<p>cavalier, perhaps living in the area would help you understand</p>
<p>shoebox - </p>
<p>northern virginia isn't this paradise where all families are wealthy, and all students push themselves the hardest. the kids in nova are just like kids everywhere - a few winners and a whole lot of losers. they don't push themselves because of their geographic location. there are middle class and upper middle class like most nice areas in the country.</p>
<p>most kids at UVa are from Nova because...surprise 2/3s of students at Uva are in virginia...and the majority of the population of virginia lives in nova...</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
An administrator and UVA alum told me that UVA accepted the top 5 students from every Fairfax County HS (Northern VA) automatically.
[/QUOTE]
What kind of administrator was this?</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the only "rule" about where people come from is the 2/3 Virginian mandate. As jags pointed out, the very large number of applicants from northern Virginia results in a large NoVa population at UVA.</p>
<p>Let me add that many of our low income students are coming from Northern Virginia. There is a lot of wealth in that area, but there are plenty of families with very modest means as well.</p>
<p>cavalier302 : I'm 16, turning into 17 this friday. happy birthday to me lol. why are you asking? Am I too naive?</p>
<p>lol, the description of NoVa is laughable. Yes there are some smart, hard working NoVa kids, but there are way more average students. There are driven kids from every part of Virginia, just in different amounts due to population differences. Northern Virginia isn't much different from the rest of the state in this respect.</p>
<p>Though on second thought, NoVa has a lot more Asian kids who are probably getting beaten to succeed</p>
<p>haha</p>
<p>asian kids</p>
<p>aahahah</p>
<p>come to think of it, you're pretty right
i dont think of us as any better than anyone else, and frankly, we do have some pretty bottem of the barrel kids. but the money in the area plays a good role, and it just provides more resources to kids, and those who take advantage of them have a higher edge, period. anywhere theres money theres more resources and that leads to success. even the minority/low-income have access, as theres free-tutoring, free-classes, ect, because theres more money to offer those things in NoVa than most places. also, family is the biggest source of influence on kids under 18, so parents in NoVa area often are hard-workers themselves, whether they have a fourtune-500 company posistion or working as a day laborer to pay rent, and their motivation i think influences the kids. but frankly, that applies to anywhere from NoVa to California to the Moon probably.
sorry if i came off rude or snobbish, not my intent. my main point was that theres a combination of little things that make NoVa schools tick a little differently. on that note, trust me, there are total screw ups (my class entered with a little over 500, and after suspensions/shootings/dropouts/august-grads, we graduated 406. people were either 3.5+ and APs, or under 2.5, not much in between).</p>
<p>beaten to succeed?</p>
<p>classy....</p>
<p>BigFanOfPie: Langley?</p>
<p>Classy? It's true, whether you know it or not.</p>
<p>"Classy? It's true, whether you know it or not."
-sv3a</p>
<p>Wow, what an ignorant response. All respect I had for you as a poster (and a person) just vanished.</p>
<p>Just a minor correction: FCPS allows for schools to choose whether they wish to rank their students. Most schools choose not to.</p>
<p>Not from Fairfax county, but the national merit semifinalist # still amaze me. Virginia usually has about 400 semifin. Fairfax county this year has just over 200 with almost 160 coming from TJ (<a href="http://www.fcps.edu/suptapps/newsreleases/newsrelease.cfm?newsid=459)%5B/url%5D">http://www.fcps.edu/suptapps/newsreleases/newsrelease.cfm?newsid=459)</a>. It's definitely harder to stand out when that's the company you keep. I don't remember the exact percentages from earlier in this thread (was it that Fairfax county accts for about 1/3 of the state's pop?) but it seems that the county has more that its share of the states top performing students, at least on the SAT.</p>
<p>With over 1 million residents, Fairfax County is definitely the most populous county (and probably has the highest population density) in Virginia, so naturally it would have more top students than anywhere else.</p>
<p>For reference, Virginia has about 7.5M residents, so Fairfax isn't quite 1/3 of the population. :)</p>
<p>and you want to know why those SAT scores are so high? because living around here is expensive, thus parents have high-paying jobs, thus can afford private SAT help. i'm not saying thats true for 100%, but i bet a ton of those kids had some type of extra, outside help, that isnt available to most kids. money brings better education, its a fact. top private schools are great educations, but come with a huge price tag. community colleges are decent educations, but come with a cheap price tag.</p>
<p>shoebox is right but sometimes there is exception. I can't get SAT tutoring because they are expensive. Living in Nova doesn't necessarily mean you are rich.</p>
<p>true, but almost everyone around you is, which gives room for schools/communities to hold free SAT tutoring...while it may not be top-notch like private tutoring, its still more than others are getting...</p>
<p>also, it is FCPS policy to not rank...</p>
<p>whoa its not even like that, NoVa is not the hamptons man. Especially as you get closer to DC. I went to an FCPS and like 75% of our class went to whack 4-year colleges or NOVA comm. college.</p>
<p>yeah - im not gonna lie...</p>
<p>i've been to nova, its okay. everyone here is acting like every town in nova is like upper saddle river, jupiter island, aspen, essex fells, greenwich, bernardsville...and nova isn't that. while yes there are some really nice towns (great falls for example) - the vast majority are just middle of the road middle class east coast towns where mom and dad each make 55,000-75,000 a year, drive honda accords and dodge caravans, and maybe go out to dinner once a week. Not exactly what I would call posh.</p>