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McLean and Langley kids HAVE TO BE up to date on name brand
Again, attended McLean myself. Unless a ton has changed in 15 years, this isn't true. My father took me shopping at Ross's in 7 corners, hardly the height of fashion. Nobody said word one about my clothes.
Based on what I have heard and read, I have a different impression of McLean and Langley. McLean is largely very affluent but has a good number of students who live in ramblers and townhouses. Langley I don't think has any or extremely few. And Langley is the one whose students were chanting something like "We'll Own You" or something like that at the basketball games.
My perception could be inaccurate, but the sense I get is that Langley has a very entrenched entitlement mentality. Even if we had the money to live in the Langely pyramid, I would not want our kid to go to that school. I'd choose McLean or one of the other very good Fairfax or FC schools.
I work with a Langley High School bus driver, a single mom, that lives in an apartment on Route 1. She pupil-placed (back when that was allowed) her two daughters into Langley High to keep them out of Mount Vernon HS.
With that kind of income disparity, I asked her how the heck that was working out. She said they were doing fine....but I still wondered. Then I happened to meet them one day on their mom's bus. They were absolutely, and I mean ABSOLUTELY, gorgeous young ladies, both of them.
They were A-list at Langley for obvious reasons. They had an "equalizer"....something that money couldn't buy.
Based on what I have heard and read, I have a different impression of McLean and Langley. McLean is largely very affluent but has a good number of students who live in ramblers and townhouses. Langley I don't think has any or extremely few. And Langley is the one whose students were chanting something like "We'll Own You" or something like that at the basketball games.
My perception could be inaccurate, but the sense I get is that Langley has a very entrenched entitlement mentality. Even if we had the money to live in the Langely pyramid, I would not want our kid to go to that school. I'd choose McLean or one of the other very good Fairfax or FC schools.
In general, as I've said before, there's a rivalry between the schools but it's really a slap-fight between the well off and the really well off. That being said, McLean has an interesting set of borders which allows it to draw in some lower income students from the Timber Lane Elementary school area, the Hollywood Road apartment complexes, etc. Surprisingly (or not) most of our best athletes, at least in football and basketball, came from this area.
I had plenty of friends who went to Langley, kids I grew up playing with and against on the soccer and baseball fields in youth leagues. There's certainly less diversity and Langley doesn't have the same income disparity you'll find at McLean, but I can't speak to the culture of the school. At McLean, I can only remember two distinct "new cars." One of my friends on the baseball team who got a new Mustang, which I remember mostly because it was loud, and a 16 year old sophomore girl getting a new Volkswagon Beatle, which people were going nuts over because getting a nice new car was rare. Most kids who drove had their parents hand-me-down cars, like any other school. From observation, I'd say the parking lots at Langley trended wealthier, that might not have been as big a deal.
Kids at McLean had the same priorities as a lot of teenagers...do well in school, excel in sports and activities, and where can I get beer and get laid. Flaunting wealth was pretty far down the list. I think you'll find that any elitism probably comes from the parents in the stands and in meetings if it comes from anywhere, and I didn't have to deal with that because I was on the field playing. The kids don't generally give a crap. Shoot, I had friends that lived in nice big houses, one who lived in a particularly big one. The extent of our admiration was "hey, nice house." The reason we wanted to go over there wasn't because the house was big, it was because the kids father had an illegal cable descrambler and we could watch all the free Playboy and Spice channel we wanted. Like I said, the priorities of kids usually aren't about flaunting wealth.
Again, this was 15 years ago and McLean wasn't undergoing the McMansion transformation that it is now. Maybe things have changed some, but I doubt they've changed much.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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One thing I'd like to note is that the labels thing is usually more common among girls than among boys. At least that is how I understand it. And that may make a difference in people's experiences in schools and how the OP's child will perceive the school.
Also, I live in a pretty wealthy neighborhood now - more affluent than when I lived in Vienna. I don't necessarily think the kids here flaunt their wealth nor make fun of others who are poor. But their wealth is just is there - staring you in the face. They go on great vacations; they wear the latest name-brand fashions. The kids have lots of spending money, the latest I-Phones, etc. In general, their families are much looser with their money. Many think nothing of handing their kids a $20 bill to go to the movies or signing up their kids for a $500 per week camp. So while no one is necessarily laughing out loud at the poorer children. It can sometimes be uncomfortable if your family does not have the same spending habits as most of your neighbors/classmates.
We've lived in Vienna, Great Falls, and currently reside in Oakton. Oakton has been the best place for us in terms of location (it is located almost in center of FFX County), schools, commuting routes, investment protection, etc. When we were looking for a custom home building lot, land in Great Falls was actually cheaper than what was available in Vienna, Oakton, and McLean and still believe to the be the case as there is much more land available in GF. Oakton has the Great Falls rural and upscale feel but is so much more convenient to amenities and you don't have to spend the better part of your weekend running errands. While Langley HS is considered a top non-magnet HS in the district (in terms of test scores), we did not want our children to go there primarily becuase of the vast affluence of the students and lack of diversity. We specifically sought out either Madison or Oakton HS for the kids as both schools are well balanced with the right amount of diversity which is important to us.
We've lived in Vienna, Great Falls, and currently reside in Oakton. Oakton has been the best place for us in terms of location (it is located almost in center of FFX County), schools, commuting routes, investment protection, etc. When we were looking for a custom home building lot, land in Great Falls was actually cheaper than what was available in Vienna, Oakton, and McLean and still believe to the be the case as there is much more land available in GF. Oakton has the Great Falls rural and upscale feel but is so much more convenient to amenities and you don't have to spend the better part of your weekend running errands. While Langley HS is considered a top non-magnet HS in the district (in terms of test scores), we did not want our children to go there primarily becuase of the vast affluence of the students and lack of diversity. We specifically sought out either Madison or Oakton HS for the kids as both schools are well balanced with the right amount of diversity which is important to us.
People like to view their neighborhoods and schools as just right, and hopefully it's just right for them, but let's be clear with the facts.
If you really want to focus on diversity, I'd point out that Madison has the lowest percentage of non-white minorities (29%) in Fairfax County, compared to 31% at Langley, 39% at McLean and 41% at Oakton. And all of these schools have low percentages of students receiving free or subsidized meals. Langley is only 2%, but Madison (8%), McLean (9%) and Oakton (10%) are all well below the county average (28%) as well.
When we lived in Vienna, most people were very nice, but there were definitely some in the Madison and Oakton HS districts who had a condescending attitude towards people who lived in neighborhoods zoned for other schools - principally Marshall and South Lakes.
Just want to clarify that by "diversity" I meant socio-economic diversity, which is indicated by the subsidized meals. Langley is a school with some kids who feel entitled but have not a clue how their parents busted thier tails to put them into that position. I fully realize that Langley is well represented by the minority ranks, but this minority base is highly educated and extremely well off, and these kids often academically outperform their white counterparts at Langley. Specifically with Oakton, you have many kids attending that are living in low income housing (located around the Fairfax Circle/Blake La area) that lack the most basic of tools such as home Internet access and a personal computer. This is NOT the case at Langley where the parents lobby hard to keep it a public school for the affluent only.
Just want to clarify that by "diversity" I meant socio-economic diversity, which is indicated by the subsidized meals. Langley is a school with some kids who feel entitled but have not a clue how their parents busted thier tails to put them into that position. I fully realize that Langley is well represented by the minority ranks, but this minority base is highly educated and extremely well off, and these kids often academically outperform their white counterparts at Langley. Specifically with Oakton, you have many kids attending that are living in low income housing (located around the Fairfax Circle/Blake La area) that lack the most basic of tools such as home Internet access and a personal computer. This is NOT the case at Langley where the parents lobby hard to keep it a public school for the affluent only.
We're not at Langley, but Langley and TJ seem to be the two high schools that parents from other areas feel free to openly criticize, for predictable reasons - wealth (Langley) or academic elitism (TJ). If they didn't exist, other schools would surely take their place. If you think there are not kids at Oakton and Madison with a sense of entitlement, you are likely in for an awakening. I do think having more than 2% low-income kids at a school probably does more to socialize the other kids about the fact that not everyone has the advantages they have, but school is not the only thing going on in the lives of Langley students.
And, to respond to Carlingtonian's earlier comment, there are a few townhouse complexes north of Route 123 that feed into Langley. One of them is more expensive than most neighborhoods of single-family homes in NoVa, but one of the other ones is older and comparatively modest.
Just want to clarify that by "diversity" I meant socio-economic diversity, which is indicated by the subsidized meals. Langley is a school with some kids who feel entitled but have not a clue how their parents busted thier tails to put them into that position. I fully realize that Langley is well represented by the minority ranks, but this minority base is highly educated and extremely well off, and these kids often academically outperform their white counterparts at Langley. Specifically with Oakton, you have many kids attending that are living in low income housing (located around the Fairfax Circle/Blake La area) that lack the most basic of tools such as home Internet access and a personal computer. This is NOT the case at Langley where the parents lobby hard to keep it a public school for the affluent only.
I wanted to add that I'm not aware of any instance where Langley parents have "lobbied hard" to "keep it a public school for the affluent only."
Given where Langley is located, and its proximity to other high schools like McLean and Marshall, it would be hard to draw boundaries for Langley that didn't mostly include high-income areas. I do know that the boundaries extend all the way through Great Falls to the Loudoun border and that, once families get zoned for Langley, they fight to stay there. But I've never heard of people at Langley objecting to any proposal that might send less affluent students there, which is what the last sentence of your post seems to imply.
I'd actually like to see what the FCPS boundaries would look like if we started from scratch and hired someone to create a fresh set of boundaries based on minimizing travel time and "split feeders" and maximizing the use of available seats at the various schools.
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) most of our best athletes, at least in football and basketball, came from this area.
