<p>I agree with Geezermom. What is the point of ranking HS? Are we trying to have a BCS-HS championship series (say using something like Jeopardy)? In most cases being able to attend a rated HS is a matter of where you live or luck, more applicatants than spots and quotas are used to keep gender and ethnic balance. Result is many very qualified student head to private schools, and often the pool accepted is not as good as those who have not made it due to a quotas or chosen not to even apply. For example, in Phila, a local mag ranked the pub and priv HS in the area. The first pub HS on the list came in at #20 (all priv 1-19). Interestingly it was not the ones in the top 100 (i.e., #53, or #79) on the UNWR list. These sorts of lists drive administrators to focus on moving up on the list and gaming the criteria. All of which may look good, but not be in the best interest of the students. The BWeek ranking of MBA programs has done the same, and finally Wharton (U of Penn, and Harvard among others) are refusing to give information -- though they rank them anyway.</p>
<p>As a country, you would think all of our HS should be at parity so that there would be no point in ranking them. In the end it is a sad commentary on our government institutions who have failed the kids in monumental fashion.</p>
<p>For the curious: S went to Pub -- Sty in NYC, D is in priv.</p>
<p>I'll stand by my son's public education, because for the most part he got as good and education and in some respects a better education than I got in my expensive highly regarded prep school. </p>
<p>I did read the last paragraph - I felt it was important to give both points of views. The fact is it is not a settled matter by any means that charter schools are superior to public schools. In states with good safeguards they may be. </p>
<p>My kids went to an arts and humanities magnet for elementary school. There were aspects to being a magnet (which I think also hold true for charters) that I feel tend to make them superior. One is that a large portion of the parents in these schools have chosen them. That makes for involved parents and involved PTAs. Second is that in order to continue to receive funding our school had to justify their programs. So they did periodic checks to make sure they were effective.</p>
<p>My son's school is on the list. It is a decent public school. Much better than the high school I attended in many ways - better teachers, harder classes, stronger students. It draws from a highly educated populace so while there are minorities there, their parents are educated. The populace is not wealthy by the standards of the larger urban area and most of the families are two-income. Most of the students head to public university upon graduation.</p>
<p>I have a child who is near the top in his class and one who was at the bottom. The school was not perfect in dealing with the bottom student, but I have to say that they tried. The teachers were very flexible and the administration worked hard to counsel him. I finally had to put him in a private school with only 5 kids/class in order to get him through his most difficult classes, but the public high school was good about integrating him back in when he returned. The main complaint I have about the school is that there wasn't any vocational training. The district offered it, but at a different school. They did have a transistion to work program for special ed kids. My son didn't want to do it because he was happy with his after-school job and wanted to continue with it.</p>
<p>The private schools in our area are more self-selecting and have a better track record for getting kids into the top 20 colleges. They also offer more AP courses. Son's school offers 11 AP classes - 2 science, 2 math, 2 language, 1 English, 2 social studies, 2 in electives. The private schools offer one more in each area, and lots of kids are able to take more. At son's school, the AP classes have so much homework that it's very difficult to take 3 each year, much less the 4 or 5 that I see some of the kids on this forum taking.</p>
My kids went to an arts and humanities magnet for elementary school. There were aspects to being a magnet (which I think also hold true for charters) that I feel tend to make them superior. One is that a large portion of the parents in these schools have chosen them. That makes for involved parents and involved PTAs. **Second is that in order to continue to receive funding our school had to justify their programs. So they did periodic checks to make sure they were effective.**
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<p>That's what charter schools do. You know how many kids have dropped out because they can't keep up with classes that do not employ the same repetitive instruction and hand-holding tactics? We go to class 2-3 times a week and spend the rest of the time at home. On average, kids are spending 8-12 hours of homework on home days, something p.s kids do not share. I find magnet schools rather biased, as location is often limited to more privileged and funded districts, while charter is less elite emphasized. </p>
<p>While I would kill to attend a magnet school, my experience with locals ones was almost on par with neighboring public, except more titles and stalking parents.</p>
<p>I mean is it really necessary to say thank every time a teacher walks through the front door? We all know getting a nice recommendation for your kid is a reasonable goal, but there is more to life than kissing up.</p>
<p>I don't think there's any question that, head-to-head, a student from a strong school has an advantage over a student from a non-strong school. But what's key is the admissions staff's assessment of school strength. That's something they actually know quite a lot about, since they are looking at multiple candidates from many schools year after year, and also have the ability to track what happens to kids after they enroll. So it's completely unlikely that any selective colleges care at all what USNWR or Newsweek think about high schools. (The WSJ rankings, on the other hand, essentially measure what admissions staffs think about high schools, or at least they would if they averaged multiple years.)</p>
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That's something [admissions folks] actually know quite a lot about, since they are looking at multiple candidates from many schools year after year, and also have the ability to track what happens to kids after they enroll. So it's completely unlikely that any selective colleges care at all what USNWR or Newsweek think about high schools.
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<p>Quite right. Colleges have better HS information to go on. This is especially true for state universities that know most all of the high schools in their state intimately. For the student at a small HS that applies to a small college or U 1500 miles away it might be worth making sure they know HS rigor.</p>
<p>Following up on what Marian said about MoCo schools -- </p>
<p>I would agree that the W high schools are more of a demonstration of economic advantages than of inherent educational excellence. What surprised me was that one local high school that's ranked in the top 25 by Newsweek didn't even make the top 100 on USNWR.</p>
<p>The schools I listed were not my "favorites", they are either comparables to the schools listed - essentially without any disadvantaged population to consider and high Newsweek rankings, or ... they are districts serving a broader socio-economic base who also ranked well in the Newsweek survey - something that seemingly should have helped them here. There seems no reason that these schools and others would not have ranked in the same ballpark as those that were ranked. There was no limit to the number of silver medals awarded.</p>
<p>Moreover, there are two schools ranked here which would be consensus picks for bottom 10, if not bottom five, in the county.</p>
<p>Thus, it seems to me that the majority of Westchester schools either were not asked to participate or did not respond to the survey.</p>
<p>Personally I was amused by the WSJ selection of colleges. They could have used the Prepreview.com list which is for the 8 Ivy's plus Stanford and MIT. Maybe they did not want to pay for it. If they had used THOSE 10 schools the 2008 ranking would have been as follows for the boarding schools (I have not paid for the foreign or the day schools). Oh and note that the comparison is just for last year's admissions to those 10 colleges and that not all schools report SAT's on the new format:</p>
<p>1 St. Paul's School 34% 2049
2 Deerfield Academy 32% 2040
2 Milton Academy 32% 1360
4 Groton School 31% 2100
5 Middlesex School 30% 2010
6 Phillips Andover Academy 29% 2008
6 Phillips Exeter Academy 29% 2073
8 Noble and Greenough School 28% 1355
9 St. Albans School DC 25%
10 Lawrenceville School 22% 2020
11 Hotchkiss School 20% 2015
12 Choate Rosemary Hall 19% 1332
13 Hockaday School 18% 1990
14 Peddie School 17%
15 St. Andrew's School 16% 1305
15 Belmont Hill School 16% 1340
17 Blair Academy 12% 1230
17 Taft School 12% 1293
19 St. George's School 11% 1291
19 Indian Springs School 11% 1305
21 Cate School 10% 1310
21 Concord Academy 10% 2023
23 Cranbrook Schools 8-10% 1921
23 Georgetown Preparatory School 8-10%
23 Loomis Chaffee School 8-10%
23 Northfield Mount Hermon School 8-10% 1202
23 Miss Porter's School 8-10% 1865
23 Emma Willard School 8-10% 1910
23 Episcopal High School 8-10%
30 Kent School 5-8%
30 Webb Schools 5-8% 1300
30 Woodberry Forest School 5-8% 1310
30 Culver Academies 5-8%</p>
<p>In Westchester County (that's what you are talking about Odyssey right?) indeed two of the listed schools are not considered great schools at all. However, it may well be that they are serving minorities better than most of the supposedly better schools. They do deserve commendations for that, but I doubt their applicants will get too many brownie points for being on the list.</p>
<p>It does seem to be true that colleges get to know a school. For example, our school has a much better acceptance rate for Harvard than Yale, Princeton or MIT. And Stanford has only accepted two students in the last six years who were both URMs, and also either legacies, politically connected or athletes.</p>
<p>That's a pretty believable list. Some of the schools on it are not, to my knowledge, boarding schools -- Episcopal, Cranbrook -- or not other than incidentally boarding schools -- e.g., Hockaday. Also, it's interesting how not-well this list compares with top day schools. I know there are quite a number in NYC that would approach or exceed the 50% level for those colleges, and at least four or five in the Philadelphia area (including one small public school) that were at 20% or higher (some much higher) last year.</p>