<p>we are moving to a new city, there are some college prep high schools with selective enrollment, which are also with official nation ranking of top 100; the students however are quite diverse, with students coming from more than 100 schools in the city, and the low income rate is something aroud 40%; there are some other suburb schools in good neibourhood, with very low income rate, with open enrollment, but they are not college prep, and the ranking is lower.
I have a D who is a rising sophomore, so how should I choose from a college prep with selective enrollment, but higher low income rate, or a suburb school which is not college prep but with lower low income rate?
so when we choose a high school, what are important factors? like the average SAT score, courses offered, selective enrollment, college prep, etc?
thank you for your help!</p>
<p>I think that the HS rankings are completely bogus. Even more so than the college rankings. </p>
<p>Look at the school profile online, and see where their graduates go to college. (Be aware that some schools only list places where last year’s class actually attended, while some will list every school from the last four years or every acceptance.) Check out the classes available: AP, IB, et al. Average SAT score is relevant also. check out class sizes, policies on taking APs (some schools have restrictions), etc.</p>
<p>Also try to find out if students in AP or IB courses do well on the corresponding tests. If the school has a lot of students getting A grades in AP courses but 1 scores on the AP tests, that indicates that the school’s AP courses fall far short of what they should be. However, if even B and C grade students get easy 5 scores on the AP tests, then that may indicate a level of course rigor beyond that the AP test covers.</p>
<p>I don’t see why you think it is undesirable (from the point of view of the student attending the school) for a selective college prep academic school to have a large number of students from low income backgrounds.</p>
<p>Right. Listen to ucbalumnus! </p>
<p>There is a highly ranked school here that is “one of the top schools in the nation” based on the fact that most students there take AP classes and tests.</p>
<p>What they fail to report, however, is that FEW pass those tests! 23% of the students who took the AP tests even passed with a 3, last I heard.</p>
<p>So get the full story.</p>
<p>Low income can be irrelevant. Or it can be that all of the problems endemic to that population are brought into the school, such as lack of preparation, not doing homework, violence, drugs for sale in the cafeteria. You have to find out the inside story about the school. LOTS of time is spent on crowd control.</p>
<p>Try to walk the school. And talk to parents and office staff, and teachers. Do you relate well to them? Our school pyramid looks very good on paper but it wasn’t a good fit.</p>
<p>thank you for your insight, that is very helpful! I have to more homework!</p>
<p>I don’t completely understand the question. </p>
<p>Why would you choose a school that doesn’t prepare students for college? What do you mean by non college prep? Do you mean a vocational school?</p>
<p>Why are these your only choices?</p>
<p>What kind of student is your daughter? Is she a top student now? Some of the more competitive suburban high schools can be really brutal on smart kids who aren’t quite at the top. They often feel that no matter what they do, it isn’t good enough. It requires a lot of support at home so that they are comfortable in their own skin. </p>
<p>A selective exam school that has many lower income students might be terrific, or it can be even more of a pressure cooker. </p>
<p>When we looked for school districts, I looked to see if the schools offered the harder AP Calculus BC (vs AB). That suggested to me that the school was equipped to educate the brightest children and had a population that could handle the challenge. However, with my 2 Ds, I got to see both the benefits (access to a top quality education, great peers) and the drawbacks (excess stress) of a top suburban school district. Even the D that struggled with the stress seems to have come out fine now that she’s graduated, but I think the experience would have been better in a less stressful environment.</p>
<p>If this is a college prep school with selective enrollment, the low-income kids likely have plenty of snap. This is the kind of school my kids attended, and it was great. There are plenty of other benefits you may not have thought of, like no keeping up with the Joneses.</p>
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<p>A school that isn’t a prep school, presumably.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad: thank you, some high school does not say that they are college prep, so I suppose some of them are ordinary high school, not necessabarilly preprere students for colleges? I am not sure about this. I am also considering about the benefits and drawbacks of a top high school. I hope that my D has valuable experience of her high school, while taking reasonalblly rigorous courses, with more time to do EC; </p>
<p>Youdon’tsay: thank you, my D probably will attend this kind of the school too! she loves the school</p>
<p>Really, really, really think about ClassicRockerDad’s response. Our neighborhood is split between two high schools. Both offer the same classes, both send kids to great colleges, both have wonderful teachers. One is a pressure cooker, and one is more relaxed. At the pressure cooker high school, if a child is not able to pull 4.0’s every grading period, while taking all of the most difficult classes offered, she will fall out of the top 10-15% immediately, and will never be able to re-enter that top percentile. It is a terrible high school for the kid who wants to take Art1 as an elective, instead of another AP science class, because the loss of the “honors/ap” boost to the weighted GPA will drop the child out of the top percentile. </p>
<p>Some kids thrive in that environment, some do not. It is important to be honest with yourself about what is best for your child.</p>
<p>There’s another option in the scenario above – take what you want and damn the class rank. My kids took exactly what they wanted and were happy to graduate with a “good enough” rank. No, not top 10%, but top 25ish%, and both got into great schools. By not worrying about every grade point, I think, they were able to do ECs they enjoyed and made for really attractive candidates at top colleges.</p>
<p>Oh, I agree with you, youdontsay. The big difference between the two high schools is who makes up the rest of the student body besides those who come from our neighborhood. The “pressure cooker” high school includes more families who pressure their kids for the highest grades and scores (SAT tutoring in middle school years…). That pressure to achieve creates a culture that is very hard to avoid being sucked into. The pressure is parent driven. It can be a difficult current to row against.</p>
<p>Most states publish the state mastery test scores for high schools. In our state, the schools with the highest mastery test scores are also the districts that have the high schools with the top reputations for academic excellence, ECs, and college acceptances. So…check the state.</p>
<p>If you want to post the general urban area here, my bet is folks will be able to direct you to good high schools in that area. This was done not long ago for a family relocating to New Jersey…and a while ago to the greater Boston area.</p>
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<p>Note that some schools offer BC as a second year to be taken after AB, making both courses “AP lite” courses (this also means that the top students in math who are two grade levels ahead get a decelerated math curriculum). Other schools offer BC as a one year course for students who have just completed precalculus (i.e. covering calculus as the pace of a college calculus course).</p>
<p>Of course, whether students in those AP courses do well in the AP test is also something to consider. If most students with A grades in the course get 1 scores on the test, that indicates that something is wrong with the instruction in the course.</p>
<p>LOL, I admit that when searching for a school district with a 2nd grader and a pre-K, I thought I was being forward thinking by using BC Calc as a differentiator. It never occurred to me that people would take both AB and BC. That information wasn’t available then. </p>
<p>In Massachusetts, that information is available online in the school profiles published on the Department of Education website.</p>
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<p>Some of the pressure is parent driven, but some is self-driven or peer driven to avoid feeling inadequate. </p>
<p>Some pressure can be good when it motivates, but it can be bad when it causes stress and stifles a love of learning. Everyone needs joy in their lives.</p>
<p>I’d be really wary of “rankings.” (The “top ranked” school on a particular list for our state is a school no one who knows anything about the city would want to go to. The idea that someone would move to be near that school is laughable. You have to look closely at exactly what earns points in those rankings.)<br>
Ask people who live in that metro area which schools/districts are the best. Ask real estate agents about the type of school/neighborhood you’re looking for.
If you could mention which city, maybe someone local could PM you with their opinions.</p>
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<p>This sounds impossible. If the school is in a very good suburban neighborhood, it is highly unlikely that the families are “very low income.” It is also highly unlikely that ANY high school in the US would describe itself as “not college prep,” especially a school in a “good” suburban neighborhood. ALL regular high schools are college prep, except perhaps vocational schools.</p>
<p>I agree that it is important to find out how students do on those AP exams. IIRC, at our local HS the profile says that 70+% of AP exams taken are “passed,” which means at least a 3. (It will vary by class. Some teachers have an average of over 4, and some produce a lot of 2s. But that level of detail can wait for later.)</p>
<p>I really think that you should let us know the city or area in question. People will be able to clear this up for you.</p>
<p>“some high school does not say that they are college prep, so I suppose some of them are ordinary high school, not necessabarilly preprere students for colleges?”</p>
<p>Whether or not the high school uses the term “college prep” on its website, in the US almost every public high school is deliberately designed to prepare students for college. There are a very, very, small number of public high schools that are tech institutes that prepare students for direct entry into the workforce. However, even those tech institutes ensure that their graduates complete their minimum state requirements for college eligibility on the chance that the graduates may one day wish to pursue a college degree.</p>