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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Very very few kids from APS as a whole and any district as a whole getting into Ivys as a percentage this year. Acceptance rates in the single digits. Even with perfect SATs and all As in the most rigorous classes, you are one of many many just like you. In the current climate it is not helpful to use admissions to these schools as a metric of how “good” a high school is. It’s not useful. [/quote]

+1  Kids get into Ivy-type schools because they are extraordinarily driven + (mostly) some kind of hook. MS-HS you go to has very little to do with creating that profile. More kids do get in from elite privates but that's more because the elite private schools have already done the pre-screening for the hooks like legacy and $$$.

A kid who goes to any APS HS and does well in challenging classes (AP/IB) is going to be prepared for college. Same as any of the surrounding districts. 
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APS does not prepare you for college the way privates do. It just doesn't. There is almost no focus on writing, grammar, reading books and discussing them in class. It's a real shame. That said, a lot of the amazing admission stats you see from privates are because of legacy admissions/donations and other exceptional hooks. Don't go to private as a ticket to the ivys unless you have a hook. Do go to private for the superior education. [/quote]

We're Ivy graduates who agree that writing instruction is a weak point of APS MS & HS, and public schools in general in this country.  Hence, we've supplemented for English from the get go, with tutors and summer programs. As far as we're concerned, private school just doesn't prepare a kid to cope in the real world the way a good public school does.  We love how our children have made a stunningly diverse group of pals in APS, including refugee kids from the Middle East and Afghanistan who perform better on math assessments than our children do.  Go in with your eyes open, supplement, but don't baby your children with pampered private school environments as a knee jerk reaction.  APS middle school is pretty darn good.  We bailed from DCPS after elementary school with no regrets.[/quote]

So funny. I was one of the diverse elements at my college, and once I got into college I really never interacted with “diverse people” again. College selects for academic/ability to pay/etc, and then you enter the professional world and buy an UMC house and are basically in a bubble forever. What exactly are you preparing your children for by hobnobbing with people like me in high school?  After public school they will never see them again except when they hire them to work on their home or take care of their kids?[/quote]

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