Anonymous wrote:Honestly, isn't this whole thread a little backwards? The problem with most NoVa schools isn't that the school isn't good enough to prepare people for elite schools -- they all are. The problem is that a lot of these colleges don't want to take thousands of kids from this area, so it's tougher to get in.

I actually know someone who is thinking of moving to another state in part because it'll be easier to get into a better college. I know -- that's counterproductive, because they'll likely get a lesser high school education -- but the fear behind it isn't totally irrational.

If your school only produces a couple of Ivy Leaguers each year and the rest of the school is struggling, you may actually be the lucky one.

Or you could just get a grip and realize that everything's going to be shaken up in the 12 years your kid has left before college, and it's better to focus on having a positive experience than making irrational life choices based on pretty much nothing.

Very true. I grew up in a small, rural state where the schools were not anywhere near as high powered as around here. The best trailed the "bad" schools in this area by every metric. Yet I knew plenty of kids who got into Harvard, etc. Not that they were growing on trees, but you knew plenty of kids who went to them. (I went to a college that is competitive to get into but at least a strata below the Ivy/MIT/Stanford.) When you apply to Harvard, you aren't competing with kids around the world. You're competing with kids in your region.

It also isn't clear that a more competitive program in one school helps the changes of students in that school materially. Competitive colleges *say* (we can debate how true) that they look at what a kid does with what he or she has available. Thus, in theory, if a school dropped AP/IB it would not make it harder for a kid to get into Harvard, even if the school down the street offers a full schedule of AP/IB courses. No, I don't believe it's that simple. But I do think that the AP/IB proliferation in this area doesn't necessarily help students get into elite schools. It probably *does* help them once they get there.

Anonymous wrote:Are all the schools equal? Are the ap classes taught as well at west potomac as, for example, McLean? In high school (20 years ago), I got a's in my ap physics class but only got a 2 on the ap exam. Then I got to college and struggled to keep up with my classmates. I ultimately did fine, but I had to teach myself how to learn in college when everyone else seemed to already have that skill.

Possibly. My eldest graduate from McLean last year getting B+'s and a few A-'s and one A in his AP courses and received 4s and 5s on his AP tests. We received enough credits in college to start as a sophomore. If he wasn't majoring in engineering, he would be able to graduate at least a semester early easily and a whole year if he planned it out carefully. As it is, he may be able to graduate a semester early if he plans well and takes one extra class at some point or take a lighter course load.

Anonymous wrote:7With the exception of TJ, this area really doesn't send many to Ivy or MIT or Stanford.

That's because most of the Ivy/MIT/Stanford bound students get routed to TJ, not because of a weakness in the base high schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my oldest child is a 1st grader in the Edison pyramid and I totally understand get you. We love our house, our neighborhood and our relatively easy commutes. We are fine with our elementary school but unsure about Edison. We are wondering if we should stay or move.

DH and I think actually think it would be easier for our children to gain acceptance into top schools from Edison even if there aren't a lot who go each year. I don't care about others who get in. We only care about our kids. If our kids rank top 1% and get in, we will be happy to set a precedent.

For the record, I asked a very similar question a yr or so ago about Edison's college acceptances and never got an answer. If I remember correctly, a few people answered and said they knew of a family who had kids who did well. I think the poster stated Stanford and UVA but can't recall.

Edison has had one National Merit Semifinalist in the past three years combined, so statistically the odds of your kid attending that school and ending up in the top 1% aren't great. You might not be setting a precedent, but you would be beating the odds.

Now if you want to talk about the top 5% or 10%, you might be on more solid ground.

I meant that if our child was ranked top 1% or top 20 at Edison, we think it may be easier to gain acceptance into a top university than say ranking top 10-15% at a more competitive school like Langley. We will most likely move or go private before our young children get to high school. I am more interested in my children having a good peer group and working up to their potential than playing a numbers game to get into a better university. I want to give our kids the best education we can and I'm not sure the Edison pyramid will do that.

That might hold for some state schools that seek broad representation, but most top universities aren't going to admit students from Edison unless they are top candidates in their own right. If there are three great candidates from Langley, who have been in a strong peer group for years, and none from Edison, those schools may admit multiple Langley students and none from Edison.

Are all the schools equal? Are the ap classes taught as well at west potomac as, for example, McLean? In high school (20 years ago), I got a's in my ap physics class but only got a 2 on the ap exam. Then I got to college and struggled to keep up with my classmates. I ultimately did fine, but I had to teach myself how to learn in college when everyone else seemed to already have that skill.

Honestly, isn't this whole thread a little backwards? The problem with most NoVa schools isn't that the school isn't good enough to prepare people for elite schools -- they all are. The problem is that a lot of these colleges don't want to take thousands of kids from this area, so it's tougher to get in.

I actually know someone who is thinking of moving to another state in part because it'll be easier to get into a better college. I know -- that's counterproductive, because they'll likely get a lesser high school education -- but the fear behind it isn't totally irrational.

If your school only produces a couple of Ivy Leaguers each year and the rest of the school is struggling, you may actually be the lucky one.

Or you could just get a grip and realize that everything's going to be shaken up in the 12 years your kid has left before college, and it's better to focus on having a positive experience than making irrational life choices based on pretty much nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably a few, but not enough to make a cohort. McLean only has a few too. With the exception of TJ, this area really doesn't send many to Ivy or MIT or Stanford.

Last 5 years admitted and attended from McLean HS:

Harvard: 1 admitted and attended (2014)
Yale: 3 admitted 1 attended in 2014
Princeton: 3 admitted 3 attended (2011, 2012, 2015)
Brown: 7 admitted 4 attended 2in 2015 and 2 in 2013
Cornell: 23 admitted 9 attended 3 in 2014, 4 in 2013, 1 in 2012 and 1 in 2011
MIT: 6 admitted 2 attended in 2015, 1 in 2014, 1 in 2012 and 2 in 2011
Stanford: 3 admitted 1 attended in 2014

The number that apply to each of the above each year are in the teens out of class sizes near 500.

I didn't bother to look up the other Ivies.

Where did you get this information?

Naviance

Naviance is not accurate because not eveyone reports acceptances and rejections.

It is accurate enough. About 10% get in and about 5% go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my oldest child is a 1st grader in the Edison pyramid and I totally understand get you. We love our house, our neighborhood and our relatively easy commutes. We are fine with our elementary school but unsure about Edison. We are wondering if we should stay or move.

DH and I think actually think it would be easier for our children to gain acceptance into top schools from Edison even if there aren't a lot who go each year. I don't care about others who get in. We only care about our kids. If our kids rank top 1% and get in, we will be happy to set a precedent.

For the record, I asked a very similar question a yr or so ago about Edison's college acceptances and never got an answer. If I remember correctly, a few people answered and said they knew of a family who had kids who did well. I think the poster stated Stanford and UVA but can't recall.

Edison has had one National Merit Semifinalist in the past three years combined, so statistically the odds of your kid attending that school and ending up in the top 1% aren't great. You might not be setting a precedent, but you would be beating the odds.

Now if you want to talk about the top 5% or 10%, you might be on more solid ground.

I meant that if our child was ranked top 1% or top 20 at Edison, we think it may be easier to gain acceptance into a top university than say ranking top 10-15% at a more competitive school like Langley. We will most likely move or go private before our young children get to high school. I am more interested in my children having a good peer group and working up to their potential than playing a numbers game to get into a better university. I want to give our kids the best education we can and I'm not sure the Edison pyramid will do that.

Smart kids will do well anywhere. I find parents who spend a lot of time talking about a peer group use it as a code for no Hispanics or low SES. They also tend to have very little faith in their individual kid. Scratch the surface and you find the kid typically doesn't stand out much on his/her own.

We are sending our kids to West Potomac. We both have doctorate degree (MD and PhD), but one reason why I chose this pyramid is that it is, in fact, diverse. We could afford a more expensive place like McLean or North Arlington, but looked into the data and realized ALL OF THESE schools do not do right for black children, rich or poor. Realizing we were screwed data wise, we decided to focus on what we could provide our children since we can't simply buy in Yorktown and rely on the schools to march our kids into UVA or whatever.

We are providing intensive supports at home. My kids do a lot of activities and have tutors. We have these extra resources because we didn't stretch our housing budget. We'll see how things play out in the long run, but right now, my oldest is doing well at West Po and my younger kids are doing great at Sanburg and the local AAP center.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my oldest child is a 1st grader in the Edison pyramid and I totally understand get you. We love our house, our neighborhood and our relatively easy commutes. We are fine with our elementary school but unsure about Edison. We are wondering if we should stay or move.

DH and I think actually think it would be easier for our children to gain acceptance into top schools from Edison even if there aren't a lot who go each year. I don't care about others who get in. We only care about our kids. If our kids rank top 1% and get in, we will be happy to set a precedent.

For the record, I asked a very similar question a yr or so ago about Edison's college acceptances and never got an answer. If I remember correctly, a few people answered and said they knew of a family who had kids who did well. I think the poster stated Stanford and UVA but can't recall.

Edison has had one National Merit Semifinalist in the past three years combined, so statistically the odds of your kid attending that school and ending up in the top 1% aren't great. You might not be setting a precedent, but you would be beating the odds.

Now if you want to talk about the top 5% or 10%, you might be on more solid ground.

I meant that if our child was ranked top 1% or top 20 at Edison, we think it may be easier to gain acceptance into a top university than say ranking top 10-15% at a more competitive school like Langley. We will most likely move or go private before our young children get to high school. I am more interested in my children having a good peer group and working up to their potential than playing a numbers game to get into a better university. I want to give our kids the best education we can and I'm not sure the Edison pyramid will do that.

Smart kids will do well anywhere. I find parents who spend a lot of time talking about a peer group use it as a code for no Hispanics or low SES. They also tend to have very little faith in their individual kid. Scratch the surface and you find the kid typically doesn't stand out much on his/her own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my oldest child is a 1st grader in the Edison pyramid and I totally understand get you. We love our house, our neighborhood and our relatively easy commutes. We are fine with our elementary school but unsure about Edison. We are wondering if we should stay or move.

DH and I think actually think it would be easier for our children to gain acceptance into top schools from Edison even if there aren't a lot who go each year. I don't care about others who get in. We only care about our kids. If our kids rank top 1% and get in, we will be happy to set a precedent.

For the record, I asked a very similar question a yr or so ago about Edison's college acceptances and never got an answer. If I remember correctly, a few people answered and said they knew of a family who had kids who did well. I think the poster stated Stanford and UVA but can't recall.

Edison has had one National Merit Semifinalist in the past three years combined, so statistically the odds of your kid attending that school and ending up in the top 1% aren't great. You might not be setting a precedent, but you would be beating the odds.

Now if you want to talk about the top 5% or 10%, you might be on more solid ground.

I meant that if our child was ranked top 1% or top 20 at Edison, we think it may be easier to gain acceptance into a top university than say ranking top 10-15% at a more competitive school like Langley. We will most likely move or go private before our young children get to high school. I am more interested in my children having a good peer group and working up to their potential than playing a numbers game to get into a better university. I want to give our kids the best education we can and I'm not sure the Edison pyramid will do that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably a few, but not enough to make a cohort. McLean only has a few too. With the exception of TJ, this area really doesn't send many to Ivy or MIT or Stanford.

Last 5 years admitted and attended from McLean HS:

Harvard: 1 admitted and attended (2014)
Yale: 3 admitted 1 attended in 2014
Princeton: 3 admitted 3 attended (2011, 2012, 2015)
Brown: 7 admitted 4 attended 2in 2015 and 2 in 2013
Cornell: 23 admitted 9 attended 3 in 2014, 4 in 2013, 1 in 2012 and 1 in 2011
MIT: 6 admitted 2 attended in 2015, 1 in 2014, 1 in 2012 and 2 in 2011
Stanford: 3 admitted 1 attended in 2014

The number that apply to each of the above each year are in the teens out of class sizes near 500.

I didn't bother to look up the other Ivies.

Where did you get this information?

Naviance

Naviance is not accurate because not eveyone reports acceptances and rejections.

Anonymous wrote:OP, my oldest child is a 1st grader in the Edison pyramid and I totally understand get you. We love our house, our neighborhood and our relatively easy commutes. We are fine with our elementary school but unsure about Edison. We are wondering if we should stay or move.

DH and I think actually think it would be easier for our children to gain acceptance into top schools from Edison even if there aren't a lot who go each year. I don't care about others who get in. We only care about our kids. If our kids rank top 1% and get in, we will be happy to set a precedent.

For the record, I asked a very similar question a yr or so ago about Edison's college acceptances and never got an answer. If I remember correctly, a few people answered and said they knew of a family who had kids who did well. I think the poster stated Stanford and UVA but can't recall.

Edison has had one National Merit Semifinalist in the past three years combined, so statistically the odds of your kid attending that school and ending up in the top 1% aren't great. You might not be setting a precedent, but you would be beating the odds.

Now if you want to talk about the top 5% or 10%, you might be on more solid ground.

OP, my oldest child is a 1st grader in the Edison pyramid and I totally understand get you. We love our house, our neighborhood and our relatively easy commutes. We are fine with our elementary school but unsure about Edison. We are wondering if we should stay or move.

DH and I think actually think it would be easier for our children to gain acceptance into top schools from Edison even if there aren't a lot who go each year. I don't care about others who get in. We only care about our kids. If our kids rank top 1% and get in, we will be happy to set a precedent.

For the record, I asked a very similar question a yr or so ago about Edison's college acceptances and never got an answer. If I remember correctly, a few people answered and said they knew of a family who had kids who did well. I think the poster stated Stanford and UVA but can't recall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I'm deciding whether to send my kids to west Potomac. I want to know if it has students interested in applying to elite schools and whether the school helps them achieve their goal. My public high school did not and I have to believe it was because there was not any demand. I am on the lookout for this.

If this was true, then you would not even be considering West Potomac. The biggest number of students are likely to go to NOVA and then gmu and then other state schools. The school has a cohort of upper middle class students doing AP classes and you will have to encourage your child to take those classes if they can succeed in them or not to make sure they stay with the kids who are focused on academics. College acceptances mean very little to your decision. It's the demographics and your child's own academic work that matter. If your child is doing average work, a better choice is to move to a different area for high school or go private.

Op here: I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. Of course my statement is true. My oldest is in first grade and we are considering moving school districts. We like the area zoned for west Potomac and I want to know if there is a yearly small group of kids applying to elites and whether the school helps them. If there aren't any such kids in that district, we may choose another district.

Well, I guess I am trying to figure out where you are coming from because you don't seem to be very intelligent yourself. Honestly, no school in any of the local counties is going to go out of their way to make sure your special snowflake gets into an Ivy school. Your child is going to have to do that all by themselves.

If you are asking if the school has some kind of connection at the Ivy that they can make sure you kid gets in the answers is almost positively going to be no. And it doesn't matter what is happening today because your kid won't be there for many years. You might get someone who is the schools college counselor who is in their first real job.

West Potomac has a terrible demographic with a very high FARMS and ESL rate. The schools first and foremost goal is to close the achievement gap, make sure those students are graduating, and getting as many as they can into college.

So, the short and easy answer - move now or plan to send your kid to private school.

You disparage the OP's intelligence and yet you have no problem saying things like West Potomac has "a terrible demographic." Perhaps you need to stop for a moment and realize upon how incredibly offensive that statement is.

Offensive how and to who?

Let me guess - you actually believe that I am saying something bad about FARMS and ESL students. Wrong.

The demographic is terrible for those students first and foremost. They would be better off educationally if they were going to schools with much lower rates. It's not a mean thing to say - it's based on research.

And then moving on, you have to wonder about a County that has no problem making sure all lower income residents are pooled into one small pocket of the County. Do you think that is a good policy or not offensive?

If you expressed your views more clearly, they would not give rise to misunderstandings.

And, as a factual matter, it is simply wrong to suggest that all the low-income students are concentrated in one part of the county. Perhaps what bothers you is that there are indeed some parts of the county with few low-income students. If that is the case, you should just state that.

Well I grew up here and for 40 years the Rt. 1 and surrounding area has always had the highest concentration of low income individuals. This is not a secret.

That's not what you said in the prior post, however, and West Potomac draws from other areas besides Route 1.