Anonymous
Post 09/07/2012 09:34     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Honestly, it seems like most people on this board think any home 10 plus years old is dated/ out of style. The newer craftsman all around Vienna are 1 plus million. If you want a house under 1 million, most likely it will be dated (either it's exterior or interior). Very, very few aren't and those that aren't are really hard to get.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2012 16:11     Subject: Re:trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:The Woodson pyramid is out of style homes and not a desireable locafion, too close to Annandale. Archer is better. But really buy a place close to the HS you desire as not to get redistricted. We are Oakton HS pyramid, awesome school!


And the homes around Archer are not out of style???
Anonymous
Post 09/05/2012 16:55     Subject: Re:trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
The Woodson pyramid is out of style homes and not a desireable locafion, too close to Annandale. Archer is better. But really buy a place close to the HS you desire as not to get redistricted. We are Oakton HS pyramid, awesome school!
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 10:14     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:You seem to think you are talking to one person, when there seem to be many, many posters to this thread.
It has become apparent that you live in the Woodson Pyramid. It's a great school, but I'm not sure why you care so much whether it is above or below Marshall specifically. So. Go ahead and proclaim Woodson's praises. And when everyone believes you, we'll just sit back and watch it become overcrowded and then you'll get redistricted.


Yes, there are many posters on this thread. There is one poster who keeps looking for ways in varoius threads to elevate Marshall over other area schools by invoking the US News survey, and perhaps 1-2 others who know the survey is BS and would never bring it up, but have other positive things to say about the school.

I have no idea what your last sentence means. Woodson recently was renovated and its capacity was expanded to accommodate over 2300 students. There is no expectation that it will be overcrowded any time soon. And I have no fear whatsoever of being redistricted.

Marshall would not have come up in this thread at all, but for the fact that the Marshall poster falsely suggested that affluent people no longer want to live in the Woodson district and that the school's fortunes had faded relative to Marshall. I didn't go on the attack; I responded to the false suggestions.
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 10:05     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:Pimmit Hills is turning into a neighborhood of McMansions. People are spending $400,000+ to buy a half acre lot less than a mile from Tyson's, tearing down the old ramblers and building ridiculously huge houses. This is not the Pimmit Hills of the 80's.


It's not, but the majority of the houses in Pimmit Hills today are the original homes from the 1950s, with some additions, not new homes. And the quality of the new construction varies widely - some of the teardowns are very nice, while some of the new construction consists of some of the most garish McMansions to be found in the DC region. My impression is that the new homes that have gone up within the past 1-3 years are nicer than the new ones that were built over most of the past decade.
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 10:04     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
You're very uninformed. Neighborhoods other than Pimmit Hills feed into Marshall. You have some strange bee in your bonnet about Marshall. Care to share with us where your hatred for Marshall came from?


I don't hate Marshall at all; far from it. It's a good school. I do dislike it when people trot out rankings that they know are flawed, as part of an effort to hijack a thread. The OP wasn't asking about schools in the Marshall pyramid, but instead about schools in the McLean, Woodson and Madison pyramids. You started off by claiming that affluent people don't live in the Woodson pyramid any more, which is also clearly wrong, and then followed up by citing the latest US News rankings, which have been pilloried in the media for their inaccuracies, to suggest Marshall is the best HS in the county other than TJ. In Marshall's case, US News inaccurately assumed that 99% of recent Marshall graduates took 1 or more IB courses, which is absurd. No one around here believes that, but it's one of the underpinnings of the US News methodology. Fix that assumption and you get different rankings.

The goal of your posts seems to be to discredit Woodson and convince the OP that Marshall is now the better school. That's not the case, so deal with it. There are good things to be said about Marshall, but people are probably not going to hear them from you, since all you seem to be capable of doing is citing one flawed study by a financially strapped publication.



You seem to think you are talking to one person, when there seem to be many, many posters to this thread.
It has become apparent that you live in the Woodson Pyramid. It's a great school, but I'm not sure why you care so much whether it is above or below Marshall specifically. So. Go ahead and proclaim Woodson's praises. And when everyone believes you, we'll just sit back and watch it become overcrowded and then you'll get redistricted.
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 10:01     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:Marshall had issues 10-20 years ago. Basically, it was demographically screwed. That changed has housing prices skyrocketed. Now, the "demographically challenged" neighborhoods are more upscale.

I think Marshall is a good example of how hard it is to change a reputation.

With IB, is seems to be a very good school. (I do not like its location, but that is a separate issue). FWIW, my DD will go to Madison (we are within walking distance).


It's not just that the "demographically challenged" neighborhoods from 20 years ago are more upscale, but also that a lot of new neighborhoods were built in parts of Dunn Loring and Vienna that feed into Marshall.

It's a good school and it's currently getting a very nice renovation. Jay Pearson is also an excellent principal. He cares about kids and the appearance of the school. His predecessors didn't seem to require teachers to keep their classrooms very tidy, so you'd see all sorts of junk in the windows when you drove by on Leesburg Pike.

I think the location is fine. The boundaries are pretty arbitrary, though, and include Pimmit Hills, the Idylwood section of Falls Church, Dunn Loring, and a wide swath of 22182 in Vienna. The boundaries for schools like Madison and McLean are more compact, so those schools do get more community support and support from local businesses in Vienna and McLean.

If the OP also wanted to consider schools like Shrevewood, Stenwood, Freedom Hill and Westbriar, I expect she'd be happy as well. But she didn't ask about those schools.
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 09:59     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Pimmit Hills is turning into a neighborhood of McMansions. People are spending $400,000+ to buy a half acre lot less than a mile from Tyson's, tearing down the old ramblers and building ridiculously huge houses. This is not the Pimmit Hills of the 80's.
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 09:52     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:
You're very uninformed. Neighborhoods other than Pimmit Hills feed into Marshall. You have some strange bee in your bonnet about Marshall. Care to share with us where your hatred for Marshall came from?


I don't hate Marshall at all; far from it. It's a good school. I do dislike it when people trot out rankings that they know are flawed, as part of an effort to hijack a thread. The OP wasn't asking about schools in the Marshall pyramid, but instead about schools in the McLean, Woodson and Madison pyramids. You started off by claiming that affluent people don't live in the Woodson pyramid any more, which is also clearly wrong, and then followed up by citing the latest US News rankings, which have been pilloried in the media for their inaccuracies, to suggest Marshall is the best HS in the county other than TJ. In Marshall's case, US News inaccurately assumed that 99% of recent Marshall graduates took 1 or more IB courses, which is absurd. No one around here believes that, but it's one of the underpinnings of the US News methodology. Fix that assumption and you get different rankings.

The goal of your posts seems to be to discredit Woodson and convince the OP that Marshall is now the better school. That's not the case, so deal with it. There are good things to be said about Marshall, but people are probably not going to hear them from you, since all you seem to be capable of doing is citing one flawed study by a financially strapped publication.

Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 07:44     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The current top 5 in Fairfax County according to US news are...

Marshall
McLean
Robinson
Langley
Woodson



You again? Give it a rest. No one who actually lives around here thinks Marshall is one of the top five HS in the county.

Anyway, apart from a couple of neighborhoods that feed into Vienna ES, the schools that the OP is asking about feed into other high schools. Maybe she just doesn't want to live in Pimmit Hills.


You're very uninformed. Neighborhoods other than Pimmit Hills feed into Marshall. You have some strange bee in your bonnet about Marshall. Care to share with us where your hatred for Marshall came from?
Anonymous
Post 08/17/2012 06:17     Subject: trying to choose between Haycock, Mantua and Archer ES--any feedback?
Marshall had issues 10-20 years ago. Basically, it was demographically screwed. That changed has housing prices skyrocketed. Now, the "demographically challenged" neighborhoods are more upscale.

I think Marshall is a good example of how hard it is to change a reputation.

With IB, is seems to be a very good school. (I do not like its location, but that is a separate issue). FWIW, my DD will go to Madison (we are within walking distance).