<p>Washingtonian Magazine has an interesting interview with this month...
<a href="http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/businesscareers/5442.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/businesscareers/5442.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks for posting. A very candid article, well worth reading.</p>
<p>Interesting comments by the Georgetown admissions director on how the existence of Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (a large, highly prestigious regional magnet school) has basically sucked all the academic kids and the academic mindset out of the other high schools in its area.</p>
<p>This is the downside of magnet programs.</p>
<p>A note for those of you reading this article who are not from the Washington area: The Montgomery County that both admissions directors refer to is a large, mostly but not entirely affluent county in Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. UVa applicants from that county are at a disadvantage because they are out of state (even though only by a few miles). Georgetown applicants from this county may well be at an advantage over their Northern Virginia equivalents, according to the admissions director, because of the lack of a huge, dominant Thomas Jefferson-like magnet program in Montgomery (although the county does have smaller magnet programs).</p>
<p>Insightful article.</p>
<p>Marian, on the flip side:The other full day academic Governor's School in VA, while it does draw most of the top regional kids away from their home schools, has spurred those school districts to vigorously compete for these kids and improve their offerings. The big three counties from which Maggie Walker draws potential students (eleven counties and cities participate in total) have specialty centers withinn the high schools (IB, engineering, humanities, math/science, technology, leadership etc.) where many of the students also do quite well. All of these schools have a rigorous application and testing process. I have kids in both the Governor's School, home high school, and a specialty center. All have great programs and I'm grateful for them.
I think the fact that the IB Middle Years Program is so strong here (first one in the US) is also a factor influencing the local high schools to step up. Many of the IBMYP kids decide that they want to attend their local high school and return to their neighborhood community and friends. I had all four attend and they all decided to leave IB for other great choices. But they needed those academic choices and the school systems have done a great job answering that need.</p>
<p>Montgomery County Maryland public schools are actually majority minority though they are also extremely economically segregated. That economic segregation has also resulted in increasingly racially segregated school system. The hispanic population (mostly Central American not Mexican) is also exploding.</p>
<p>In addition to several very good, very wealthy, and very White and Asian schools west of route 355 there are two very good though small countywide magnets, a science magnet in Blair HS and an IB magnet in Richard Montgomery HS.</p>
<p>Montgomery County has become increasingly economically stratified in the last couple of decaded and has a school system that increasingly belies it liberal politics. The folks in the eastern part of the county are so far removed from the consciousness of folks in the western part of the county they might almost exist in another time zone.</p>
<p>I was waiting for someone to post about this. The issue hit the stands a few days ago and the TJ comment really surprised me.</p>
<p>Northern Virginia has so many strong schools besides TJ. I spend a week up there each year visiting great, public high schools in the area (another colleague is there right now covering the ones I didn't get to). TJ is a wonderful school, but there is no shortage of amazing students throughout the area.</p>
<p>The fact that Virginia has ranks third in the nation for number of IB programs points to more schools than TJ having challenging curricula.</p>
<p>The comment surprised me a little too. My kids have had a wonderful experience in their very diverse MCPS but Northern Virginia schools have a great reputation. I really appreciated the openness of both the directors and their view of how the admissions process had changed over the years.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Georgetown applicants from this county may well be at an advantage over their Northern Virginia equivalents, according to the admissions director, because of the lack of a huge, dominant Thomas Jefferson-like magnet program in Montgomery (although the county does have smaller magnet programs).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I have no idea about Georgetown admissions, since I've heard a few weird comments out of those guys, but for other schools, it seems like they want to "spread the wealth around" so to speak, which can disadvantage the more "average" student among the TJ population. I know kids from TJ who didn't get into UVa that almost certainly would have had they stayed at their base schools. It's a very competitive class to get admitted into a specific place from - they aren't going to take every member of the graduating class. I am not trying to say there is a quota, but to some extent the applications have to be considered within the context of the class, and if you don't fall within the highest achievers at TJ (tough to do) then you may find yourself at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Yes the downside of any magnet program when it comes time to apply to selective schools is that half the students have to be in the bottom half of the class:-) When a magnet is within a school it creates even stranger numbers both for the kids in the magnet and those outside of it.</p>
<p>In MCPS the two main county wide academic magnets (there are also arts magnets) are at Blair - the largest school in the state and Richard Montgomery. The IB Magnet at RM took about 100 kids a year and they represented perhaps 30% of the student body. A big enough number to push the number of AP and IB tests taken at the school to astronomical levels. The science magnet at Blair was about the same size but in a much larger school they represented perhaps 15% of the student body. There are implications for everyones class rank when that many top students are clustered.</p>
<p>I imagine the admissions folks at most top schools that recruit in the area probably know these programs well but I have always wondered how it imoacts admissions decisions.</p>
<p>The notion that mid-rank students at really strong schools suffer in the college admissions process is a persistent theme on CC, but my nonsystematic observations tell me that it's hogwash. In this area, the only one I know well, the elite private schools and the small public academic magnet send students deep into their classes to selective colleges. Depending on where you set the bar on selectivity, it could be 90%+ at the private schools, but Ivies and their equivalents probably accept more than a third of each class, and if you expand that to top-25 unis and LACs it's probably in the range of 60-70%. The large, strong public schools send almost, not quite, the same absolute numbers of kids to those colleges, but they represent a much smaller percentage of each class, under 10%, and the weaker public schools send a kid or two there once or twice a decade. Having seen several classes of kids close-up at both types of schools, there's no question in my mind that the average-smart kids did much better at the elite schools from a college-admissions standpoint. And when colleges take a risk on a kid, it's more often than not a kid from one of those schools, both because the schools do a lovely, loving job of marketing them, and because the colleges trust the quality of the education they have received.</p>
<p>There's a lot of apples-to-oranges comparisons implicit in the idea, too. A kid who succeeds and learns in an environment that offers rich learning opportunities and tons of support for academic achievement, but is not a superstar, would not necessarily have the initiative and strength of character to buck the culture at a different sort of school and to cobble together a superstar's resume. Kids who can do that are really rare, and it's much harder than being a B+ student at a great school.</p>
<p>Finally, there's the matter of actual education. What's more important, in the long run or the short run? Increasing your odds of admission to Harvard from 5% to 10%, or actually learning, actually preparing yourself to learn more? The more competitive high schools have better college admissions results because they do a better job educating their students. All of the students benefit from that, even if they don't go to Harvard, and the benefits last a long, long time. (My wife -- who was one of the blue-moon kids from a terrible public school, and graduated summa from a one-letter college -- still sometimes feels inadequate because of how little she learned in high school.)</p>
<p>JHS:</p>
<p>Your numbers are greatly inflated. For example, Episcopal Academy (by any standard one of the elite independent schools in the area) put 17 out of 105 in the Ivy League last year. I have one graduate and one junior in one of the highest ranking public schools in the area, and would estimate that 10-20% of the class typically attends the Ivies or a top LAC.</p>
<p>I don't know the numbers on Masterman--the tiny elite Philadelphia public magnet school. My only comment is that in a city where so many poor children are woefully undereducated, the fact that the school system is pouring resources into a school whose student body is disproportionately wealthy and disproportionately non-URM is an abomination before God.</p>
<p>EMM1:</p>
<p>You are right that Episcopal is "one of the elite independent schools in the area", but I would guess that there are at least six other schools that send a significantly higher proportion of kids to "top colleges" (however you define that). (To be specific: Haverford, Baldwin, Shipley, Germantown Friends, Penn Charter, Friends Central. Probably Akiva, too, and maybe St. Joe's Prep.) I also said "Ivies or equivalents," by which I meant to include Stanford, Duke (hello, Gerald!), Chicago, Virginia, and Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, etc. If you add those in, I'll bet that Episcopal is close to 30%. Haverford, Baldwin, and GFS are around 40% or higher.</p>
<p>If your public high sends anything like 10-20% of the class to Ivies or a top LAC, that probably narrows it down to two of them, and one of those is pretty small. I think Masterman's numbers are about that, maybe a little better, but I'm not positive. Notwithstanding that Masterman is indeed "disproportionately wealthy" and "disproportionately [white and Asian]", that doesn't mean that its student body is wealthy or privileged as a whole, and that affects its students' college decisions. Again, a guess: Masterman is a lot poorer, and much more diverse, than your suburban public high school.</p>
<p>As for pouring resources: That's a tough question, and Hornbeck and Vallas (the last two heads of the public school system here) wrestled with it a lot. Both had somewhat adversarial relationships with the academic magnet schools. As you probably know, but for the benefit of other readers, the public magnet schools have an awful lot of independent political and financial support from their alumni and parents in this city. A frontal attack on Central, Girls, Masterman, Baldi would probably be a kamikaze mission. (The mayor-presumptive's daughter -- who is arguably the most popular public figure in the city right now, and who was the central figure in the TV commercials that largely produced her dad's come-from-nowhere primary victory -- is a Masterman 7th grader. And, for what it's worth, the Republican candidate's oldest child graduated from Central last spring.) I don't think the magnet schools get disproportionate public resources, either. They just get to spend a higher proportion on education vs. truancy and safety. Ultimately, Vallas concluded that Masterman was the model, not the enemy. His strategy, which may or may not still be going forward, was to create 40-50 Mastermans all over the city.</p>
<p>I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers at GFS and Baldwin were a little higher. Penn Charter is skewed by their special relationship (24 Ivies, 17 (!) to Penn. The numbers at Shipley and Friends Central are similar to those at Episcopal (15 IVies at Friends Central. Depending on how you define elite, the latter three are probably at about 25%--significantly less than the 1/3 that you mentioned in your original post.</p>
<p>But the larger discrepancy from the claim that "if you expand [college matriculations] to top-25 unis and LACs it's probably in the range of 60-70%." What you see at these schools is a whole lot of kids in the Ursinus-Connecticut College group of schools--fine institutions, to be sure, but at the next level down in terms of selectivity.</p>
<p>I have no beef with the Central, Girls or the other large magnet schools in the city; I'm in favor anything that allows talented poor kids the chance to escape the neighborhood high schools in Philadelphia, many of which are outright hell holes. But Masterman is something else entirely; while the student body is no doubt more diverse and not as wealthy as that of my local high school, it remains at its core a school that provides the socio-economic elite with an alternative to private school. The idea that one can replicate such a school on a large scale in the city is absurd.</p>
<p>Here is my proposal. Limit admission to academically-gifted poor children. Otherwise, use the money somewhere else.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Blackburn: The number of truly low-income students going into selective colleges is tiny. We’re at about 9 percent.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>DeanJ:</p>
<p>hmmmmmm. Cal Berkeley and UCLA both have 33% "truly low-income students..." Even VaTech has double-digit Pell Grantees. Other public Unis:</p>
<p>Colorado 14%
GaTech 14%
Carolina 14%
Michigan 13%</p>
<p>I don't think I have much to add to Jack's statement. </p>
<p>By the way, Tech isn't the really the right school to compare UVa to when it comes to Pell Grant stats.</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/pellgrant.pdf%5DThis">http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/pellgrant.pdf]This</a> report from 2003 lists our percentages at many selective schools<a href="opens%20a%20PDF">/url</a>. The data's a little old (2001-2002), but numbers probably haven't changed too, too dramatically since then. William & Mary, similar to UVa in selectivity, is at about 8%. Obviously, there's much room for improvement.</p>
<p>Wow, I truly am from a different time zone- life sure is different on the East coast...</p>
<p>Georgetown attempting to field a good football team at FCS level (Ivy, Appalachian State level, former 1-AA, not yet successful), so spending money in that area...it worked for Ivies long ago, Notre Dame four decades past, for Duke in basketball over last few decades and Stanford across the board. </p>
<p>From NY Times:</p>
<p>Georgetown is well known for not funding sports other than basketball even when they are Div I. The basketball program is the sports program and it is a semi-pro franchise. They have always or at least since the first Thompson era recieved pandering coverage on both the local and national sports pages.</p>
<p>I will be very surprised if the administration is willing to divert enough resources toward football to make the school competitive even at the Patriot League level. In fact I don't think they can do it without corrupting the admissions process. How is Georgetown going to go after a non-scholarship football player that Towson could legitimately recruit? Or are they suddenly going to get a recruiting budget that lets them travel the country looking for Georgetown level students who actually play football and a more or less DI level and pay tuition? It takes a huge recruiting budget for Ivy League schools to field decent football and basketball teams.</p>
<p>That's the problem Duke has with its football team as well (like Georgetown, it radically lowers its admissions standards for recruits to the much smaller basketball program.) However, within the PL (FCS) I think Georgetown can do so. I agree, it remains to see if they will commit the necessary resources, but the other PL schools (including Colgate, Lafayette, Lehigh--not quite Georgetown but good schools) manage to be competitive with the Ivies in football, and that is Georgetown's goal, not FBS level play.</p>
<p>I believe the PL schools use the academic index, similar to the Ive League, for evaluating a recruit's academic standing. If true, how does Georgetown navigate this issue to maintain parity within the PL football league? They certainly don't use the academic index for basketball!</p>