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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not worth moving to Fairfax Co.  You would most of the same issues.

I would just go private instead of selling and buying another house for 4 years.

I attended FFX Co HS, kids were APS K-8, now in private HS in DC.  APS has been in a steady decline, freefall for the past decade or more, talking with relatives in Ffx and Loudoun, very similar in other NoVA counties.[/quote]

Come on, spare us the melodrama.  We're a government family facing college bills, and retirement when our kids are of college age (no children until 40s), like so many others in this area.

APS may be in slow but steady decline overall, but the most advanced classes remain a bargain.

I'm OK with paying 6-8K per MS and HS student a year to supplement, vs. 20-40K a year for privates. Our middle schoolers are sophisticated enough to understand that we do our best as parents, but aren't made of money.  They don't grouse about tutoring and outside lessons.  I love having them in school with a good many poor students who are also high-performing students, particularly for math, e.g. refugees from the Middle East and Asia, not just token fi aid students trying to fit in at pricey privates.

Private high school's in DC aren't our scene (and we're [b]Ivy Leaguers[/b]).

[/quote]

Just couldn't resist putting that in there, eh?[/quote]

I attended college on a full Pell Grant, coming from a HS ranked in the bottom third in my state.  What about you?

Some of us don't want our teens in cocoon environment privates, although we could swing the tuition.

I've been interviewing applicants to my Ivy in in the Metro area since the 90s, a dozen annually. Too many of the UMC Northern VA DC private school applicants I've talked to have their heads in the clouds, and aren't terribly impressive academically.  The inconvenient truth is that the strongest local public school applicants do better in the college process.[/quote]

So interesting, I also went to an elite college from a crummy public high school, also had a Pell grant.  And I was so underprepared for college compared to my peers from good high schools and private schools.

I don't see private school as a cocoon at all, I see it as the early trenches of the competitive academic environment they will wade into come college admissions time.  I want them to be prepared for college, for that transition to be smooth so they have the confidence and wherewithal to build connections and find mentors (read "Paying for College" and see how critical that is to future career success).  Unlike me who spent hours in the library just trying to fill the gaps in my high school education just to get to the point to know what questions to ask.  My career has been very sub-par (govt contractor), as my grades were only so-so and my ability to leverage my connections non existent since I was out of my element at college academically and socially.  By sacrificing now, my kids can learn a bit about that academic and social roles in high school and be on better footing in college.

I'm surprised if you came from a crummy high school and weren't wealthy, how you didn't find an elite college crushing?  Were your parents academic (maybe immigrants with advanced education but working class jobs in states)?  Or maybe you are just way smarter than me, as I likely got into my elite college as a "rural poor" diversity element.[/quote]

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