We had one high school where I grew up and everyone had the same class. No real electives and no AP classes. We have a range from doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, PhDs to home makers. Exactly what you would expect with any group of students.

Has anyone actually stopped to ask people at work how they got there. Obviously some careers require specialized education but I work with in information technology consulting. I am the only scientist (PhD) on the team. I was talking to the developers and they range from basic degrees to advanced with mostly on the job experience. The team leads range from developers, science masters to a woman who has a 4 year community college degree with many years working her way up. I feel like people on DCUM would assume a not so great school would prevent you from going to a good school but the reality is the Ivy League grad is working beside the community college grad in our office and both are happy and both consider themselves successful. They have the same position. The only real difference is the debt from school and probably the speed they got to the position. Although the community college grad was a SAHM for several years so I would think that was the bigger factor in slowing down her career.

Just food for thought because where I grew up nobody cared about where you went to college or what high school you went to. It was only how capable you are in your job and how well you work with the team. Now that I have a child in this area we just had to make the decision where to live and we actually wanted diversity over a 'top school'. I felt my child can be successful regardless of the school if she is motivated, works hard, and is exposed to people of all walks of life to learn what interesting opportunities are out there in the career world (I pesonally think a museum curator would be a very fun job but wouldn't even realize that existed where I grew up).

I looked up my 10 schools I attended. The low was 8. My HS was a 9, and is in the top 100 from US News and World Report, and #3 in the state.

And I was a really bad student. Smart, but really bad.

Eh, selection bias. I am guessing none of these high performing low score schools taught much math?

GS scores don't compare across state lines, and AP acts as a school within a school with standardized curriculum.

This can also be reversed. One of my closest friends has sent her snowflake to some of the best privates in DC. He's a senior this year and has been rejected from almost all of the schools he applied to. He was thankfully waitlisted at one bottom tier school and accepted at one that I had never heard of.

Going to a top-ranked high school doesn't guarantee anything, no matter how much you pay.

My siblings and I went to terrible public schools. Three ivy grads, one w a phd here . . .

IT DOES NOT MATTER HALF AS MUCH AS ALL THE NEUROTIC PEOPLE AROUND HERE THINK. Your kid will likely conform to family culture provided they have the iq.

How do they rank these? My old high school is a 9-- which is surprising.

Test scores. That's why private schools don't have rankings.

When I was a kid, I know my mom paid attention to school systems because my parents partially bought in CCDC because Lafayette was at the time one of the few DCPS schools that they considered acceptable, but there was less information easily accessible. I know people still looked up and compared standardized test scores, because I vaguely remember hearing some muttering among parents about how one year Lafayette tested better in reading and Janney tested better in math or something like that, but you had to actually make an effort to look it up, or read some school mailing rather than having it all distilled into a number on some website. There was a lot more word of mouth about which schools were good.

My high school in the South is a 5. But I never took any classes outside of Honors/Advanced Placement. As long as there is ab adequate amount of AP classes and you get credit, I don't think it matters.

How do they rank these? My old high school is a 9-- which is surprising.

Anonymous wrote:I just looked up my old high school in Wisconsin and it's a 5, and it's somewhere I'd have no problem whatsoever sending my kids, and probably would have had we not moved. Yet, the high schools ranked 5 in MoCo (Springbrook, Paint Branch, etc.) I wouldn't consider.

I wonder what the difference is.

Gee, I wonder.

Anonymous wrote:My old HS in the Midwest is a 3. However, I've heard its gone downhill since I was there 25+ years ago. Now apparently a lot of families live in the next town over where the high school is better. Too bad.

+1. This is me, exactly. The Midwest has seri
ous brain drain.

Do people really care what the great schools ratings are? That is not how I'd evaluate schools.

Anonymous wrote:it kind of blew my mind. Obviously, I have no idea what it would have been when I went there, but now it's a 3. A 3. I would never let my kid go to a 3 high school (perhaps for elementary school depending on various things, but not likely). And yet, I turned out ok. I went to a top 5 law school anyway and am gainfully employed. Maybe it doesn't matter after all?

Allderdice!

I just looked up my old high school in Wisconsin and it's a 5, and it's somewhere I'd have no problem whatsoever sending my kids, and probably would have had we not moved. Yet, the high schools ranked 5 in MoCo (Springbrook, Paint Branch, etc.) I wouldn't consider.

I wonder what the difference is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it kind of blew my mind. Obviously, I have no idea what it would have been when I went there, but now it's a 3. A 3. I would never let my kid go to a 3 high school (perhaps for elementary school depending on various things, but not likely). And yet, I turned out ok. I went to a top 5 law school anyway and am gainfully employed. Maybe it doesn't matter after all?

I think this.

Isn't "great schools" as reliable as Yelp in any case?

As reliable as test scores per school compared state-wide.