How could we possibly know if APS‘ performance at Top 10 or 20 or 50 schools on fact is “so different every year?” How do you know that?

It's so different year over year. This isn't something I recommend spending time on.

Anonymous wrote:Two things can be true. College admission can be an intensely individual and narrowly specific analysis (with unpredictability and luck). And, yet, schools do play a role in that analysis, and their matriculation numbers are a reasonable (and easily knowable) metric/proxy for families to consider.

Not without breaking it down further. The matriculation “numbers” from a particular hs to the colleges you are interested in don’t represent generic applicants.

Just because a hs sends 2 kids to Amherst this year doesn’t mean your kid will have a shot. Those 2 are star lacrosse players. Amherst only accepts a handful of non athletes, and those fit a very narrow profile to balance the makeup of their incoming class.

That college that reliably takes 5 or 6 kids from a given school decided that the counselors have been encouraging too many sub par candidates to apply and relays this by rejecting all applicants the year your kid is a senior. The one that usually takes 4 actually takes 5 your kid’s senior year, but waitlists your kid because they aren’t looking for any more boys in their engineering school.

These are not hypothetical scenarios- they are real. You are much better off researching what different colleges look for in an applicant while supporting and guiding your kid along the way than focusing on impersonal matriculation data at various APS schools- they aren’t different enough to have any bearing on your kid.

Two things can be true. College admission can be an intensely individual and narrowly specific analysis (with unpredictability and luck). And, yet, schools do play a role in that analysis, and their matriculation numbers are a reasonable (and easily knowable) metric/proxy for families to consider.

Anonymous wrote:The admissions landscape is too complex to give anyone even a basic idea of how their kid might fare at one APS hs vs another. Factors like URM, first gen, excellence in an area like a specific sport, instrument, or prized extracurricular activity, gender, awards, test scores, course rigor, GPA, need for financial assistance all matter. Specific school within APS is comparatively a nothingburger.

+1.

It would seem to me that it would be materially different if, eg, W&L is sending 3 kids to Top 20 universities (putting UVA aside for a seconds) and admissions shows they account for 18 of the 27 admits because they each were accepted at 6 schools.

The admissions landscape is too complex to give anyone even a basic idea of how their kid might fare at one APS hs vs another. Factors like URM, first gen, excellence in an area like a specific sport, instrument, or prized extracurricular activity, gender, awards, test scores, course rigor, GPA, need for financial assistance all matter. Specific school within APS is comparatively a nothingburger.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t say it “matters so much.” I would say, I am interested in understanding APS high schools’ college matriculation for purposes of including that piece of information in an overall analysis of choosing a high school for my child. Again, agree fully that college is very much a small part of that analysis but it’s not a nothing burger either.

Move to Fairfax or Loudoun. Please.

Agree with both PPs. Go ahead and contact your child’s guidance counselor, but I would only ask them about the schools your child is truly interested in. They aren’t going to give you the data for the entire class, nor should you need that.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. I will ask the schools’ counselors and see if they are willing to share any numbers. I am not, of course, interested in seeing where child X matriculated. I am only interested in understanding the reality of getting into college from APS.

If you want the reality of getting in, then hen acceptances should matter, not where each kid ends up attending.

The issue is that naviance automatically records where a student applies (and their stats). But it doesn’t know if the student is accepted UNLESS the student goes back in and reports the acceptance. So that isn’t very reliable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This could be somewhat helpful. Arlington Magazíne gives data broken down by high school of colleges applied to and acceptances.

https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/arlington-class-2022-colleges-universities-applied-accepted/

Wow, this is interesting. UNC Chapel Hill for example, only 7 APS kids accepted (132 applied).

That’s a high number considering UNC-CH only takes 8% of its applicants from
OOS.

Anonymous wrote:This could be somewhat helpful. Arlington Magazíne gives data broken down by high school of colleges applied to and acceptances.

https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/arlington-class-2022-colleges-universities-applied-accepted/

Wow, this is interesting. UNC Chapel Hill for example, only 7 APS kids accepted (132 applied).

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. I will ask the schools’ counselors and see if they are willing to share any numbers. I am not, of course, interested in seeing where child X matriculated. I am only interested in understanding the reality of getting into college from APS.

Didn't you see the link to the arlington mag site?

Thanks. I will ask the schools’ counselors and see if they are willing to share any numbers. I am not, of course, interested in seeing where child X matriculated. I am only interested in understanding the reality of getting into college from APS.

Anonymous wrote:Pre-pandemic I remember reading the long list from each school, newspaper style that showed exactly where everyone was headed.

My son graduated from W-L in 2021 and they published a hard-copy newspaper showing where every student was going. It was distributed only to the seniors and is not available online. I'm sure the school has those on file somewhere but are not inclined to share.