Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, I find that parents who graduated from Ivy League schools, as my spouse and I did, aren't half as hung up on dispatching their little kids to them as those who didn't, and not just because they're secure in the knowledge that legacy preferences await. As an Ivy alum, you see college friends contending with the same sort of problems adults face everywhere - being unlucky in love, going bankrupt, getting fired or passed over for promotions, struggling to afford college, getting cancer etc. Somewhere along the way, you stop thinking in terms of an Ivy degree innoculating your children against life's hardships. Moreover, you think of brilliant and highly motivated grad school classmates who went to little colleges you'd never heard of. I'd be thrilled for my DCPS kids to get a great education anywhere there's one to be had.

Another ivy parent who seconds this.^

One important influence my ivy undergrad had on me was to really appreciate the importance of solid preparation. I went to a weak HS with little HW and had a rough time. Most of my peers whether from private or publics like New Trier or Wellesley high breezed through the first year. It was a mistake i am working to avoid with my kids and factored into our decision to pull the out from our wotp school at grade 4 because Hardy was the ms. We want them somewhere challenging enough to push them to develop good study habits.

If you read the Hardy thread, its boosters would tell you it is comparable to Deal.

We visited both schools and that is clearly not the case.

Maybe in a decade.

The two schools will never be the same. Hardy is a small school in the hearth of Georgetown. Deal is a huge school built in what was 30 years ago a suburb. No surprise the difference in volume and field space between the two schools. So the whole debate about the difference in the sports facilities is one of the most stupid ones I have ever read in DCUM. Of course Hardy's sport facilities are smaller than Deal, given that its school population is 1/3 of Deal's and given its location, which is in the hearth of one of the few historic districts of this country..

However when it comes to academic, the recent past of a paternalistic Principal (Pope) who had made of Hardy his personal reign , reflecting his personal views and aspirations, and attracting the students he liked (through a less than transparent application system) are over, as the more recent bad managerial moves by DCPS (two headed principal shared with Hyde...).

Hardy is now a solid school, with a solid managerial team and strong teacher body. Honor classes have been established and will be enhanced from 2014-2015. IB numbers are growing. Differential with Deal is mainly in demographics, as the number of IB is growing but is still lower than Deal's (it will take no more than a couple of years though at the present rate). This means that any same kid has the same chance of doing well or doing bad at Deal or Hardy. It really depends on who that kid is. On average , at the aggregate level, kids do better at Deal than at Hardy (as measured by DC CAS) because of the Deal families average higher SES status. As soon as the IB numbers will be aligned, the DC CAS outcomes will be too.

Of course, you will still have the random idiot parent who will argue that Hardy has no baseball court and is thus an inferior school for her/his baseball champion kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@13:20: Seriously? If you want to raise the likelihood of sending your kids to an Ivy, and look forward to paying (by then) $75,000+ per year, then you should not be messing with a public school education, at all. You've gotta get them on that hamster wheel starting at day one. Harvard? Hey, go look at some other stats: pick out the best public grade schools, anywhere you choose (not magnet public schools, mind you) and see what percentage of the graduates go to an ivy. I assure you, it ain't a lot.

But, if you want to make sure your kids get a quality education in college, and your kids are decent students to begin with, then Wilson or Hardy should be just fine.

13:20 here. I didn't raise the Harvard issue. An earlier posted did. That said, how many Wilson graduates attend Harvard? How many of those came from Hardy? Seriously, if Wilson is "just fine" then it should be sending its top students to Ivies.

Top Wilson students go to top colleges. There is an old topic about it. Consider that college enrolling data for Wilson has two biases: 1) it refers to older cohorts. Lots has changed since when recently graduated kids entered the school; 2) a significant share of these kids are unable to afford the fee of top private colleges. So they apply conditional on financial support/scholarships. If they do not get it, they just opt for State colleges.

What I would find frustrating, if I was a parent, are the negligible numbers of kids going to the ivy colleges from schools such as St Patrick and the British School (numbers are significant only for Sidwell and maybe WIS). I mean you invest $500,000 for your kid education and you end up at Vermont State. What the F***?

I have always hear that it is easier to get into elite schools from Wilson. The real question is are these kids prepared for rigorous work. Also, often parents of children who are struggling go to private so they don't fall even farther behind.

What a bizarre assertion. The many, many students at my Ivy who came from private schools hadn't gone private because they were falling behind. They were frequently the best-prepared, best-educated, and most successful students.

Best educated yes. Of course, on average kids from private schools come from wealthy families and higher SES , i.e. come from more educated families and have access to more enrichment exposure during their school years (trips abroad, private music lessons, expensive cultural activities such as classic music concerts, private tutors..).

Best prepared? No! Most successful ? Not at all!!

All those attending a Ivy college nowadays will tell you that academic success is not correlated with private vs. public education. They will also tell you that, non matter which HS kids come from, the gap in math with students from some Asian countries (China, Korea and for some sub-subjects India) is insurmountable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, I find that parents who graduated from Ivy League schools, as my spouse and I did, aren't half as hung up on dispatching their little kids to them as those who didn't, and not just because they're secure in the knowledge that legacy preferences await. As an Ivy alum, you see college friends contending with the same sort of problems adults face everywhere - being unlucky in love, going bankrupt, getting fired or passed over for promotions, struggling to afford college, getting cancer etc. Somewhere along the way, you stop thinking in terms of an Ivy degree innoculating your children against life's hardships. Moreover, you think of brilliant and highly motivated grad school classmates who went to little colleges you'd never heard of. I'd be thrilled for my DCPS kids to get a great education anywhere there's one to be had.

Another ivy parent who seconds this.^

One important influence my ivy undergrad had on me was to really appreciate the importance of solid preparation. I went to a weak HS with little HW and had a rough time. Most of my peers whether from private or publics like New Trier or Wellesley high breezed through the first year. It was a mistake i am working to avoid with my kids and factored into our decision to pull the out from our wotp school at grade 4 because Hardy was the ms. We want them somewhere challenging enough to push them to develop good study habits.

If you read the Hardy thread, its boosters would tell you it is comparable to Deal.

We visited both schools and that is clearly not the case.

Maybe in a decade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will be less attrition once Hardy expands the availability of advanced classes. Before those classes began happening, families would not send their kids to Hardy because they would not be prepared to take the advanced classes available at Wilson. Those advanced classes at Wilson have an environment productive to learning, which is great; but if your kid is in the non-advanced classes, the environment doesn't really allow for learning to take place. Based on what Wilson kids and parents of graduates tell me, anyway.

But if you get Hardy's accelerated classes at the same level as Deal, you'll get more in-boundary parents staying for the cycle. Which would further increase the student enrollment at Wilson (unless the boundaries change), but that's another topic.

Unrealistic

What a dumb comment. It is quite realistic that Hardy can and will do this. Hardy already had advanced math classes available (Algebra and Geometry (via Ellington) in 8th grade; they have their gifted and talented program in place and working quite well, especially in science. It's easy to provide an additional advanced English and Social Studies classes, and will be done this coming year.

Unrealistic

It's actually a fact.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will be less attrition once Hardy expands the availability of advanced classes. Before those classes began happening, families would not send their kids to Hardy because they would not be prepared to take the advanced classes available at Wilson. Those advanced classes at Wilson have an environment productive to learning, which is great; but if your kid is in the non-advanced classes, the environment doesn't really allow for learning to take place. Based on what Wilson kids and parents of graduates tell me, anyway.

But if you get Hardy's accelerated classes at the same level as Deal, you'll get more in-boundary parents staying for the cycle. Which would further increase the student enrollment at Wilson (unless the boundaries change), but that's another topic.

Unrealistic

What a dumb comment. It is quite realistic that Hardy can and will do this. Hardy already had advanced math classes available (Algebra and Geometry (via Ellington) in 8th grade; they have their gifted and talented program in place and working quite well, especially in science. It's easy to provide an additional advanced English and Social Studies classes, and will be done this coming year.

Unrealistic

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@13:20: Seriously? If you want to raise the likelihood of sending your kids to an Ivy, and look forward to paying (by then) $75,000+ per year, then you should not be messing with a public school education, at all. You've gotta get them on that hamster wheel starting at day one. Harvard? Hey, go look at some other stats: pick out the best public grade schools, anywhere you choose (not magnet public schools, mind you) and see what percentage of the graduates go to an ivy. I assure you, it ain't a lot.

But, if you want to make sure your kids get a quality education in college, and your kids are decent students to begin with, then Wilson or Hardy should be just fine.

13:20 here. I didn't raise the Harvard issue. An earlier posted did. That said, how many Wilson graduates attend Harvard? How many of those came from Hardy? Seriously, if Wilson is "just fine" then it should be sending its top students to Ivies.

Top Wilson students go to top colleges. There is an old topic about it. Consider that college enrolling data for Wilson has two biases: 1) it refers to older cohorts. Lots has changed since when recently graduated kids entered the school; 2) a significant share of these kids are unable to afford the fee of top private colleges. So they apply conditional on financial support/scholarships. If they do not get it, they just opt for State colleges.

What I would find frustrating, if I was a parent, are the negligible numbers of kids going to the ivy colleges from schools such as St Patrick and the British School (numbers are significant only for Sidwell and maybe WIS). I mean you invest $500,000 for your kid education and you end up at Vermont State. What the F***?

I have always hear that it is easier to get into elite schools from Wilson. The real question is are these kids prepared for rigorous work. Also, often parents of children who are struggling go to private so they don't fall even farther behind.

What a bizarre assertion. The many, many students at my Ivy who came from private schools hadn't gone private because they were falling behind. They were frequently the best-prepared, best-educated, and most successful students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@13:20: Seriously? If you want to raise the likelihood of sending your kids to an Ivy, and look forward to paying (by then) $75,000+ per year, then you should not be messing with a public school education, at all. You've gotta get them on that hamster wheel starting at day one. Harvard? Hey, go look at some other stats: pick out the best public grade schools, anywhere you choose (not magnet public schools, mind you) and see what percentage of the graduates go to an ivy. I assure you, it ain't a lot.

But, if you want to make sure your kids get a quality education in college, and your kids are decent students to begin with, then Wilson or Hardy should be just fine.

13:20 here. I didn't raise the Harvard issue. An earlier posted did. That said, how many Wilson graduates attend Harvard? How many of those came from Hardy? Seriously, if Wilson is "just fine" then it should be sending its top students to Ivies.

Top Wilson students go to top colleges. There is an old topic about it. Consider that college enrolling data for Wilson has two biases: 1) it refers to older cohorts. Lots has changed since when recently graduated kids entered the school; 2) a significant share of these kids are unable to afford the fee of top private colleges. So they apply conditional on financial support/scholarships. If they do not get it, they just opt for State colleges.

What I would find frustrating, if I was a parent, are the negligible numbers of kids going to the ivy colleges from schools such as St Patrick and the British School (numbers are significant only for Sidwell and maybe WIS). I mean you invest $500,000 for your kid education and you end up at Vermont State. What the F***?

I have always hear that it is easier to get into elite schools from Wilson. The real question is are these kids prepared for rigorous work. Also, often parents of children who are struggling go to private so they don't fall even farther behind.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.gallup.com/poll/168848/life-college-matters-life-college.aspx

Ugh, "Ivy League" schools -- the obsession is so...20th century. Kids have much more pressing matters to deal with these days than their parents' vicarious social aspirations. Really wealthy kids are the only ones that benefit from the Ivy cliques they will be a part of there. All the rest are stuck, later, at 30 years old seeing a shrink to help them deal with how much they suffered along the way.

Thank you!!! I don't understand the Ivy obsession AT ALL. Of course they're good schools, but they are not the only good schools in the country. They are also not a good fit for every kid, regardless of how smart s/he is. College counselors should be searching for a good match for each kid. To me, a variety of top notch schools that are not Ivies (Williams, Carnegie Mellon, U of MI) plus some less well-known schools that gave kids big money on the basis of their excellent high school work would show a really hard-working counseling team. My biggest concern is that my kids could graduate from a college where professors cared about them, they had friends and colleagues who supported them in their studies rather than trying to undercut them, and they had little to no debt. That, to me, is the sign of a good college pick. And before people make snide remarks, I have 1 kid who could probably do an Ivy but would be a bad fit in every way aside from academics and another kid for whom a small, mid-range in terms of reputation, liberal arts college would probably be the best. Since we live in DC, I'm hoping the TAG program will still be there and #1 will go to a big research state university and #2 will go to a small state school with colleges within the university to make it even more intimate.

Ivies are not the only valuable education out there!!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will be less attrition once Hardy expands the availability of advanced classes. Before those classes began happening, families would not send their kids to Hardy because they would not be prepared to take the advanced classes available at Wilson. Those advanced classes at Wilson have an environment productive to learning, which is great; but if your kid is in the non-advanced classes, the environment doesn't really allow for learning to take place. Based on what Wilson kids and parents of graduates tell me, anyway.

But if you get Hardy's accelerated classes at the same level as Deal, you'll get more in-boundary parents staying for the cycle. Which would further increase the student enrollment at Wilson (unless the boundaries change), but that's another topic.

Unrealistic

What a dumb comment. It is quite realistic that Hardy can and will do this. Hardy already had advanced math classes available (Algebra and Geometry (via Ellington) in 8th grade; they have their gifted and talented program in place and working quite well, especially in science. It's easy to provide an additional advanced English and Social Studies classes, and will be done this coming year.

Anonymous wrote:There will be less attrition once Hardy expands the availability of advanced classes. Before those classes began happening, families would not send their kids to Hardy because they would not be prepared to take the advanced classes available at Wilson. Those advanced classes at Wilson have an environment productive to learning, which is great; but if your kid is in the non-advanced classes, the environment doesn't really allow for learning to take place. Based on what Wilson kids and parents of graduates tell me, anyway.

But if you get Hardy's accelerated classes at the same level as Deal, you'll get more in-boundary parents staying for the cycle. Which would further increase the student enrollment at Wilson (unless the boundaries change), but that's another topic.

Unrealistic

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, I find that parents who graduated from Ivy League schools, as my spouse and I did, aren't half as hung up on dispatching their little kids to them as those who didn't, and not just because they're secure in the knowledge that legacy preferences await. As an Ivy alum, you see college friends contending with the same sort of problems adults face everywhere - being unlucky in love, going bankrupt, getting fired or passed over for promotions, struggling to afford college, getting cancer etc. Somewhere along the way, you stop thinking in terms of an Ivy degree innoculating your children against life's hardships. Moreover, you think of brilliant and highly motivated grad school classmates who went to little colleges you'd never heard of. I'd be thrilled for my DCPS kids to get a great education anywhere there's one to be had.

Another ivy parent who seconds this.^

One important influence my ivy undergrad had on me was to really appreciate the importance of solid preparation. I went to a weak HS with little HW and had a rough time. Most of my peers whether from private or publics like New Trier or Wellesley high breezed through the first year. It was a mistake i am working to avoid with my kids and factored into our decision to pull the out from our wotp school at grade 4 because Hardy was the ms. We want them somewhere challenging enough to push them to develop good study habits.

If you read the Hardy thread, its boosters would tell you it is comparable to Deal.

We visited both schools and that is clearly not the case.

Please, don't go down that trail again.

Stoddert has an exodus after 4th grade every year. Parents in past years have not wanted to send kids to Hardy, and have opted for charters that start in 5th. In my view, this makes little sense, because the Stoddert kids who go on to Hardy as a rule do great there, but the momentum to leave keeps feeding on itself.'

As a previous poster noted, this seems to be turning a bit now that Pride is at Hardy - Stoddert parents know here from her year at Stoddert and were impressed with her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, I find that parents who graduated from Ivy League schools, as my spouse and I did, aren't half as hung up on dispatching their little kids to them as those who didn't, and not just because they're secure in the knowledge that legacy preferences await. As an Ivy alum, you see college friends contending with the same sort of problems adults face everywhere - being unlucky in love, going bankrupt, getting fired or passed over for promotions, struggling to afford college, getting cancer etc. Somewhere along the way, you stop thinking in terms of an Ivy degree innoculating your children against life's hardships. Moreover, you think of brilliant and highly motivated grad school classmates who went to little colleges you'd never heard of. I'd be thrilled for my DCPS kids to get a great education anywhere there's one to be had.

Another ivy parent who seconds this.^

One important influence my ivy undergrad had on me was to really appreciate the importance of solid preparation. I went to a weak HS with little HW and had a rough time. Most of my peers whether from private or publics like New Trier or Wellesley high breezed through the first year. It was a mistake i am working to avoid with my kids and factored into our decision to pull the out from our wotp school at grade 4 because Hardy was the ms. We want them somewhere challenging enough to push them to develop good study habits.

If you read the Hardy thread, its boosters would tell you it is comparable to Deal.

We visited both schools and that is clearly not the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a general rule, I find that parents who graduated from Ivy League schools, as my spouse and I did, aren't half as hung up on dispatching their little kids to them as those who didn't, and not just because they're secure in the knowledge that legacy preferences await. As an Ivy alum, you see college friends contending with the same sort of problems adults face everywhere - being unlucky in love, going bankrupt, getting fired or passed over for promotions, struggling to afford college, getting cancer etc. Somewhere along the way, you stop thinking in terms of an Ivy degree innoculating your children against life's hardships. Moreover, you think of brilliant and highly motivated grad school classmates who went to little colleges you'd never heard of. I'd be thrilled for my DCPS kids to get a great education anywhere there's one to be had.

Another ivy parent who seconds this.^

One important influence my ivy undergrad had on me was to really appreciate the importance of solid preparation. I went to a weak HS with little HW and had a rough time. Most of my peers whether from private or publics like New Trier or Wellesley high breezed through the first year. It was a mistake i am working to avoid with my kids and factored into our decision to pull the out from our wotp school at grade 4 because Hardy was the ms. We want them somewhere challenging enough to push them to develop good study habits.

If you read the Hardy thread, its boosters would tell you it is comparable to Deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What % of JKLMM/Hearst/Eaton go on to Deal?

My understanding is over 90% of Janney, Murch and Lafayette go on to Deal, I would expect the same numbers from Eaton and Hearst but have not heard that specific assertion anywhere.

Eaton's numbers are not quite at that level, but have moved steadily higher in recent years. However, if Eaton is moved from Deal to Hardy, those numbers likely will drop a lot, particularly for IB kids.