Our four kids went to North Arlington publics (Yorktown/W-L/HB Woodlawn). A handful of grads went to Ivies, a few more went to other top 20 privates, and a few others went to top LACs. I have no doubt these numbers would be quite a bit higher without UVA or William & Mary and in state tuition. One of my own kids turned down a top 20 for UVA, and another turned down W&M only because they were offered a large merit award from a top 15 LAC.

The point is that the college choices that you're seeing don't mean that the kids can't get into the top privates -- it's that they're either not applying or not choosing them because of the excellent in state options. We are talking about public school families. They just don't place the premium on private colleges that private school families do.

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone is spending more money or substantially more money when they go to a better ranked school outside of Virginia.

Btw, the provincial bent of these "only in-state" promoters is the very reason students might be better off somewhere else.

Agree and if that’s your/your kid’s jam, go for it.

FWIW, I don’t think anyone argues that kids should “only” stay in state, just that they are not destined for a life of mediocrity if they do. College isn’t the only opportunity to explore the rest of the country/world.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which school?

Not naming the school. A northern virginia public high school that is not bad but not one of the fancy ones.

So ridiculous. Not playing your game unless you name the school. Big difference between West Potomac and Madison. This is anonymous. Why would be secretive?

Agree. Classes are 600 strong. No reason to not share the name. Anyway, I'm sure most of your insider knowledge is bogus. That's probably why you don't want to name the school.

This isn’t an airport. No need to announce your departure from this thread.

Such a tired and unoriginal response.

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone is spending more money or substantially more money when they go to a better ranked school outside of Virginia.

Btw, the provincial bent of these "only in-state" promoters is the very reason students might be better off somewhere else.

If they are saving money going to a school ranked higher than UVA, they likely have high demonstrated need. Ie: not most posters on DCUM.

Everyone here appears like a striver and wants to feel like their kid's future college is special. Not some generic state school that's just ok.

It's simple statistics that the vast majority of kids are average and therefore will go to an average school.

If an average student somehow was allowed into a T10 school they would presumably do poorly as they wouldn't be able to keep up with the others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which school?

Not naming the school. A northern virginia public high school that is not bad but not one of the fancy ones.

So ridiculous. Not playing your game unless you name the school. Big difference between West Potomac and Madison. This is anonymous. Why would be secretive?

Agree. Classes are 600 strong. No reason to not share the name. Anyway, I'm sure most of your insider knowledge is bogus. That's probably why you don't want to name the school.

This isn’t an airport. No need to announce your departure from this thread.

This board is more neurotic and anxious than my HS parent community.

College admissions should be like dating to see who you want to be in a monogamous relationship with for 4 years, not a competition between 10,000 people worldwide for the same 40 partners.

We need to widen the field. The overfocus on 40 schools is unhealthy.

Not everyone is spending more money or substantially more money when they go to a better ranked school outside of Virginia.

Btw, the provincial bent of these "only in-state" promoters is the very reason students might be better off somewhere else.

Virginia has the benefit of having so many good public options. It's basically Virginia, California, Michigan, Texas, and North Carolina that have terrific publics for nearly all the good students.

Why would anyone spend an extra $300,000 for undergrad if you have UVA, Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, and UNC as options?

But that's five states out of fifty. Students in New York, Connecticut, Ohio and so on are working with different realities. And the better students in those states tend to look at a lot more OOS schools than students in Virginia do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which school?

Not naming the school. A northern virginia public high school that is not bad but not one of the fancy ones.

So ridiculous. Not playing your game unless you name the school. Big difference between West Potomac and Madison. This is anonymous. Why would be secretive?

Agree. Classes are 600 strong. No reason to not share the name. Anyway, I'm sure most of your insider knowledge is bogus. That's probably why you don't want to name the school.

My kid is a freshman at college from an APS school. They know tons of kids at UVA. There are probably about 20 in the T25 (Vandy, UMich, Cornell, Emory, etc). Other than Cornell, Ivies are super rare and no one ever gets into Stanford.

Of course, you see a ton going to W&M (popular ED), VT and JMU. I don't see a large number at other VA state schools. U of SC was very popular a previous year, but less so this past year.

My DD graduated FCPS in the spring, so she and her friends are college freshmen now. She graduated from a big public secondary school, and only a handful of her classmates are attending Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Wake Forest, W&L, Richmond or other privates. Slightly more at UVA, but not as many as I would have expected. A few at W&M. Many more, including some of the very top students at her school, are attending Virginia Tech, JMU, VCU, and GMU. From what DD says, a lot of them were interested in very specific majors and chose their school based on rep in a particular field, as well as cost. Many got merit aid and are attending with the idea that they’ll use the cost savings for grad school.

This board is the distilled essence of tiger parents. Every one of the posters, even those who decry tiger parenting. So, yes DCUM is not representative of either NOVA or any part of USA.

Anonymous wrote:We go to a Virginia public HS that is not Langley/Oakton/McLean/etc.

Top kids are looking at maybe Duke/Cornell/Darmouth but maybe 1-2 kids a year go to a T15 school. Maybe 20 or so kids a class go to UVA, another 40 go to Tech, same for JMU, a sprinkling go to W&M if they want a small school. Then you have the party kids going to big southern state schools. Then you have the kids that didn't get into JMU who are at Longwood, CNU, etc.

Is this what others are seeing?

This is like our public NOVA school (Loudoun County).

I'd say the UVA group might lower- like 15 (the kids who got rejected or waitlisted were so smart too), only a handful for William and Mary (5 or so), and then 40 for JMU and Tech, with another 20 or so for VCU. A huge group - and this has grown recently- has opted to go to George Mason. My daughter had a few friends who got a full tuition scholarship there. Like your school, there was one Ivy and two USC and a scattering of SEC schools.

Why would anyone want to encourage their children to go OOS

To broaden their experience? It's a big wide world out there.