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The SAT scores don't seem that different to me in the two cities, except for that of Asians.
Even if you take away the Asians from the NSMF in Plano, Plano would still end up with 45 NMSF which would dwarf Allen's numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EducaCat
In my opinion, both cities seem to do a poor job of educating Hispanics and African-Americans and except for the Asians in Plano, none of the averages for either city are particularly impressive.
Both cities do an excellent job, actually. Graduation rates are very high.
PISD and AISD face headwinds in both communities with expectations and peers and dysfunctional families. Many blacks in PSID and Allen are Katrina refugees. The NOLA school system was awful.
Hispanics in particular who are born here to 2nd generation immigrants and who have both parents perform on par with whites, or exceed them in some areas. Ditto blacks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PISDstudent
At the same time, I have a significantly larger amount of bright students to be around with. This is why that NMSF number is important- while getting Merit semifinalist really isn't a game-changer, a school that has 48 people performing at that level clearly has a talented student body, and being around similarly gifted students can drive you to succeed. I would probably be very bored socially if I wasn't in that type of environment.
Expectations. Peers. Curriculum. PISDstudent has hit them all with this response. If kids are into PS3, then that is what is cool. If they are into academics, then that is cool. At PISD its cool to be nerdy. At Allen, its cool to be in the band or be in football.
PISD has a number of "magnet" schools now as well as Math Rocks and the usual focus on academics. With the large number of students who are into academics, Plano can offer a lot more classes taught at a higher level than Allen.
If you want safe environment, mediocre academics, one big crowded high school building and an state of art football stadium then Allen ISD can be a good fit. If you are after excellent academics that a public district can provide than look into Plano.
For details about both districts, use forum's search tool. You'll find everything you are looking for.
Thank you for responding. I have already used the forum's search tool, which is why I posted this thread. I am really trying to understand the mediocre academics part of it. NMSF and SAT scores seem to be why people on this board believe Allen has mediocre academics. As I explained in my initial post, I don't find those numbers that important. We are white, and looking behind the numbers, the difference in average SAT scores of white students in Allen as compared to that of white students in Plano does not appear to be statistically significant, and neither is impressive. Just based on NMSF numbers and averages, I would expect that Plano has a wider range among whites (i.e., while it appears to have more whites scoring higher on the SAT than Allen, it has far more scoring lower than Allen). Our son is already scoring higher than the Plano average as a middle schooler. I read about Allen's football stadium, and while I find it to be over the top, it has no bearing on academics, unless the city is funding sports at the expense of academics. Is that the case? You also mentioned that the high school building is crowded. Do you know how big the honors and AP classes are?
And Allen seems content to build a fancy new $$$ football stadium instead of expanding or building schools. Not against sports but it does come off as to what Allen wants to be (sports vs. academics).
Not true. Allen spent a lot of money building a new performing arts center at the same time as the new football stadium. Like the stadium, it's one of the best/biggest in the state.
I'm not sure why you consider average SAT scores for a large school that crosses basically all demographics to be a better indicator of success than NMSF. These giant public high schools aren't really comparable to NE prep schools either. In Allen and East Plano you can buy a house for about $70k or 33% of the median home price and yet both still do a pretty decent job with students across all demographics. I don't think that is true in any NE district with a good school rating.
Course catalogs for both districts are listed online. You can compare class offerings for yourself. If you want to find out how many students are in a particular AP class, you need to call and ask about that class. Average class size is around 25 students, AP classes wouldn't be much lower. There are really too many courses and extra-curriculars to make a valid comparison for your specific kid.
It's probably impossible to compile a list where the top 25% went to college as that would be a listing of over 1500 students, but here is the list of the valedictorians and salutatorians for each, and you can compare for yourself. If you call the school you are considering, the guidance counselor may have a listing of where students went to university. Be aware that college attendance percentages are goosed by students attending local community colleges, like they are for every school.
You specifically wanted to compare Plano & Allen. The Plano listing is particularly good because it gives GPA, activities, extra-curriculars, and other colleges they were accepted to, and you can see if your kid tested well or has the drive to be a top percenter. Valedictorians & Salutatorians / News Archive : Plano ISD
Here's the list for each:
Plano East Senior High School Amy Chyao Valedictorian - Harvard
Plano East Senior High School Adeyemi Adewuyi Salutatorian -Duke University
Plano Senior High School Darien Lee Valedictorian - Yale
Plano Senior High School Lawrence Liu Salutatorian - Princeton
Plano West Senior High School Andrew Li Valedictorian - Harvard
Plano West Senior High School Stephany Liu Salutatorian - Stanford University
Allen High Chengxi Li - Columbia University in New York.
Allen High McKenna Elizabeth Boyd - University of Texas at Austin.
Last edited by TheOverdog; 03-27-2013 at 11:58 AM..
I'm not sure why you consider average SAT scores for a large school that crosses basically all demographics to be a better indicator of success than NMSF. These giant public high schools aren't really comparable to NE prep schools either. In Allen and East Plano you can buy a house for about $70k or 33% of the median home price and yet both still do a pretty decent job with students across all demographics. I don't think that is true in any NE district with a good school rating.
Course catalogs for both districts are listed online. You can compare class offerings for yourself. If you want to find out how many students are in a particular AP class, you need to call and ask about that class. Average class size is around 25 students, AP classes wouldn't be much lower. There are really too many courses and extra-curriculars to make a valid comparison for your specific kid.
It's probably impossible to compile a list where the top 25% went to college as that would be a listing of over 1500 students, but here is the list of the valedictorians and salutatorians for each, and you can compare for yourself. If you call the school you are considering, the guidance counselor may have a listing of where students went to university. Be aware that college attendance percentages are goosed by students attending local community colleges, like they are for every school.
You specifically wanted to compare Plano & Allen. The Plano listing is particularly good because it gives GPA, activities, extra-curriculars, and other colleges they were accepted to, and you can see if your kid tested well or has the drive to be a top percenter. Valedictorians & Salutatorians / News Archive : Plano ISD
Here's the list for each:
Plano East Senior High School Amy Chyao Valedictorian - Harvard
Plano East Senior High School Adeyemi Adewuyi Salutatorian -Duke University
Plano Senior High School Darien Lee Valedictorian - Yale
Plano Senior High School Lawrence Liu Salutatorian - Princeton
Plano West Senior High School Andrew Li Valedictorian - Harvard
Plano West Senior High School Stephany Liu Salutatorian - Stanford University
Allen High Chengxi Li - Columbia University in New York.
Allen High McKenna Elizabeth Boyd - University of Texas at Austin.
This was very helpful. Thank you!
(The reason why NMSF is not that important to me is because I've heard that most of the kids obtaining this achievement in Plano are prepping a lot for the PSAT outside of school. Thus, if true, one can't really attribute a high numbers of qualifiers to the schools. By contrast, most of the kids that achieve NMSF at the top high schools in the Northeast that I am familiar with do no outside prep. They are already very bright and get what they need to excel on the test from their school studies.)
With high number of Asians in Allen, do you doubt that they are not doing same prep as Plano's Asians? why aren't they scoring as high if prep is the only thing that matters?
I'm not sure why you consider average SAT scores for a large school that crosses basically all demographics to be a better indicator of success than NMSF. These giant public high schools aren't really comparable to NE prep schools either. In Allen and East Plano you can buy a house for about $70k or 33% of the median home price and yet both still do a pretty decent job with students across all demographics. I don't think that is true in any NE district with a good school rating.
Course catalogs for both districts are listed online. You can compare class offerings for yourself. If you want to find out how many students are in a particular AP class, you need to call and ask about that class. Average class size is around 25 students, AP classes wouldn't be much lower. There are really too many courses and extra-curriculars to make a valid comparison for your specific kid.
It's probably impossible to compile a list where the top 25% went to college as that would be a listing of over 1500 students, but here is the list of the valedictorians and salutatorians for each, and you can compare for yourself. If you call the school you are considering, the guidance counselor may have a listing of where students went to university. Be aware that college attendance percentages are goosed by students attending local community colleges, like they are for every school.
You specifically wanted to compare Plano & Allen. The Plano listing is particularly good because it gives GPA, activities, extra-curriculars, and other colleges they were accepted to, and you can see if your kid tested well or has the drive to be a top percenter. Valedictorians & Salutatorians / News Archive : Plano ISD
Here's the list for each:
Plano East Senior High School Amy Chyao Valedictorian - Harvard
Plano East Senior High School Adeyemi Adewuyi Salutatorian -Duke University
Plano Senior High School Darien Lee Valedictorian - Yale
Plano Senior High School Lawrence Liu Salutatorian - Princeton
Plano West Senior High School Andrew Li Valedictorian - Harvard
Plano West Senior High School Stephany Liu Salutatorian - Stanford University
Allen High Chengxi Li - Columbia University in New York.
Allen High McKenna Elizabeth Boyd - University of Texas at Austin.
I don't understand listing where the TOP kid at each school went. It was the top kid. Now- the kids in the middle, that's where a school earns its merit. Do the kids in the middle get into good colleges or not. So if your kid is that top 1-2-3 in the whole school kinda guy/girl- they will be fine anywhere. If you kid is just top 25% material, it really becomes an issue of the quality of the school.
I don't get this discussion, no matter how you look, Plano ISD is better and there are no two ways about this. You can keep picking till it bleeds but its not going to change facts. That doesn't mean everyone has to buy here but this is becoming a useless exercise.
don't understand listing where the TOP kid at each school went. It was the top kid. Now- the kids in the middle, that's where a school earns its merit.
I'd love to find that, but just finding the top few was relatively difficult. I'm not sure it's online in any reasonable-to-compare kind of way. Each school's guidance counselor might have a list, but I'm not sure they put copies online.
Also notice the top kid in Princeton went to Stephen F Austin (not knocking, just comparing), so it's not like you can just get valedictorian and that's the ticket to go to any school you want.
Last edited by TheOverdog; 03-27-2013 at 02:08 PM..
I don't get this discussion, no matter how you look, Plano ISD is better and there are no two ways about this. You can keep picking till it bleeds but its not going to change facts. That doesn't mean everyone has to buy here but this is becoming a useless exercise.
Better for the top 10 or 15 % and the bottom , but for other kids , it's not the case .
One of my best friend had her son in Jasper , he was a A's and pace student but was around number 300 in the school, the teachers pretty much ignored him . Once he moved in a smaller school outside of Texas , he was recognized and ended up last year as a NM finalist and got the $6000/ year scholarship , because teachers finally recognized his capacity , he would have never got it if he had stayed in Plano .
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