Anonymous wrote:As a parent with a child at one of these top 10 schools, let me just say:

These high school rankings are stupid and deeply offensive.

THANK YOU!

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Anonymous wrote:The thing is --- the curriculum at all the FCPS schools is the same. Some people pay more in housing so their kids can have richer/whiter friends. Whatever.

The student body is also important not just the teaching curriculum.

Definitely. I don't want those brown and black colored hoodlums screwing up my kids' education. When is the next klan meeting? I've got to pick up my sheet from the dry cleaners.

Part of the ranking is how well minorities perform. I doubt that many of large populations of FCPS asians and hispanics will be attending the klan rallies at any of the top 10 schools listed.

Learning has nothing to do w/ race and the list proves that you can be of a lower SES, different demographics or be a minority and FCPS will help you excel.

Then, why are the schools with highest minority populations not on the list? Enough said.

TJ has a lot of Asians and is 61% minority, McLean has a lot of Asians and is 39% minority, Oakton is 39% minority, Yorktown is 39% minority, Woodson is 40% minority, West Springfield is 40% minority, Marshall has a lot of Asians and Hispanics and is 46% minority.

If you have a high Asian population - the results are invariable skewed because they are high achieving. Where would TJ be ranked without Asians?

Well in general Asians move to areas with good schools it's not the other way around.

Anonymous wrote:Take away the TJ kids and look at the other FCPS schools and compare percentages of kids getting accepted with like scores. Lower scores get in from lower schools.

I know some people would like to suggest you can arbitrage admissions by sending kids to "lower schools" where their scores will "count" for more, but where's the hard data? If only eight Wakefield kids got into U. Va. last year, but over 40 got into Yorktown and W-L, that tells me that either the advantage of attending a "lower school" is not all that great, or that the talent pool at Wakefield is very thin. FWIW, the admissions rate from Wakefield was also appreciably lower as well.

I know South Lakes has done great with U. Va. admissions some years, but it would take more than anecdotes to convince most people that sending a kid there, rather than Oakton, is going to give him or her a leg up generally.

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Anonymous wrote:The thing is --- the curriculum at all the FCPS schools is the same. Some people pay more in housing so their kids can have richer/whiter friends. Whatever.

The student body is also important not just the teaching curriculum.

Definitely. I don't want those brown and black colored hoodlums screwing up my kids' education. When is the next klan meeting? I've got to pick up my sheet from the dry cleaners.

Part of the ranking is how well minorities perform. I doubt that many of large populations of FCPS asians and hispanics will be attending the klan rallies at any of the top 10 schools listed.

Learning has nothing to do w/ race and the list proves that you can be of a lower SES, different demographics or be a minority and FCPS will help you excel.

Then, why are the schools with highest minority populations not on the list? Enough said.

TJ has a lot of Asians and is 61% minority, McLean has a lot of Asians and is 39% minority, Oakton is 39% minority, Yorktown is 39% minority, Woodson is 40% minority, West Springfield is 40% minority, Marshall has a lot of Asians and Hispanics and is 46% minority.

If you have a high Asian population - the results are invariable skewed because they are high achieving. Where would TJ be ranked without Asians?

How can the compare test-in schools with non test-in schools? Or are they all test-in schools(TJ is a test-in if I'm not mistaken)?

Take away the TJ kids and look at the other FCPS schools and compare percentages of kids getting accepted with like scores. Lower scores get in from lower schools.

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent with a child at one of these top 10 schools, let me just say:

These high school rankings are stupid and deeply offensive.

+1. I think the ranking of high schools is very stupid. College admissions boards don't care if you went to a highly ranked high school (except to the extent they think you faced challenging circumstances that you overcame), and when you enter the workforce, no one cares what high school you went to. Depending on the profession, people might care about what college or graduate school you went to, but not your high school.

Wrong! UVA takes kids from lower performing schools with lower scores. A kid from SLHS has a better chance of getting in than a kid from OHS with the same scores. A kid from Richmond has a better chance getting in when compared to a kid from NOVA with the same scores.

So...how did TJ have more than 150 admits to U. Va. last year, while Wakefield only had 8? Attending the lower-performing schools may not be quite the path to admission you imply.

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Anonymous wrote:There are many different rankings of area schools every year. It's the passive-aggressive parents who make a big deal about why the rankings must be ignored who make me laugh. Most people just take them in stride.

Yeah, it's really pretty amusing just how insecure the parents are who live in the unranked or lower ranked HS pyramids. It's gotta be rough knowing that you don't have enough money to live in one of the better HS pyramids and that your children are receiving inferior educations as a result. The bitterness of failure seems to cause people to lash out those around them who are successful.

I'm sorry, does success entail simply living in a neighborhood that sends ALL age-eligible children in the neighborhood to a school? That's the silliest part of these rankings, and of posts like this one. What kind of success do you think it takes to get your kid into one of these schools? Simply buying a house in the neighborhood? Yup, them's there are real bragging rights. And before you accuse me of being one of those bitter "failures" who can't afford a "better HS pyramid," I should tell you that I'm in one of these "top" pyramids.

As I said before, I'll start bragging when my kid gets accepted by a school that actually has admissions standards.

The goal of the US News rankings isn't to provide a parent with bragging rights. The goal is to identify schools that are doing a good job of educating all their students, including their low-income and minority students, and preparing many for college-level courses. If anyone should brag, it should be the school administrators, not a parent, and even then only if they know the ranking is based on correct data.

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent with a child at one of these top 10 schools, let me just say:

These high school rankings are stupid and deeply offensive.

+1. I think the ranking of high schools is very stupid. College admissions boards don't care if you went to a highly ranked high school (except to the extent they think you faced challenging circumstances that you overcame), and when you enter the workforce, no one cares what high school you went to. Depending on the profession, people might care about what college or graduate school you went to, but not your high school.

Wrong! UVA takes kids from lower performing schools with lower scores. A kid from SLHS has a better chance of getting in than a kid from OHS with the same scores. A kid from Richmond has a better chance getting in when compared to a kid from NOVA with the same scores.

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Anonymous wrote:There are many different rankings of area schools every year. It's the passive-aggressive parents who make a big deal about why the rankings must be ignored who make me laugh. Most people just take them in stride.

Yeah, it's really pretty amusing just how insecure the parents are who live in the unranked or lower ranked HS pyramids. It's gotta be rough knowing that you don't have enough money to live in one of the better HS pyramids and that your children are receiving inferior educations as a result. The bitterness of failure seems to cause people to lash out those around them who are successful.

I'm sorry, does success entail simply living in a neighborhood that sends ALL age-eligible children in the neighborhood to a school? That's the silliest part of these rankings, and of posts like this one. What kind of success do you think it takes to get your kid into one of these schools? Simply buying a house in the neighborhood? Yup, them's there are real bragging rights. And before you accuse me of being one of those bitter "failures" who can't afford a "better HS pyramid," I should tell you that I'm in one of these "top" pyramids.

As I said before, I'll start bragging when my kid gets accepted by a school that actually has admissions standards.

Anonymous wrote:There are many different rankings of area schools every year. It's the passive-aggressive parents who make a big deal about why the rankings must be ignored who make me laugh. Most people just take them in stride.

Yeah, it's really pretty amusing just how insecure the parents are who live in the unranked or lower ranked HS pyramids. It's gotta be rough knowing that you don't have enough money to live in one of the better HS pyramids and that your children are receiving inferior educations as a result. The bitterness of failure seems to cause people to lash out those around them who are successful.

There are many different rankings of area schools every year. It's the passive-aggressive parents who make a big deal about why the rankings must be ignored who make me laugh. Most people just take them in stride.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't plan to start bragging until my kid gets into a school that actually screens admissions. Wtf is the point of this list? It's not as if these schools are selective (other than TJ, of course). They are public schools, for god's sake!

Well, if you were really a DC urban mom, you'd understand. Everything in life whether it is my child's school, my house, my neighborhood, my job, my husband, my looks, etc. must be strictly ranked and compared to everyone else. And I WON'T stop until I get to the top of every list there is. I'll probably die before I reach the top of every list, but at least my tombstone will say I died on my climb to the top. Upwards on onwards! DC urban mom for life!

Oh yes. Because that kind of attitude is totally specific to DC urban moms and not at all endemic in all major urban/suburban areas in the nation. You really nailed it there.

Keep justifying yourself and your warped perspective any way you want.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent with a child at one of these top 10 schools, let me just say:

These high school rankings are stupid and deeply offensive.

+1. I think the ranking of high schools is very stupid. College admissions boards don't care if you went to a highly ranked high school (except to the extent they think you faced challenging circumstances that you overcame), and when you enter the workforce, no one cares what high school you went to. Depending on the profession, people might care about what college or graduate school you went to, but not your high school.

Well--they care in a sense that they place a quota on the maximum number of kids they will accept from a single HS. You are f*cked if you are at a super-competitive HS.

I was 10 out of 729 at a FairfaX Co HS. If I was at a much more competitive I know my ranking would have been much lower and it would have been a much more stressful and competitive environment. Some of those places are literal pressure cookers and sadly we are seeing kids take their own lives in greater numbers.

I'll take 'big fish in small pond' any day.

Fairfax County Public Schools doesn't rank students anymore and haven't for a while.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't plan to start bragging until my kid gets into a school that actually screens admissions. Wtf is the point of this list? It's not as if these schools are selective (other than TJ, of course). They are public schools, for god's sake!

Well, if you were really a DC urban mom, you'd understand. Everything in life whether it is my child's school, my house, my neighborhood, my job, my husband, my looks, etc. must be strictly ranked and compared to everyone else. And I WON'T stop until I get to the top of every list there is. I'll probably die before I reach the top of every list, but at least my tombstone will say I died on my climb to the top. Upwards on onwards! DC urban mom for life!

Oh yes. Because that kind of attitude is totally specific to DC urban moms and not at all endemic in all major urban/suburban areas in the nation. You really nailed it there.