Reply to HB Admissions are rigged

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "HB Admissions are rigged"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is why I wish APS would release the actual percentage/number of 5th graders applying to HB from each ES. My guess has always been that a higher proportion of ATS 5th graders may apply (compared to the proportion of 5th graders from the neighborhood ES). The ATS kids draw from all over the County and then are scattered to their home zones for middle school. The ATS kids are starting their friendships over, regardless of whether they go to HB or the home middle school. In contrast, many neighborhood ES kids may want to just stick with their existing friends through middle school and therefore not as many apply to HB--- I have heard this from quite a few parents in our neighborhood. This is just a theory... not sure why APS is so secretive about the HB admission pool data.[/quote]

I suspect a good part of not releasing it is knowing that people will misinterpret the data in order to attack the programs. It's easier to just not share it than to share it and then argue against its continued misuse.

I think you might be onto something as to why it may seem that a disproportionate number of ATS students end up at HB, that it's a self-selecting population, although I'm not sure it's about friendships (after all, roughly a third of their elementary class will go the same middle school). We didn't apply to ATS or any other choice school for our son because we really wanted to be in a neighborhood school and none of the elementary choice programs felt sufficiently compelling to us to overcome that. The neighborhood school thing becomes less of a priority for us as the kids get older, but assuming it's still something we value at that point, HB would again have to sufficiently compelling to overcome our neighborhood school preference. For someone who doesn't particularly prioritize going to a neighborhood school, they're going to be far more likely to apply to both ATS and HB, so it wouldn't surprise me if the HB lottery pool has a disproportionate number of ATS kids to begin with.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics