<p>Many families have stated they will default to their great local public school if March 10 outcomes are less than desirable. There seems to be so many on CC who view their public schools in this light but it runs in stark contrast to what many in a wide variety of school districts feel about their schools. Its no secret that nationally, public education has been hammered by budget cuts and many ECs such as athletics, music, and even some transportation needs are suffering. </p>
<p>So perhaps someone will chime in by addressing the following: What makes your LPS a great default option? And if you will, please refrain from quoting Newsweek articles that lists you school in the top 100 nationwide. It may be more useful to know what criteria actual families are using in evaluating their district school options. I pose this question to U.S. as well as Intl applicants.</p>
<p>A friend did an analysis to compare college matriculations of the top 20% of our LPS with the GLADCHEMMS school in our town. The LPS won.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s unfair to compare only the top fifth of the class at the LPS to the entirety of the prep school, but considering the fact that the GLADCHEMMS kids have already gone through a competitive admissions procedure it seems a useful metric.</p>
<p>What the prep offers is small classes, flexibility, the inability to get lost in the crowd, and a certain pressure to succeed.</p>
<p>What the LPS offers is local friends, a wider array of extracuricular choices, money for college.</p>
<p>These are my parent’s reasons why our PS is not so awful:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The music program is one of the best in the nation. There are plenty of options for violinists to go beyond, though often it is not necessary because the the music is extremely difficult already.</p></li>
<li><p>There are kids like me in my public school who are older that I know who were challenged enough by the courseload. These students ended up at Ivies or other top schools, and were satisfied with high school. *see no. 3</p></li>
<li><p>PS offers a wide variety of courses that actually rival Episcopal’s (just using that as an example since I’m applying there). It offers about the same APs as EHS, except for the AP Chinese. </p></li>
<li><p>The sports program at PS is strong, with a fencing team, swim team, and cross country team I am currently interested in.</p></li>
<li><p>Lots of clubs and activities. Students welcome to start more.</p></li>
<li><p>3 of friends have been accelerated in math, and though math is not my personal strong point, it shows that the school is open to the needs of kids who are not challenged enough.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The bad parts is the budget cuts going on - lots of teachers are being fired, and many of the good programs are going under the chopping block. Recently, my school has eliminated one of the high school levels and is thinking about cutting middle school levels entirely. The very music program the district brags about was almost cut last year. My parents and I know that it will only get worst, so we decided to look for other options. (The common scenario right now haha) Hopefully, my PS will not lose everything, because right now, it seems more than an okay alternative.</p>
<p>If I stay in the LPS’s top 10% (which I am in right now as a freshman at that school, I’m applying to BS for sophomore year), I will have the ranking to get into an Ivy League school. I also have many ECs and play sports. Bad thing is the sports that I play are a bit sub par to local schools. Fencing on the other hand… state champs whaaatt? The school is not a good fit for me, but if I work hard I can still go to a good college.</p>
<p>the suburb that we live in is considered to have one of the top HS due to the typical stats:</p>
<p>State mandated test scores</p>
<h1>of students taking AP tests and getting 3-5s</h1>
<p>SAT scores</p>
<h1>of students of graduate and matriculate to college</h1>
<p>great music program
typical sports opps.
great ECs</p>
<p>Since it is a public school matriculation data to what schools graduates go to is not readily available. Of course there are the typical problems of tightened financial belts, increasingly crowded classes etc. Increasingly due to financial constraints, costs have had to be passed to parents such as fees for the instrumental music program, some ECs but so far the school has maintained itself.</p>
<p>Obviously since we began this BS process we are looking for more opportunity but I do believe that my C would have a good HS education experience at our local HS</p>
Just to clarify, so this comparison is done by taking the top 5% of the LPS graduating class and comparing with the whole graduating class of the said BS, and the conclusion is something like - 20% of the top 5% of LPS matriculated to Ivy League colleges while only 15% of the BS graduating class did the same?</p>
<p>No, As I understand it, the comparison was between the top 20% of the LPS and the entire class of the GLADCHEMMS school. I think her assumption was that her daughter would have remained in the top 20% of the LPS class but was likely to be an average or even below average student at the prep school. I believe she looked beyond Ivy placement and did an analysis something like the “strong school index”. She still sent her child to the GLADCHEMMS school and has been happy with the decision.</p>
<p>^^According to matriculationstats.org, among GLADCHEMMS the “weakest” in college matriculation is Middlesex, which has 15% of students going to ivies and 41% to top 25 universities and top 15 LACs as in US News (“top schools”). Your LPS is very impressive indeed.</p>
<p>I havent been paying attention to which schools comprise gladchemms, can someone do a list of them please? I had thought hades and gladchemms referred to the top tier schools, but the above post references Middlesex as a gladchemms, so now Im confused. Thanks.</p>
<p>Our LPS is fairly large and it is in a metropolitan area. 1/3 go on to college, 1/3 go to trade school or directly to work, 1/3 go to prison…BUT the 1/3 that go to college do extremely well. The school teaches the classics, they have an incredible program for honors students, very competitive sports and a large percentage of children who come from immigrant or non-english speaking homes. This aspect of diversity (many of these children excel in HS) adds a tremendous amount of enrichment to the lives of the other students. I know BS offers many foreign students, etc., but there isn’t the number of refugee, no prior ESL, types and I think those are the students who really open the eyes and minds of intelligent and inquisitive kids. What our LPS lacks is the opportunity for independence and self reliance that our d is craving. There is also no real sense of school spirit at the LPS as it is so large and diverse. BS is a choice and there is something powerful about “choosing to belong” that can really connect young people.</p>
<p>At our highly rated public school, in a town of 20,000, I daresay we have similar statistics.
IVY’s, MIT, top LACS, state college, and yes, prison. More than anyone wants to talk about.</p>