Reply to Are we crazy to turn down a "Big Three" for Potomac?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think people who are fixated on the reputation of the big three are out of step -- a couple of decades ago you could say there were just a couple of tippy-top schools, but given objective criteria -- college placement, rigor of curriculum, quality of students -- you have to say there are more top schools today.  Ignoring this would be like saying the only top colleges are in the Ivy League.  Potomac is one of the top area schools, it is up to you if you want to be obsessed about the name.  Colleges know it is good, isn't that enough?[/quote]

Potomac is NOT as good a school as STA, NCS, Sidwell, Maret or arguably some others.  Potomac does not have the same level of academic rigor, as high a number of NMSF/NMF, or as good a record of getting its graduates into the most competitive colleges.  Potomac is in a suburban neighborhood and while it has an attractive campus, it is nothing particularly special. It has a mostly white and preppy student body and is frankly, rather bland.  It is more akin to a high performing, wealthy suburban public school than a modern, elite NWDC private school.[/quote]

Um, no.  In 2014, NCS had four NMSF and Maret had 1.  http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1310966/d-c-semifinalists-in-2015-national-merit.pdf.  Potomac had seven.  http://www.potomacschool.org/news/index.aspx.

Also, when the Washingtonian surveyed educational consultants, it came up with a list of six Academic All-Stars:  Sidwell, NCS, St. Albans, GDS, Potomac.  http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/work-education/a-private-school-for-every-student/

It's fine to have an opinion, but if you are going to assert facts you shouldn't just make them up.
[/quote]

And Potomac had a great number of Presidential Scholars this year:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/443889.page

Quick review and counting looks like, with each school's multi-year average in (parentheses):

STA 10 (average 5) 
NCS 6 (7) 
Potomac 6 (2) 
Maret 6 (6) 
SFS 7 (11) 
GDS 11 (6) 
Holton 1 (2) 
Landon 1 (1)

[/quote]

Not sure where this data is coming from, but Holton had 6 National Merit finalists this year. (And that is typical; I am certain the average is not two.) One way that data gets skewed on this is that the students appear on a list based on their state of residence, not the state that the school is in. So a school that draws from DC, MD and VA will have students on three different lists, fwiw.[/quote]

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