Anonymous wrote:DH has talked about moving to Wyoming for a couple of years, to get the kids through high school. It scares me how serious he is about this idea.

What’s wrong with Wyoming? Would love to live there.

Move to DC and go to Jackson Reed

I would go to a school like Einstein or Northwood where there is a cohort of high achieving kids but it’s small. Your child could take all of the hardest classes and really stand out and have little college competition. My friends whose kids went through those schools had really good college results.

Anonymous wrote:I know there will be a lot of negative comments, but the legacy at these Big 3 schools is insane and we have none, nada. My kid was fine at the school, but we are not terribly impressed. Outside of MCPS (which I know is insane too), where can your kid stand out?

Folks, MCPS =/= Maryland

OP, if you just want to reduce the amount of competition with legacy admits, look at the surrounding counties - Frederick, Washington, Carroll, Harford, Queen Anne’s. All of them have some decent high schools, access to community colleges for dual enrollment, and enough density in the area for there to be access to activities. Will selective schools also be familiar with those high schools? Sure. But there just won’t be the concentration of legacies that there is close in to DC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Friend's child left private school after 8th and went to their really chaotic, almost all FARMS, low ranked public school. Instead of paying 40 to 50 K on private school they spent a boatload of money on tutors. So their child was by the best math student, turned in the best essays etc, at the school. Student was able to do really well on AP tests because of the tutors/outside classes and took dual enrollment classes.The kid was also really prepared for college.

Did they have any friends or a social life?

Why wouldn't they? And what does that have to do with private versus public

Anonymous wrote:Friend's child left private school after 8th and went to their really chaotic, almost all FARMS, low ranked public school. Instead of paying 40 to 50 K on private school they spent a boatload of money on tutors. So their child was by the best math student, turned in the best essays etc, at the school. Student was able to do really well on AP tests because of the tutors/outside classes and took dual enrollment classes.The kid was also really prepared for college.

Did they have any friends or a social life?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH has talked about moving to Wyoming for a couple of years, to get the kids through high school. It scares me how serious he is about this idea.

I think that sounds wonderful. What's wrong with going somewhere where the pace of life is more relaxing?

This thread is full of people who know nothing about the Rock Mountain west. The kind of person who frets this much over college admissions and considers it a failure to not secure a spot at HYPStanfordMIT is not the kind of person who would be able to live outside the DMV bubble.

Anonymous wrote:Friend's child left private school after 8th and went to their really chaotic, almost all FARMS, low ranked public school. Instead of paying 40 to 50 K on private school they spent a boatload of money on tutors. So their child was by the best math student, turned in the best essays etc, at the school. Student was able to do really well on AP tests because of the tutors/outside classes and took dual enrollment classes.The kid was also really prepared for college.

What were the college results?

UWC. New Mexico. Your kid will LOVE it. You’re welcome.

Anonymous wrote:DH has talked about moving to Wyoming for a couple of years, to get the kids through high school. It scares me how serious he is about this idea.

I think that sounds wonderful. What's wrong with going somewhere where the pace of life is more relaxing?

Friend's child left private school after 8th and went to their really chaotic, almost all FARMS, low ranked public school. Instead of paying 40 to 50 K on private school they spent a boatload of money on tutors. So their child was by the best math student, turned in the best essays etc, at the school. Student was able to do really well on AP tests because of the tutors/outside classes and took dual enrollment classes.The kid was also really prepared for college.

Anonymous wrote:I know there will be a lot of negative comments, but the legacy at these Big 3 schools is insane and we have none, nada. My kid was fine at the school, but we are not terribly impressed. Outside of MCPS (which I know is insane too), where can your kid stand out?

You'll be miserable everywhere, because you look at life like a girl who wants a wedding not a marriage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that a kid may not be as well prepared for college coming from a smaller state or rural district. I grew up in Ohio, so middle of the pack overall on public education, maybe slightly above average. I went to one of our large state non-flagships for college. I was shocked at how some of my classmates had zero AP classes offered at their high school, or maybe just 1 or 2. Their math classes stopped at pre-Calc for seniors. It was particularly hard for kids going into a STEM major.

That was me. My high school classes had the right titles, but first year classes at a NESAC were so hard that I gave up on a math major.

And they weren’t even from tiny schools. Graduating classes 200-250 in many cases. Just there was pretty much no demand. A lot of kids went to community college or didn’t go at all. This was 20-25 years ago.

My kids are in Bethesda-area MCPS and one graduated and attends college.

It will be helpful to identify clearly what you want out of your children's K-12 experience. Is it:

1. The best academic learning environment: what do you think that is? Is a private full of comforts, emphasis on respect, that selects good students at entry and has good teachers in most every subject, something you value for your children?
Do you consider that publics, who all have great teachers in certain core subjects but maybe not all of them, and where really bad teachers can also stay for long periods of time, are also a good learning environment? Do you consider that publics in safe, wealthy neighborhoods may retain better teachers over time than publics in less-desirable neighborhoods, because parents put pressure on the administration to get rid of bad teachers, and good teachers want to teach and not have to deal with too many side issues?

2. The right socio-economic scene: what is that for you? Do you want your kids surrounded by wealth and comfort and live in that sort of bubble? Do you want your kids exposed to more realistic lifestyles, and how much: there will be a huge difference in school atmosphere between low-income and wealthy neighborhoods, because beyond the usual drugs/DUIs/teen antics, the realities of life are not the same.

3. Cultural exposure: do you want your kids to be exposed to a cosmopolitan group? Are you fine with a school with very little cultural diversity? Culture, in terms of number and provenance of foreign nationals, number of different ethnicities, variety of languages spoken by students, families with different origins, values, professions.
As a multi-ethnic foreigner, that last is quite important to me. I have lived in small rural towns and capital cities around the world. I would never, ever, move my kids to places that do not have a strong international presence.

4. College admissions: the hope that there is a school where your kids could have a college admissions advantage is a myth, unless you want to move to an under-represented state, with a possibly lower quality of all 3 criteria explained above. Admissions offices across the country know very well what value to ascribe to a selective private, an MCPS school or any other school. Schools are required to provide a profile of their demographics, graduations rates and course offerings during the admissions process. Admissions are looking for students who have pushed themselves to get the most out of what was available to them. But a move to a rural part of an empty state with easier courses might be red flag in the application, might not get your kids into the universities you want, and might not prepare your kids well enough for college study.

The moral of this story is that you should never pay for private just for a college admissions advantage.