Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By the way, 12:03/12:41, our exchange will be a lot more productive if you'd quit disrespecting and insulting me. I know you disagree with me. It does not improve your credibility when you repeatedly say I have "no clue" or "know nothing" or am "naive." Instead of wasting words with snarky comments, focus on proving your points.

I'm holding back. I was going to say something like, "yes, yes, dearie, I'm sure if you lined the kids at STA and Whitman up by GPA, and then compared family tax returns one-for-one, you'd find an exact correspondence in family financial situations." And then I was going to suggest you shouldn't worry your pretty little head about this stuff, and instead go drop $250 on your highlights at the salon.

We've been in the position of choosing between a Bethesda house and Whitman/BCC vs. Eastern MoCo and private. You clearly haven't. If we had gone for the Bethesda house, we wouldn't be able to pay for DCs Ivy now. Absolute truth.

My last question: are you a school AD? Because I can't believe that anybody without a really serious investment in this question would be making the arguments you're making.

Anonymous wrote:PP...no one gets to "choose Ivies"...the Ivies choose them not vice versa. Rejection rates are between 95% - 93% are most Ivies. Sorry honey.

Anonymous wrote:OK, 17:52 from page 3, this is for you:

Like you, I'm not sure where to start.

You accuse me of having a "wishful and naive view" of the ability of public school students in Besthesda/CC/Potomac to afford college. I think your view is off-base. Here are some examples. I'm using Whitman as a proxy because it's often tagged as the highest-performing MoCo public school, and in 2013, it had the highest average SAT score of any public school in MoCo.
1. You say, "At all of these schools, you will find FARMS rates of 5-15%." At Whitman, the FARMS rate is "<5%." Note that "<5%" is the reporting limit, so the actual FARMS rate may well be far less than 5%.
2. You suggest the "non-English-speaking" percentage is also high. In reality, Whitman's ESOL rate is also "<5%."
3. You say " many public school kids don't even take the PSATs or SATs." In fact, 393 of Whitman's 462 grads in 2013 (over 85%) took the SAT. That's down from 86% in 2012, and 87% in 2011.
4. You say "many public school kids ... aren't planning to go to college." In reality, 97% of Whitman's seniors go on to college. 89% of them attend 4-year colleges.
5. You argue that public school students are limited to only low-cost colleges. In reality, 76% of Whitman's graduates attend out-of-state colleges. In other words, 85% of those attending 4-year colleges are going out-of-state, and only 15% are attending UMD or equivalent. If finances are such a huge strain, why such a small % attending UMD?

So let's compare ...

% of NMSFs (last 5 years)
STA 11%
Holton 7%
Sidwell 11%
NCS 8%
GDS 8%
Whitman (out of whole class) 4.5%
Whitman (out of 97% attending college) 5%
Whitman (out of 89% attending 4-year colleges) 5%
Whitman (out of 76% attending out-of-state colleges) 6%

% attending Ivy colleges (2013)
STA 25%
Holton 14%
Landon 12%
Whitman (out of whole class) 4%
Whitman (out of 97% attending college) 4%
Whitman (out of 89% attending 4-year colleges) 5%
Whitman (out of 76% attending out-of-state colleges) 6%

Looking at just top 25% of the class
% NMSF from just top 25% of STA: 57%
% NMSF from just top 25% of NCS: 42%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Holton: 40%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Landon: 15%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Sidwell: 57%
% NMSF from just top 25% of GDS: 31%
% NMSF from just top 25% of Whitman: 16%

% attending Ivy from top 25% of STA: 100%
% attending Ivy from top 25% of Holton: 55%
% attending Ivy from top 25% of Landon: 48%
% attending Ivy from top 25% of Whitman: 17%

You quibble about my statement that top students "flock" to private schools, and you instead want to say private schools "skim the cream" by selecting the top students. I stand by my phrasing, because it's the students/families who voluntarily choose to apply to the private schools. Most strong private schools are receiving 5-7 times more applications than they have slots. To the extent private schools are "skimming the cream," it's only skimmed from those students who choose to apply and attend the private schools.

But nevertheless, we seem to agree that private schools derive at least part of their advantage in student success from the quality of students that choose to attend private schools. We probably could discuss at length how much "value add" those top students get from choosing private school over public; we might even agree on several points. But surely we can also agree (whatever the root causes) that students from strong private schools are more likely to demonstrate objective academic success than students from public schools, can't we?

(Also, to repeat my comment from page 3, I'm not knocking public schools. I proudly attended public schools, and I turned out OK. And the public schools around here are far better than the ones I attended! We are blessed in this area with many strong schools, so I find it unfortunate that people insist on trashing any of them.)

Anonymous wrote:You lost me at family with a HHI of $200k can afford a house in the Whitman district. Can you add ROckville HS to your comparison.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just toured several private schools with $30,000 tuitions and DH is unwilling to pay for it. He is unimpressed with the college admissions at the private schools. DH and I both attended ivy league schools from public schools. Both our high schools in New England had many more ivy league acceptances than the privates we recently toured.

"you are a troll, making up a story about 'DH' hating on privates so that you can get a long discussion war. This has been done 242 times before. As you well know."

Why would I make up this story? I have better things to do.

I was hoping for some ammunition to help me convince DH to go the private school route.

Anonymous wrote:12:03, let me try to clarify our competing viewpoints, so we can at least make sure we're not talking past one another.

I think: Students from strong private high schools in this area have objectively more academic success than students from even strong public schools. I think a good part of that disparity results from strong students choosing private high schools over public high schools, but also that there may be other factors at play.

You think: If we could control for family income, students from strong private high schools have absolutely no more academic success than their public school counterparts.



Is that accurate? If I'm misunderstanding your position, then what exactly is your position?

Anonymous wrote:By the way, 12:03/12:41, our exchange will be a lot more productive if you'd quit disrespecting and insulting me. I know you disagree with me. It does not improve your credibility when you repeatedly say I have "no clue" or "know nothing" or am "naive." Instead of wasting words with snarky comments, focus on proving your points.

Anonymous wrote:1. Whenever you refer to Whitman parents, or people making $200k, as "middle class," I cringe.

2. I think you're way overstating the income difference between those top Whitman students from Bethesda and the private school students. There are obviously some extremely wealthy people in private schools (just as there are in the public schools), but I also know plenty of two-govt-worker families in private, and others who receive financial aid. I also know plenty of law firm partners, doctors, and business executives with kids at Whitman and other private schools. There's no shortage of wealthy families there.

3. If your claim about many high-achieving public school students getting money from 2nd-tier private colleges is true, then are you positing we'd %wise see loads more Whitman grads than private school grads at such colleges? In other word, the private high schools clearly have a much bigger % attending Ivy colleges. But you think Whitman will have a much bigger % attending 2nd tier private colleges, because all those super-high-achieving Whitman students opted to turn down the Ivy colleges in favor of OOS money?

4. How does your money theory explain the disparity in NMSF and SAT scores? I assume the Whitman students try just as hard on the SAT, no matter whether or not they can afford Ivy colleges, don't they? I find it especially interesting that the NMSF % lines up closely with the Ivy % at so many of these schools.