College admissions from APS

[Anonymous]

I went or an ivy league from a rural school district. I couldn't give a fig about if a school helps me get into these competitive colkeges -- does it prepare me for success there?

My time at college was much kind of awful and traumatic b/c I was so underprepated compared to my classmates.

That is the question we should be asking.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:http://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/where-arlington-grads-applied-and-were-accepted-to-college/

The Arlington Magazine stats actually make the situation look BETTER than it really is. The reason is that they report acceptances and not matriculations. This means that, for a given school, the reported acceptances from Dartmouth, Duke, Denison and Davidson could all be attributed to the same student.

I think we're all aware of this. It doesn't answer the original question, though, of how APS compares to other public school systems. If this is simply the pattern for a solid public school system and not a sign that APS is failing compared to comparable school systems, then this data doesn't concern me. If APS is lagging behind peer systems, though, that's cause for concern and we need to identify why.

For at least the last 10 years, HB Woodlawn, Washington-Lee and Yorktown all lag behind McLean HS and Langley and well behind Walt Whitman, BCC and Churchill (in Montgomery Co, MD). Not sure why, but it is disturbing.

Source? This is the kind of data I'd like to see, but I want to see actual data rather than rumor, reputation and speculation.

There has been some discussion of these sorts of questions on the College forum. I think there was a VA-related spinoff to this thread, which discusses results in the Bethesda schools: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/669618.page

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/669618.page

That's a little hard to compare because they're looking at only select high schools in the system (and some of the strongest at that) whereas the APS data looks at the entire school system.

Arlington Magazine breaks it down by high school: HBW, W-L, Ytown, Wakefield. Compare those rates against the Montgomery County School rates quoted below, and APS doesn't measure up. I would feel better if the Arlington Magazine numbers were all wrong, but that's wishful thinking.

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Bethesda Magazine made its annual chart for college acceptances public to non-subscribers recently: http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/...er-October-2017/College-Bound/ Here are some acceptance rates for top schools with the 2017 acceptance rate overall in parentheses as comparison. Seems like a strong year overall.

Acceptance rates at some top universities:
Brown- 5.6% (compared to 9% overall)
Caltech- 12.5% (8%)
Columbia- 7.1% (6%)
Carnegie Mellon- 31.9% (14%)
Dartmouth- 12.1% (10%)
Cornell- 17.2% (13%)
Duke- 13.1% (10%)
Emory- 23.1% (22%)
Georgetown- 22.5% (16%)
Harvard- 4.2% (5%)
Hopkins- 9.5% (11%)
MIT- 10.4% (7%)
Northwestern- 8.9% (9%)
Rice- 15.6% (16%)
Stanford- 5% (5%)
Berkeley- 23.5% (18%)
UCLA- 28.3% (16%)
UChicago- 9.4% (8%)
U of M- 30% (27%)
UPenn- 10.6% (9%)
USCal- 22.4% (17%)
UVA- 14% (27%)
Vanderbilt- 11.1% (10%)
WashU- 26.9% (17%)
Yale- 11.2% (7%)

Acceptance rates at some top SLACs:
Amherst- 13.2% (12%)
Bowdoin- 8.2% (15%)
Carleton- 34% (21%)
Claremont McKenna College- 0% (11%)
Davidson- 29.7% (20%)
Middlebury-22.8% (20%)
Pomona- 6.1% (8%)
Swarthmore- 11.5% (10%)
Wellesley- 36.3% (22%)
Williams- 12.7% (15%)

That because the in state options in Maryland are sub par..

[Anonymous]

Maryland state universities being less than Virginia state universities would explain the higher number of applicants to these top schools among the MD graduates, but it does not explain the differentials in acceptance rates. Unless admissions committees at these top schools are saying, "VA student won't actually come here if he/she is accepted to UVA, W&M, JMU, so, all other things equal, let's not accept him/her."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went or an ivy league from a rural school district. I couldn't give a fig about if a school helps me get into these competitive colkeges -- does it prepare me for success there?

My time at college was much kind of awful and traumatic b/c I was so underprepated compared to my classmates.

That is the question we should be asking.

Good point. A couple of years back, USNWR provided a "College Readiness" index on a scale of 0-100 and rated essentially every high school in the country. To its credit, TJSST rated a 100.0, one of only 2-3 high schools in the country to get that rating. Montgomery Blair (a magnet) was also high 90s. Most FCPS and APS high schools rated between 65.0 and 75.0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went or an ivy league from a rural school district. I couldn't give a fig about if a school helps me get into these competitive colkeges -- does it prepare me for success there?

My time at college was much kind of awful and traumatic b/c I was so underprepated compared to my classmates.

That is the question we should be asking.

Good point. A couple of years back, USNWR provided a "College Readiness" index on a scale of 0-100 and rated essentially every high school in the country. To its credit, TJSST rated a 100.0, one of only 2-3 high schools in the country to get that rating. Montgomery Blair (a magnet) was also high 90s. Most FCPS and APS high schools rated between 65.0 and 75.0.

All the "College Readiness" index measured was the percentage of graduates who took and passed at least one AP or IB class.

[Anonymous]

A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Arlington high schoolers ^^

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

I guarantee that the lions share of ivy admissions FROM THIS AREA, are coming from private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

I guarantee that the lions share of ivy admissions FROM THIS AREA, are coming from private schools.

I went to an Ivy in the early 80s and the "lion's share" of students from this area were from NoVa and MoCo. And that was before TJHSST even had graduating classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

I guarantee that the lions share of ivy admissions FROM THIS AREA, are coming from private schools.

I went to an Ivy in the early 80s and the "lion's share" of students from this area were from NoVa and MoCo. And that was before TJHSST even had graduating classes.

^ from NoVo and MoCo publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

I guarantee that the lions share of ivy admissions FROM THIS AREA, are coming from private schools.

I went to an Ivy in the early 80s and the "lion's share" of students from this area were from NoVa and MoCo. And that was before TJHSST even had graduating classes.

^ from NoVo and MoCo publics.

You're trying to compare college admissions 35 years ago to college admissions today? What rock do you live under?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

I guarantee that the lions share of ivy admissions FROM THIS AREA, are coming from private schools.

I went to an Ivy in the early 80s and the "lion's share" of students from this area were from NoVa and MoCo. And that was before TJHSST even had graduating classes.

^ from NoVo and MoCo publics.

You're trying to compare college admissions 35 years ago to college admissions today? What rock do you live under?

The one that knows, as an Ivy alum, that the percentage of students coming from private schools has only decreased in recent decades.

[Anonymous]

I live in Western Fairfax (aka TJ Crazyland). And have a kid at TJ. This thread pops up every time we get NMSFs and every time there is a college list, with a why does FCPS outperform APS Question.

My takes is that there is an AAP/TJ and Tiger Parent feedback loop. PP is right. There is a subset of highly educated, education focused parents who move to Fairfax instead of Arlington because they want their kid can go to an AAP Center, and because it gives their kid a better shot at TJ. At the same time, AAP is pushing the top kids in Fairfax to go above and beyond academically from 3rd grade on. And kids who are serious about TJ go to extra math and science classes, accelerate their math, join academic teams, etc.

So basically, you have a setup where parents of smart affluent kids are encouraged to live in FCPS. And once there, they are getting a more rigorous education, and pushing themselves outside if class as well.

I don’t think FCPS does better than APS for the 85% of kids who are not in AAP. But for the top 15% who are in AAP, the education is probably more rigorous. And TJ is sitting out there as an option, so kids are doing a lot of work above an beyond school. And that top 15% of kids who are AAP and are considering TJ are the ones who become NMSFs, push up some of the HSs SAT scores, and have the impressive college admissions.

I am not saying this as kudos to FCPS though. I do think they do a better job with AAP than GE, which is an issue. And I do think the TJ culture has created a race to nowhere, where kids are overaccelerating, especially in math. And where the stress level is too high.

But I also thinks this causes the disparity in college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A goodly number of Arlington high schools are in privates and they take up some of the "Arlington" Ivy slots. The top schools don't want too many kids from any one place and if Harvard has a kid from Arlington from St Albans and one from Potomac and one from Sidwell, that's three already. They might only take one more from APS.

Harvard isn't taking 75% of its freshmen class from private schools. You should be looking at TJ and other public schools in NoVa and MoCo as well.

I guarantee that the lions share of ivy admissions FROM THIS AREA, are coming from private schools.

I went to an Ivy in the early 80s and the "lion's share" of students from this area were from NoVa and MoCo. And that was before TJHSST even had graduating classes.

^ from NoVo and MoCo publics.

You're trying to compare college admissions 35 years ago to college admissions today? What rock do you live under?

The one that knows, as an Ivy alum, that the percentage of students coming from private schools has only decreased in recent decades.

Looking at national stats, yes. But in Arlington, which was very blue collar even in the north when you were applying to colleges and where the demographics have now shifted dramatically, the number of students living in the county who go to private school has increased so dramatically that it's virtually impossible that % of Arlington kids who get admitted from private vs. public has shifted away from private.