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Has anyone considered this,
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Anonymous
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If the big 3 get mostly children with WPPSI scores over 90%ile, why don't they do much better than a school like Whitman, a school with a wide range of IQ whose SAT scores average just a bit below St. Albans.
I often think what are these schools doing to these bright kids? If Sidwell had a random sample of Whitman kids to educate, would the scores drop? Like wise, if Whitman took on the Sidwell crowd, would those kids do better? |
Anonymous
| This is seriously profound. I need some more espresso to respond. |
Anonymous
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OP -- Whitman has a lot more kids, so it may get more kids into an Ivy but it may be a lower percentage of the total population.
Jay Matthews wrote the book "Harvard Schmarvard" -- he mentioned that it was actually better for a kid to go a less prestigious public or private school where everyone didn't have top scores/grades. So for example -- at St. Albans -- an Ivy will only take 2 or 3 kids usually tops from a private school where it may take more from a really big public school since there are many more kids there. |
Anonymous
| Except isn't Whitman a prestigious public school? Or do you mean something more like TJ? |
Anonymous
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Whitman and TJ would be considered prestigious. I'm just saying there are more kids at Whitman. So, if 5 kids from Whitman (for example) got into Harvard and only 4 from St. Albans; someone might say -- hey Whitman is better than St. Albans. The answer is they are both great, but a higher % from St. Albans got in.
J. Matthews is saying go to some poorer ranked p.s. or pr.s. and you'll have a better chance at an Ivy. |
Anonymous
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But the claim here is that the Whitman SAT average is close to the private schools' SAT average. The size of the school in not relavant when you are comparing averages ....
Is the original claim correct? Does anyone have the numbers? |
Anonymous
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The first problem is that you are putting any kind of weight into the WPPSI.
The second problem is that you are assuming that all kids and parents want to attend an "Ivy League" school. |
Anonymous
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St. Albans has a class of 80 and 7 national merit semi finalists / finalists
Whitman has a class of 400 and has 12 - hmmm |
Anonymous
And how small are St. Alban's classes? 10? versus 27+ at Whitman . . . Considering that most kids at Whitman aren't getting the 1-1 interaction that students at St. Alban's get solely b/c of tiny class sizes, 12 is impressive. apples and oranges, PP 400 versus 80 is not a fair comparison. |
Anonymous
Only 7? |
Anonymous
| yup, a paltry 7; even Sidwell has slightly more. |
Anonymous
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I would question your initial premise, on both counts: there are certainly many kids at private schools whose WPPSI scores are not above the 90th percentile (and certainly whose WISC scores would not be above the 90th percentile)
and Whitman does not reflect the general population in its spread of abilities. Consider, in order to be considered "gifted & talented" in MCPS, you must earn scores on an aptitude test which are at the 90th percentile or above. The elementary schools which feed into Whitman tend to have rather high (50-80%) numbers of kids who are identified as GT. While the average at the privates we're talking about may be a bit higher than Whitman, it's not all that much higher, and neither has a lot of kids at the lower end (but both have at least some). |
Anonymous
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Because household income is an excellent predictor of SAT score, and both draw relatively rich families?
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Anonymous
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but to equate to sidwell, add in the ncs girls who were NM finalists too.
only fair to have both represented (besides it is like 10% of the class which is hard to find anywhere else) |