Anonymous wrote:Parent of Wilson junior here. I feel kids get into good colleges despite going to Wilson not because of it. Wilson does not do anything special for these kids. They only focus on kids in danger of not graduating and they are pretty ineffective at helping those kids too.

These are the ones who benefit most from Wilson.
We were not unhappy at Wilson; however, I wish we were told that private college counseling was the most efficient way in getting ready for college. Even when the teachers said the class size had not reached its limit, the counselor would not do the switching from regular to AP. It is interesting when another parent exclaims "you talked to her alone?"
Same goes for college counseling, best places for SAT/ACT preparation and getting scholarships. We learned the hard way that there are a lot of "hidden rules" which no one talks about. It is not easy to know these things without having previously experienced it.

Anonymous wrote:Parent of Wilson junior here. I feel kids get into good colleges despite going to Wilson not because of it. Wilson does not do anything special for these kids. They only focus on kids in danger of not graduating and they are pretty ineffective at helping those kids too.

Parent of a Wilson senior going through the final stages of the college stuff now ...

I think the last part of the above post is true - they focus on kids in danger of not graduating or going to college. Wilson makes a real difference if you are the first generation in your family to go to college.

The first part is not true for most upper-middle class kids that attend Wilson. Honestly, they don't need much help - Wilson does not help them - but, really, how much help do they need? it's not that upper-middle class kids get into college despite Wilson - it's that Wilson does not make much of a difference either way.

Or perhaps daughter.

^ Thanks for sharing, PP. I believe it. Sorry that you haven't had a better experience for your son at Wilson.

Parent of Wilson junior here. I feel kids get into good colleges despite going to Wilson not because of it. Wilson does not do anything special for these kids. They only focus on kids in danger of not graduating and they are pretty ineffective at helping those kids too.

You are overthinking it about Wilson. It's a perfectly good high school, but it has no magic dust.

If you have a smart, hardworking kid that has the brains, skills, and grit to get into an elite college, Wilson will get them there just as well as any other high school.

If your kid (like mine) is not "elite college material", there is no magic potion at Wilson that will turn them into "elite college material" - but Wilson will leave them with plenty of other excellent, non-elite options, will give them a high school experience they look back on fondly, and will prepare them for success at whatever college they end up attending.

Anonymous wrote:I attended a top Ivy and there were a few kids there from Wilson, but they were not well prepared or especially successful academically.

Last year?

Same. Wilson just doesn't push kids like the burbs do, including on extra-curricular accomplishments.

Boosters thread.

I attended a top Ivy and there were a few kids there from Wilson, but they were not well prepared or especially successful academically.

Seriously, you don't need to be a booster, just look at these matriculations and count the number of great schools: about 350 kids are attending 168 different colleges. If i"m not mistaken, at least 60 of them (equivalent to most of an entire graduating class at a top private school) are attending all but two ivies, half of the top 25 National Universities, half of the top engineering schools, many HBCUs, many of the public ivies, lots of top SLACs, colleges that change lives, and so on. Then there are a bunch of great schools for the arts and great international schools. The class was awarded $31 million in scholarships. That suggests many kids chose the school that offered the most money (so who knows where else they got in that isn't on the matriculation list).

There is just no reason to look down your nose at what this school's graduates have earned for themselves.

Anonymous wrote:OK, but Wilson gets about one student to each Ivy per year, like Banneker. Some years they get none to a particular Ivy. A decent showing, but not a fantastic one, given the deep well of public school talent in Upper NW. They've only got one college counselor for the entire junior class, and two for the senior class. Many high SES Wilson families are hiring their own college coaches these days for lack of adequate DCPS-furnished guidance counseling.

This is a boosters thread.

I went to Wootton and we had maybe 1 to Yale and maybe 4 or 5 more to Stanford and lower Ivies like Cornell and Penn. This was out of a graduating class of 500. Wilson's graduating class is 400 and many of those kids aren't college bound, unlike my school were the overwhelming majority did go on to college.

Anonymous wrote:OK, but Wilson gets about one student to each Ivy per year, like Banneker. Some years they get none to a particular Ivy. A decent showing, but not a fantastic one, given the deep well of public school talent in Upper NW. They've only got one college counselor for the entire junior class, and two for the senior class. Many high SES Wilson families are hiring their own college coaches these days for lack of adequate DCPS-furnished guidance counseling.

This is a boosters thread.

I went to a top FCPS and we had 4 people get into 3 ivies and our experience was not much different than other FCPS high schools with the exception of TJ.

OK, but Wilson gets about one student to each Ivy per year, like Banneker. Some years they get none to a particular Ivy. A decent showing, but not a fantastic one, given the deep well of public school talent in Upper NW. They've only got one college counselor for the entire junior class, and two for the senior class. Many high SES Wilson families are hiring their own college coaches these days for lack of adequate DCPS-furnished guidance counseling.

This is a boosters thread.

The list is impressive. More ivies here than were in my graduating class at one of the top FCPS...

Anonymous wrote:Class of '16 is on the web site, and some individuals are tweeted (I saw Yale and Stanford), and they typically hand something out at the open house, which hasn't happened yet.

http://www.wilsonhs.org/ourpages/auto/2011/4/15/39942607/Wilsonprofile2016-17webreduced.pdf

Thanks. Pretty good list.