Anonymous wrote:I am AA and have 2 kids. From your OP it's hard to tell if you have your house already picked out. You cannot easily go to a different FCPS school. I don't think the private schools have much more diversity.

When we moved from another part of nova, we were debating between Madison and Marshall pyramids. We picked Marshall and we are so thankful for it. Vienna is very white. It's also a much longer commute into dc. Not mileage wise, but traffic-wise. Where are you coming from? I will say there is the occasional overt racism in Northern Virginia, but a litany of microaggressions. The people who are on here telling you they never see racism live a different reality than you and me.

It would be good if your kid could have a diverse friend group. You are right that the top schools in FCPS all have low AA percentages. My kids have an extremely diverse friend group, mostly south Asian, East Asian, and white. My son doesn't care. My daughter wishes she had more black friends.

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Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

DP and it is true but can be a little extreme. Your kid will have opportunities in every area. I didn’t grow up in this area and it’s unbelievable how competitive it is. DC doesn’t mind it. But sometimes DH and I do and this is why we wonder if we should have sent them to Marshall.

But you Vienna a great town for kids. If they play any sports, are in band or theater and are VERY competitive, you will like Madison.

Thanks for that random dig at Marshall. Marshall is highly competitive also. All of high income areas of NOVA are like this. Pretty sure Marshall ranks higher than Madison most years.

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Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

DP and it is true but can be a little extreme. Your kid will have opportunities in every area. I didn’t grow up in this area and it’s unbelievable how competitive it is. DC doesn’t mind it. But sometimes DH and I do and this is why we wonder if we should have sent them to Marshall.

But you Vienna a great town for kids. If they play any sports, are in band or theater and are VERY competitive, you will like Madison.

Further to my post above - Marshall ranked higher than Madison https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/rankings

DP. Marshall games the U.S. News ratings by pushing kids into IB English courses as juniors and seniors, unless they are English-language learners. Madison doesn’t play that game and offers regular, Honors, and AP English courses.

I prefer Madison’s approach to a system where kids end up in a course they probably shouldn’t be taking just to boost a school’s ratings. Madison still has higher SAT scores than Marshall.

Anonymous wrote:We live in Vienna and am not AA but my kids have had a good childhood. I like our neighborhood and the town. If I could do it over, I would have bought in the same area but in a neighborhood a few blocks over and sent them to Marshall. So many of their friends ended up going there instead of Madison and it’s slightly more diverse and down to earth. The only downside is it’s IB instead of AP.

But Madison is fine too. There is more diversity than people lead you to believe on this forum.

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Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

DP and it is true but can be a little extreme. Your kid will have opportunities in every area. I didn’t grow up in this area and it’s unbelievable how competitive it is. DC doesn’t mind it. But sometimes DH and I do and this is why we wonder if we should have sent them to Marshall.

But you Vienna a great town for kids. If they play any sports, are in band or theater and are VERY competitive, you will like Madison.

Further to my post above - Marshall ranked higher than Madison https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/rankings

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

DP and it is true but can be a little extreme. Your kid will have opportunities in every area. I didn’t grow up in this area and it’s unbelievable how competitive it is. DC doesn’t mind it. But sometimes DH and I do and this is why we wonder if we should have sent them to Marshall.

But you Vienna a great town for kids. If they play any sports, are in band or theater and are VERY competitive, you will like Madison.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

DP and it is true but can be a little extreme. Your kid will have opportunities in every area. I didn’t grow up in this area and it’s unbelievable how competitive it is. DC doesn’t mind it. But sometimes DH and I do and this is why we wonder if we should have sent them to Marshall.

But you Vienna a great town for kids. If they play any sports, are in band or theater and are VERY competitive, you will like Madison.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.

OP Here; That actually sounds amazing

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Anonymous wrote:We are an AA family in Vienna - it’s true that it’s VERY white. If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably move to Reston. Same general area but a much more diverse population.

Its on the edge of Reston so theoretically South Lakes would be workable; it just didnt seem like one of the better schoools in any particular metric?

We are at SLHS. It is a fine school, many great teachers, students and teachers are diverse, and the college-bound students from families who prioritize rigor do very well. DS is heading to a T20 next fall.

The school is almost like 2 schools in 1. It has the IB program and rigor, and also more economically diverse and includes larger numbers of students who are ELL and/or low income and that definitely affects “scores” but it is not a worse school than others in FCPS. There can be benefits to attending a school where not everyone is trying for UVA or higher.

If you are afraid of your kid being influenced by the non college bound types then you understandably have difficult decisions to make.

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Anonymous wrote:We are an AA family in Vienna - it’s true that it’s VERY white. If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably move to Reston. Same general area but a much more diverse population.

Its on the edge of Reston so theoretically South Lakes would be workable; it just didnt seem like one of the better schoools in any particular metric?

We are at SLHS. It is a fine school, many great teachers, students and teachers are diverse, and the college-bound students from families who prioritize rigor do very well. DS is heading to a T20 next fall.

The school is almost like 2 schools in 1. It has the IB program and rigor, and also more economically diverse and includes larger numbers of students who are ELL and/or low income and that definitely affects “scores” but it is not a worse school than others in FCPS. There can be benefits to attending a school where not everyone is trying for UVA or higher.

If you are afraid of your kid being influenced by the non college bound types then you understandably have difficult decisions to make.

This is great information and a very useful datapoint imo. Thank you

Anonymous wrote:I teach in Vienna. I am not AA but have not seen any racism in Vienna elementary schools. I have only seen kids being inclusive. This includes Vienna ES, Louise Archer ES, and Westbriar ES.

Anonymous wrote:The Vienna community is not at all relaxed. It is hyper competitive on youth sports, academics, wealth, popularity and pretty much anything else people can be competitive about.