not like there's "oh and I'm bright and quirky so I'll go to HB instead" at play. You're just being silly.

LOL. You are the "try hard" (trying not to admit the obvious) here.

I'm a W-L parent (in boundary, not by transfer), and while I can't speak to the 'conformist' nature of Yorktown kids, I can attest to the fact that PP is correct about the number of transfers out of Yorktown. There just aren't that many per class. It's hard to imagine it makes that much difference. Maybe the parents are all conformist, LOL?

There are about 75 transfers per grade from Yorktown to HB, W-L and TJ. In a school with 433 seniors, that makes an impact.

This isn't accurate.

TJ admitted 15 kids TOTAL to the freshman class from APS in 2015.
HB admits like 25 kids TOTAL in 9th grade. The rest have been in since 6th grade and, again, this is lottery not merit.
We already talked about the W-L inbound transfers for IB. There simply aren't that many.

There are more like 35-40 transfers per grade. And, while the senior class may be at 433 today, the freshman class is at 510.

It's not a lot.

Last year Yorktown lost 141 students to HB and 143 to W-L, and let's assume 20 to TJ. That's about 75 per grade on average.

It's a bigger brain drain than at W-L, which is larger yet on average loses about 50 kids per class to HB, Yorktown and TJ.

[Anonymous]

Arlington is small. Why not put the whole county on a lottery? You specifically apply to the special programs, but make all the high schools by lottery too. Then you'll get 3 well rounded schools, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Arlington is small. Why not put the whole county on a lottery? You specifically apply to the special programs, but make all the high schools by lottery too. Then you'll get 3 well rounded schools, right?

It's not that small, and the bus system would not support it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington is small. Why not put the whole county on a lottery? You specifically apply to the special programs, but make all the high schools by lottery too. Then you'll get 3 well rounded schools, right?

It's not that small, and the bus system would not support it.

Whatever. The current set-up is not working very well at balancing either enrollments or demographics.

[Anonymous]

The segregationists are always championing walkability, and strong communities.
They are never going to admit we could do a county wide system. They paid too much money for an almost all wealthy school.

[Anonymous]

H-B is a tiny, elitist private school masquerading as a public school. That's your best bet if you don't want to pay tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The segregationists are always championing walkability, and strong communities.
They are never going to admit we could do a county wide system. They paid too much money for an almost all wealthy school.

I live within walking distance of W-L, and I'm happy my teens can walk to school.

That said, if APS went to a county-wide system tomorrow, I'd say, great! Arlington is definitely small enough, and my kids wouldn't spend any more time on a bus then I did when I was there age (in a rural area). And of course, there'd be at least a 33% chance they'd end up at W-L anyway. So, fine with me.