Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my middle school aged kid had a choice between my alma mater Andover, GDS or Thomas Jefferson, I'd urge him to attend TJ. That's not possible because we live on the Maryland side, but I have no doubt TJ would be the easy top choice. This is based only on quality and not costs.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/work-education/education/success-factory-inside-americas-best-high-school/

Did Andover or TJ have any alums named as Rhodes Scholars this year?

I have no idea and won't bother to look. I heard recently of a woman at Stanford who is a Richard Montgomery HS alum who was just awarded the Rhodes Scholarship. I don't spend any worries over kids from dear old Andover getting a Rhodes. Not real critical in my daily life or for Andover itself, I can assure you of that. Andover doesn't have any challenges over being perceived as an elite school. Call it arrogance, it just isn't a topic at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my middle school aged kid had a choice between my alma mater Andover, GDS or Thomas Jefferson, I'd urge him to attend TJ. That's not possible because we live on the Maryland side, but I have no doubt TJ would be the easy top choice. This is based only on quality and not costs.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/work-education/education/success-factory-inside-americas-best-high-school/

Did Andover or TJ have any alums named as Rhodes Scholars this year?

Oh please, enough with the Rhodes kid. The GDS Rhodes scholar is a great kid, but he only attended GDS for a couple years. I honestly doubt if those two years changed his trajectory in any significant way. I'm sure GDS, TJ, Sidwell, St. Albans and Andover all have a few Rhodes scholars in their ranks over the years. It's a great honor, but it says more about the kid than the school he/she attended.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I appreciate your stats and links, they do not proof up any of your claims about college admissions. Awaiting proof.

Here it is for one year, 2014. Pretty mind boggling. Note they only highlight the schools where the acceptance count is over 10.

Their website lists it by year, and you can fill in any blanks for the other years. Just one sample like this is a pretty jarring statistic. What an amazing school.
https://www.tjhsst.edu/abouttj/schoolprofile/docs/2014-15TJHSST%20Profile.pdf

I'm not sure what the 2014 acceptance list is supposed to show. I guess it shows a lot of TJ kids admitted to Virginia state colleges, but not much else. It clearly doesn't support your earlier claims where you tried to compare TJ to other local high schools. Your claims are clearly made-up, and impossible to prove, because most of the local private schools keep their college numbers private.

But let me help you out here. Below are links to TJ's college results from 2015, and to St. Albans's list of top destinations for their grads. Other "big 3" schools don't publicize their college results, but I'd guess they're pretty comparable to St. Albans.
http://issuu.com/tjtoday/docs/tjtoday_2015_senior_issue/15?e=4302964/13960193
http://www.stalbansschool.org/Page/About/At-a-Glance
The St. Albans numbers are for a five-year period, but TJ is about six times bigger than St. Albans, so that's a pretty close comparison even if it does give TJ a head start. So let's compare!

TJ vs Private
Stanford - 6 vs 9
Berkeley - 6 vs ??? (less than 6)
MIT - 8 vs ??? (less than 6)
Michigan - 18 vs 11
UVA - 81 vs 9 (in-state, so not surprising)
Princeton - 5 vs 6
Columbia - 4 vs 11
Cornell - 14 vs 7
Penn - 2 vs 13
Yale - 1 vs 16
Harvard - 3 vs 18
Chicago - 8 vs 15

Obviously a pretty blunt comparison, but closer than anything you've offered. Shall we just agree that all these top high school seem to be pretty good at getting top students admitted to strong college programs?

Anonymous wrote:If my middle school aged kid had a choice between my alma mater Andover, GDS or Thomas Jefferson, I'd urge him to attend TJ. That's not possible because we live on the Maryland side, but I have no doubt TJ would be the easy top choice. This is based only on quality and not costs.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/work-education/education/success-factory-inside-americas-best-high-school/

Did Andover or TJ have any alums named as Rhodes Scholars this year?

If my middle school aged kid had a choice between my alma mater Andover, GDS or Thomas Jefferson, I'd urge him to attend TJ. That's not possible because we live on the Maryland side, but I have no doubt TJ would be the easy top choice. This is based only on quality and not costs.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/work-education/education/success-factory-inside-americas-best-high-school/

Anonymous wrote:While I appreciate your stats and links, they do not proof up any of your claims about college admissions. Awaiting proof.

Here it is for one year, 2014. Pretty mind boggling. Note they only highlight the schools where the acceptance count is over 10.

Their website lists it by year, and you can fill in any blanks for the other years. Just one sample like this is a pretty jarring statistic. What an amazing school.

While I appreciate your stats and links, they do not proof up any of your claims about college admissions. Awaiting proof.

Some stats for Thomas Jefferson.

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/districts/fairfax-county-public-schools/thomas-jefferson-high-school-for-science-and-technology-20461

It is a large test in magnet high school with the highest avg SATs in the area with a 65% Asian student body. Not surprising that is blows the big three out of the water, individually and combined.

The private prep schools that have similar stats for colleges are:

http://successfulstudent.org/26-best-private-schools-2014/

Anonymous wrote:It's also notable that the most impressive overall matriculation list school in the DMV is Thomas Jefferson in Fairfax Co. In the past 5 years TJ has placed more kids to M.I.T. than the Big 3 combined.

What happens next is someone writes that M.I.T. isn't an Ivy. Well, neither is Stanford. TJ also sends more kids to Stanford than any Big 3. Same for UVA, Univ Michigan, Univ Cal Berkeley. See what I did there? Just saved this board 4-7 pages of pathetic one-up poster tennis.

Proof please. I don't think your summary is accurate.

It works well if you are a top student at a strong public school in MoCo or Fairfax Co to name two. Top students at Richard Montgomery, Whitman, Oakton, Langley, etc. do fabulously well. Quite honestly I don't get why anyone would note otherwise unless a blinders-on cheerleader for the prep route. Preps do afford kids opportunities, but those same opportunities are evident for top public school kids.

It's also notable that the most impressive overall matriculation list school in the DMV is Thomas Jefferson in Fairfax Co. In the past 5 years TJ has placed more kids to M.I.T. than the Big 3 combined.

What happens next is someone writes that M.I.T. isn't an Ivy. Well, neither is Stanford. TJ also sends more kids to Stanford than any Big 3. Same for UVA, Univ Michigan, Univ Cal Berkeley. See what I did there? Just saved this board 4-7 pages of pathetic one-up poster tennis.

It is sufficient to note that a great college education is obtainable to any top student. I went to Andover and quite honestly, this isn't the 1970s anymore there or anywhere else. Andover still has numbers to brag on when that is called for in the brochures. But it isn't anything like it used to be. My class at Andover sent 46 kids to Harvard. That was pretty silly, and even the bluest of blue bloods knew that wasn't going to be forever. Those figures have at least halved over the last quarter century.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Demonstrates insecurity, if you ask me.

You can't argue with success.

I might agree, but I have yet to see evidence of such success.

Anonymous wrote:Demonstrates insecurity, if you ask me.

You can't argue with success. The insecurity, if you ask me, is on the part of parents who may now regret the different educational choices they made for their children.

Anonymous wrote:I went to an elite private school in New England (not one of the ultra elite) but one that regularly sent 8 kids to yale, 5 kids to Harvard, 1-2 to Princeton, etc. I was not even in the top 20% of my class and still went to Cornell. (Cue the comments about how Cornell is not a real Ivy).

When you go to a school like that, you basically just compete with your classmates. You're competing for the 3-5 slots they will give to the kids from your school. If you're sure that your kid is so special they will rise to the top of an ultra competitive place, then great.

In terms of admissions, you would be better off being a star at a decent (but not crazy) public school.

Now, you'll probably be better prepared for college if you go to private school.

Not around here. That'll only work if you are living in Montana, N. Dakota, or some other place like it in flyover country. It will NOT work if you live in Illinois or even Ohio unless you are top 10% and come from a known great school system like Shaker Heights outside of Cleveland or New Trier outside Chicago.

I went to an elite private school in New England (not one of the ultra elite) but one that regularly sent 8 kids to yale, 5 kids to Harvard, 1-2 to Princeton, etc. I was not even in the top 20% of my class and still went to Cornell. (Cue the comments about how Cornell is not a real Ivy).

When you go to a school like that, you basically just compete with your classmates. You're competing for the 3-5 slots they will give to the kids from your school. If you're sure that your kid is so special they will rise to the top of an ultra competitive place, then great.

In terms of admissions, you would be better off being a star at a decent (but not crazy) public school.

Now, you'll probably be better prepared for college if you go to private school.