Anonymous wrote:Yes. Arlington schools are terrible. Do not move there.

I don't think that's true, but I also don't think it really matter anymore in terms of college admissions. Colleges don't want kids from Arlington, so how ever good the schools are doesn't matter much.

Yes. Arlington schools are terrible. Do not move there.

Anonymous wrote:The shift seems to have moved from legacies to first-gen.

+1

It's tough even for legacy kids.

The shift seems to have moved from legacies to first-gen.

If there's actually little to no measurable impact on college admissions, why the crazy focus on living in district with a "10" high school or whatever. Why not be a big fish in a district with a 5 high school instead? From the looks of it colleges actively avoid taking too many arlingtonian kids. I guess what I dont understand is how can these schools have such great ratings if the results are pretty much the same for the students wherever they go to high school?

DH and I were surprised not more admitted as legacies. You would think plenty of legacies in Arlington.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The list is fine. No public school is going to have the outcomes of an elite private filled exclusively with hand-picked kids and the ability to tell any troublemakers to move on.

My takeaway? These kids are applying to a lot of schools!

Having sent my kid to one of those schools, I can tell you that the education was good, but nothing you do is going to change the fact that most kids aren’t all that elite anywhere.

I definitely was surprised to see that the kids from the HS in Bethesda Magazine list apply to a large variety of schools across the country in large numbers. This is less true of the Arlington schools. Some of that can be explained by the strong in-state options in VA, but it’s still a bit surprising given how much wealth there is in Arlington.

That's true for all NoVA schools (minus TJ). The admissions to top 15 schools is pathetic compared to other areas of the country.

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top ranked college (not as an athlete) and don't expect my kids to get in. They are smarter than me and better educated than me already in APS. I have come to accept it even though they're only in middle school.

Same. Ivy undergrad and grad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These numbers are truly awful. Of course, it’s great to have UVA as an amazing in state option (and a wonderful option in W&M too), but other than that ...whoa. The best high school in Arlington would be a mediocre high school in FCPS. What is wrong with this school system? There are so many type a people on this county who micromanage their kids’ lives. All for what? Tulane?

McLean HSs weren’t any different when they used to publish their #s.

I’m pretty sure the McLean HS publishes in the senior destinations issue were much better than these. And that’s only self reporting so some choose not to report. Considering the legacy and money in arlington, these numbers are truly awful.

The last time they published in Arlington Magazine they weren't.

Please feel free to post data for us to compare.

I went to a top ranked college (not as an athlete) and don't expect my kids to get in. They are smarter than me and better educated than me already in APS. I have come to accept it even though they're only in middle school.

Anonymous wrote:Bloodbath

Can we stop using this word about college admissions?

In a world where one can use the word "bloodbath" referring to an event at a school literally, it bothers me to no end that people use it when they are disappointed about which colleges privileged children were accepted to. At the end of the day, those kids still have a future that will most likely be pretty bright, and they are coming home safely to their families. Not the end of the world for anyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What these tell me is that a ton of kids at W-L and Yorktown apply where they shouldn’t bother. Look at the UVA numbers and compare that to the size of the class. Some of those kids were never remotely good enough and wasted their money.

Nope. It's that they are in a pool of lots and lots of kids who are equally qualified. Many of these kids who were rejected likely would have been accepted had they attended Podunk HS in rural Virginia, where they might have been a big fish instead of being one of many many little fish in the Arlington schools. This is the downside of a good school system, and the incredibly negative impact of megaschools. UVA is only going to accept just so many kids from a given school. The larger the student body, the less chance your child has of being one of those.

Agree with first poster above, having had 3 DCs apply to Uva and 2 accepted from W-L. UVA consistently accepts HS students who are in the top 10% of their class. Anyone who pays attention to UVa admissions should know this; it is not a secret. Yet, based on enrollment numbers at W-L and Yorktown as of June 2019, 30% of W-L students applied to UVa and 35% of Yorktown students applied to UVa. That means a significant amount of those applicants did not have much of a chance of acceptance. There is a pretty big difference at both W-L and Yorktown between top 10% and top 30%. Perhaps someone graduating from W-L in the top 30% would have been in the top 10% at "Podunk HS in rural Virginia" and had a better chance of acceptance but that's not how admission to UVa generally works. The comment that "UVa is only going to accept just so many kids from a given school" is not true. More accurate is UVa is only going to accept kids in the top 10% of any given school.

This is really bad.

I believe 14-15 were going to ivies or Stanford last year from McLean.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These numbers are truly awful. Of course, it’s great to have UVA as an amazing in state option (and a wonderful option in W&M too), but other than that ...whoa. The best high school in Arlington would be a mediocre high school in FCPS. What is wrong with this school system? There are so many type a people on this county who micromanage their kids’ lives. All for what? Tulane?

McLean HSs weren’t any different when they used to publish their #s.

I’m pretty sure the McLean HS publishes in the senior destinations issue were much better than these. And that’s only self reporting so some choose not to report. Considering the legacy and money in arlington, these numbers are truly awful.