Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can stretch to get into the Langley district, and you’ll find that it’s still a public school, just with more kids with more money to spend on clothes and drugs. Langley is no better academically than Fairfax, and does not have an academy program like Fairfax and Chantilly.

Will your kids be part of the social circle or feel left out because that is not a lot of money around Langley?

Actually- that’s right around the same as most kids. Probably more. Rich kids in great falls don’t go to Langley. A lot of people whose kids go to Langley bought their homes years ago when the houses cost a lot less - definitely <1 mil.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I would be so upset if my parents moved me a few miles down the road just before high school for these reasons. OP, does your oldest support this??

I would never live in an area where my kid’s sense of what is poor would be distorted. You are not poor! But your kid may start to think that as you go on beach vacations while others are going to Europe etc. and it seems like you are a social striver, so you will only make things worse. It might be fine if you didn’t already care about that kind of stuff. But you do.

+1. I can't think of anything worse for a teenager to move them as a rising high school student to an area like Great Falls where the houses are spread out, there's nothing to do, and most of the other kids already know each other and come from families with more money. Chantilly would be so much more normal.

Wow, I would be so upset if my parents moved me a few miles down the road just before high school for these reasons. OP, does your oldest support this??

I would never live in an area where my kid’s sense of what is poor would be distorted. You are not poor! But your kid may start to think that as you go on beach vacations while others are going to Europe etc. and it seems like you are a social striver, so you will only make things worse. It might be fine if you didn’t already care about that kind of stuff. But you do.

Anonymous wrote:
Any advice on which route we should take?

If DC are going to be boy-crazy (or be a hot guy) and make friends and intensely into things like cheer, Chantilly all the way! If DC want to marry someone who "comes from money" and want to delegate employees/start a business and don't care about having a good time at their reunion, Langley it is!

Anonymous wrote:The asian immigrants in western fairfax are way better educated but less capitalized than the upper middle class or upper class residents of the great falls/near mclean area. You can't judge class in Fairfax county without an understanding of immigration patterns.

Look at test scores and academic performance to judge schools. Trying to do a class analysis and then reverse-engineer schooling is way less accurate than looking at scholactic performance variables directly.

Test scores judge the demographics of the student body, not the school itself. Judge a school by the administrators and teacher quality, which is much harder to do objectively. VDOE does provide some insight into how many teachers at each school are teaching out-of-field, are provisionally or fully licensed, and have Master's degrees. Harder to find good info about administrators.

The asian immigrants in western fairfax are way better educated but less capitalized than the upper middle class or upper class residents of the great falls/near mclean area. You can't judge class in Fairfax county without an understanding of immigration patterns.

Look at test scores and academic performance to judge schools. Trying to do a class analysis and then reverse-engineer schooling is way less accurate than looking at scholactic performance variables directly.

OP-I agree that peer groups matter. But instead of focusing of a wealthy peer group (which comes with its own set of issues), why not focus on a peer group that is academically driven? And you can find the latter in most FCPS high schools. There are many high schools in the area that will have a solid group of kids. McLean, Marshall, Madison, Chantilly, Oakton, West Springfield to name a few.

It is hard to start 9th grade without knowing anyone. It is also hard if your parents’ budget is so stretched from a mortgage that they don’t have the disposable income your peers’ families do.

Also, keep in mind that a huge portion of kids at Langley will be looking at private colleges as full pay students. Would you be able to do the same?

At $275K, your kids might feel more comfortable at Chantilly (or another school). Please separate your own person social climbing aspirations from what your kids want/need.

Anonymous wrote:You can stretch to get into the Langley district, and you’ll find that it’s still a public school, just with more kids with more money to spend on clothes and drugs. Langley is no better academically than Fairfax, and does not have an academy program like Fairfax and Chantilly.

Will your kids be part of the social circle or feel left out because that is not a lot of money around Langley?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say Chantilly until your post about your social status. Please stay away.

Pretty sure the OP is yet another troll, trying to stir up animosity among the Langley haters. It's beyond old.

I do think "TIA" at the end of a post like the OP here can sometimes be read as "have fun while I go get my popcorn" but in this case OP seemed legit. You never really know, so maybe err on the side of not insulting someone by calling them a troll.

OP here.
Sorry I didn’t want to create a stir and in noway demeaning the culture or any of these areas.
It was genuine attempt to understand the areas, but we are still split and will look at houses in both areas

And, thanks all for lot of good suggestions and providing insights.
I agree with the fact that we are getting more house for the money in Chantilly.

I guess my thought is this, when you retire, will you be glad that you gave up that extra $200,000 - $300,000 in retirement money potential for a house to attend Langley or McLean high school. I ask this as an adult who is looking at the cost of memory care for her parent and wondering if the amount that we are saving is enough. And we are already maxing out retirement funds as well as saving in other areas. And I know that the price difference is not a 1-1 exchange but my thought is that is money each month that could be saved in different places that will probably grow at a faster and more stable rate then home equity. And knowing that we will be less stressed if one of us loses a job with a smaller mortgage.

There are a lot of solid to great high schools in FCPS. If you focus on the quality of the education and not the wealth of the peer group you can probably find a happy medium. Networking works for some people but not all. And I am not certain the hanging with the kids of Langley establishes the type of network that you think that it might.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say Chantilly until your post about your social status. Please stay away.

Pretty sure the OP is yet another troll, trying to stir up animosity among the Langley haters. It's beyond old.

I do think "TIA" at the end of a post like the OP here can sometimes be read as "have fun while I go get my popcorn" but in this case OP seemed legit. You never really know, so maybe err on the side of not insulting someone by calling them a troll.

OP here.
Sorry I didn’t want to create a stir and in noway demeaning the culture or any of these areas.
It was genuine attempt to understand the areas, but we are still split and will look at houses in both areas

And, thanks all for lot of good suggestions and providing insights.
I agree with the fact that we are getting more house for the money in Chantilly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say Chantilly until your post about your social status. Please stay away.

Exactly - on middle class people actually worry about their social status being signaled through their neighborhood choice or public school - actually Chantilly has way strong STEM and a better cohort of physics-oriented students - so why would you go to Langley?

The truly rich people who can afford any house would stay where they feel the most comfortable and among people they enjoy.

There are way more convenient asian grocery stores near Chantilly than there are near Langley - why would an asian american who was secure enough in their wealth want to stay in Langley?

There's only one grocery store in the Langley area, a Safeway at Great Falls Village. You have to drive miles for anything.

Please don't bother posting if you can't stick to the truth. There is that Safeway, a Giant in McLean, a Harris Teeter near Tysons, and a Lidl coming to McLean.

Isn't the GFV Safeway is the only grocery store within Langley's boundaries? Other stores are in areas zoned to other schools.

Does FCPS monitor to make sure that you only go to a grocery store in your boundary?

(We shop at the Great Falls Safeway. It is more than adequate. And extremely convenient for those of us who live in GF. If we ever need a bigger or more unique store, there are plenty that are only a short drive away on Leesburg Pike or in Reston.)

+1
So bizarre.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those are two very different communities and your housing budget would place you in very different social places - you’d be rich at Chantilly and poor at Langley. What are your other priorities?

The OP would not be "poor" at Langley. We live in a house valued at about 1.1 million and don't feel poor. So absurd.

Wait until your kid starts driving and doesn’t understand why he can’t have one of the brand new cars like the others in the student lot.

My kidS are already driving and they share a ten year old Honda - like many of their friends. It's fun to make up stories about a school you know nothing about, isn't it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say Chantilly until your post about your social status. Please stay away.

Exactly - on middle class people actually worry about their social status being signaled through their neighborhood choice or public school - actually Chantilly has way strong STEM and a better cohort of physics-oriented students - so why would you go to Langley?

The truly rich people who can afford any house would stay where they feel the most comfortable and among people they enjoy.

There are way more convenient asian grocery stores near Chantilly than there are near Langley - why would an asian american who was secure enough in their wealth want to stay in Langley?

There's only one grocery store in the Langley area, a Safeway at Great Falls Village. You have to drive miles for anything.

Please don't bother posting if you can't stick to the truth. There is that Safeway, a Giant in McLean, a Harris Teeter near Tysons, and a Lidl coming to McLean.

Isn't the GFV Safeway is the only grocery store within Langley's boundaries? Other stores are in areas zoned to other schools.

The PP referenced the "Langley area," not Langley's boundaries. And those grocery stores are well within the Langley area.

Anonymous wrote:We also live in Fairfax City and have concerns with the the elementary and middle schools, so will not send our kids to FFX High School. (Luckily our kids qualified for the AAP Center and left for Mosaic, which is worlds better than any City elementary school, but the middle school AAP is a joke). Chantilly is in the same FCPS region (region 5) as Fairfax High school, and has the same Asst. Sup't leadership. I would therefore not consider Chantilly if you are unhappy with Fairfax City. Chantilly may be great, but ...Good luck.

If you think Region 5 is bad, Region 1 leadership will really send your head spinning.