Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH went to Hayfield, went to W&M and was accepted as an Echols a scholar at UVa. Every single one of his friends went to UVA, W&M, or Ivy.

Hayfield is a fine school and GS means nothing. ESPECIALLY in a Fairfax Co. All things being equal, how do you think Hayfield ranks against 90% of the high schools in the country.

Yeah. Plus, isn't Belvoir still in boundaries for Hayfield? All those officers have kids too...

Objectively speaking, Hayfield's average SAT scores are a hair above the national average (1482), quite a below the FCPS average (1672), and about equivalent to the VA state average (1533).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

OP here. I agree with the first part of this post. I went to a GS 4 with no AP's and have no desire to put my kid through that particular sort of ringer socially. On the second part of this post though, the lower rated schools do have a s*load of programs. Hayfield for example has a ton of AP's, offer multivariable calculus, Japanese and Arabic. You really do get a ton of resources just by virtue of being in FCPS.

It's great to have the options, but then you need to look at the actual results. If you compare Hayfield to Lake Braddock, the AP participation rate is about 8% lower, and the pass rate for the smaller percentage of students taking AP classes is 15% lower. Which school do you really think has the stronger peer group?

Anonymous wrote:DH went to Hayfield, went to W&M and was accepted as an Echols a scholar at UVa. Every single one of his friends went to UVA, W&M, or Ivy.

Hayfield is a fine school and GS means nothing. ESPECIALLY in a Fairfax Co. All things being equal, how do you think Hayfield ranks against 90% of the high schools in the country.

Yeah. Plus, isn't Belvoir still in boundaries for Hayfield? All those officers have kids too...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

OP here. I agree with the first part of this post. I went to a GS 4 with no AP's and have no desire to put my kid through that particular sort of ringer socially. On the second part of this post though, the lower rated schools do have a s*load of programs. Hayfield for example has a ton of AP's, offer multivariable calculus, Japanese and Arabic. You really do get a ton of resources just by virtue of being in FCPS.

It's great to have the options, but then you need to look at the actual results. If you compare Hayfield to Lake Braddock, the AP participation rate is about 8% lower, and the pass rate for the smaller percentage of students taking AP classes is 15% lower. Which school do you really think has the stronger peer group?

Not op, but how many kids does your child need to be successful? If they don't have at least 200 super competive, academically motivated and gifted kids, is your kid going to be a total failure?
Maybe so. Maybe your kid really needs as much pressure as possible, or they won't perform. I somehow doubt it, but maybe your kid is just super jonesing for a real scholastic pressure cooker.
Maybe they will only take ( gasp) 6 AP classes instead of 8! The horror!
Long story short, you are pointing out differences without much distinction. UVA takes roughly 25% of the top applicants of all nova high schools. So what if there are 30 top applicants from Hayfield and 100 for LBSS? Your kid's odds fair about the same. Of course they might have a less stressful high school experience at a school like Hayfield.

Passing an AP or IB exam after you took the course doesn't mean you are "super competitive." It does suggest that you belonged in the course and that the other kids didn't have to sit through a watered-down version of the material.

The claim that UVA takes a set percentage of each high school's class, by the way, is regularly asserted and never substantiated here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

OP here. I agree with the first part of this post. I went to a GS 4 with no AP's and have no desire to put my kid through that particular sort of ringer socially. On the second part of this post though, the lower rated schools do have a s*load of programs. Hayfield for example has a ton of AP's, offer multivariable calculus, Japanese and Arabic. You really do get a ton of resources just by virtue of being in FCPS.

It's great to have the options, but then you need to look at the actual results. If you compare Hayfield to Lake Braddock, the AP participation rate is about 8% lower, and the pass rate for the smaller percentage of students taking AP classes is 15% lower. Which school do you really think has the stronger peer group?

Not op, but how many kids does your child need to be successful? If they don't have at least 200 super competive, academically motivated and gifted kids, is your kid going to be a total failure?
Maybe so. Maybe your kid really needs as much pressure as possible, or they won't perform. I somehow doubt it, but maybe your kid is just super jonesing for a real scholastic pressure cooker.
Maybe they will only take ( gasp) 6 AP classes instead of 8! The horror!
Long story short, you are pointing out differences without much distinction. UVA takes roughly 25% of the top applicants of all nova high schools. So what if there are 30 top applicants from Hayfield and 100 for LBSS? Your kid's odds fair about the same. Of course they might have a less stressful high school experience at a school like Hayfield.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

OP here. I agree with the first part of this post. I went to a GS 4 with no AP's and have no desire to put my kid through that particular sort of ringer socially. On the second part of this post though, the lower rated schools do have a s*load of programs. Hayfield for example has a ton of AP's, offer multivariable calculus, Japanese and Arabic. You really do get a ton of resources just by virtue of being in FCPS.

It's great to have the options, but then you need to look at the actual results. If you compare Hayfield to Lake Braddock, the AP participation rate is about 8% lower, and the pass rate for the smaller percentage of students taking AP classes is 15% lower. Which school do you really think has the stronger peer group?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

OP here. I agree with the first part of this post. I went to a GS 4 with no AP's and have no desire to put my kid through that particular sort of ringer socially. On the second part of this post though, the lower rated schools do have a s*load of programs. Hayfield for example has a ton of AP's, offer multivariable calculus, Japanese and Arabic. You really do get a ton of resources just by virtue of being in FCPS.

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

Anonymous wrote:I moved my family to a GS 8 school and absolutely crossed off all the GS 5 and lower schools. The decision wasn't completely rational and is the result of my own experience at bad schools. I came out of these cesspit schools with not even the option of AP/IB or a language other than French/Spanish but I could probably naturally survive a prison sentence if it came to that. My mind just can't accept that the lower rated schools around here are large enough to actually have decent programs where any motivated child can succeed.

Anonymous wrote:To me those test scores show the socio-economic diversity of the schools. Those at the bottom have more recent immigrants and lower income kids from surrounding neighborhoods. If you actually look at test scores broken down, college bound kids are scoring just fine in those lower-tier schools.

The other thing that I appreciate is meeting all the Academy kids (eg orthodontics) that work in offices as young adults around our neighborhood. Those kids who are college-bound initially, if given guidance, can get an academy education that allows them to work after HS. Takes personal motivation by the student though and there's a subset who aren't that motivated.

Anonymous wrote:Wow Fairfax sucks