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I am aware that they are in the same district, but that does not mean that both schools perform the same. Libertyville and Vernon Hills are in the same district and Libertyville consistently ranks better than Vernon Hills (though the gap is closing). Hersey and Prospect are in the same district as Wheeling and no one would say Wheeling is at the same level as Hersey or Prospect. So being in the same district really does not mean much.
I have lived in Lake County for 30 years and know people from all over the north and northwest suburban area and their kids who attended many of these Lake County schools including Stevenson (where my kids went), Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Lake Forest, Highland Park, Deerfield, Mundelein, Lake Zurich, Antioch, Warren, Wauconda as well as northern Cook County schools like New Trier, Fremd, Palatine, the Glenbrooks, etc. There are plenty of threads on this forum discussing issues at HPHS. Anyone can cherry pick this or that statistic to try to make a point, even if misplaced. My response was to a top 5 list that excluded both Deerfield and HP. All I said was that IMO, it was crazy to exclude Deerfield which has #1 or #2 along with Stevenson for years. I did not, and do not think that HPHS is a slam dunk consistently top 5 Lake County school like Deerfield, Stevenson, or Libertyville. Top 10? Sure. But this was a top 5 list.
I have long stated that it makes MUCH MORE SENSE to look at broad tiers of high schools than any specific "rank order", the fact is even if you really really really want to pick a school that one year is #1 there are too many things out of your control that might make it drop a few notches over even the four years your child attends.
The effort the US News puts into grouping together the "Gold" tier schools is impressive and for kids with the talent and good fortune to be admitted to a school like Payton or Northside they will have classmates that are uniformly capable of very impressive levels of achievement. The majority of other "gold tier" schools across the country are similarly all places that are somewhat sadly too unique. The relatively small numbers of students that can say they went to a 'gold tier' high school still does not make up for the NEED that the whole country has for true top tier education.
In my experience as former teacher, active real estate investor / sales person, parent and concerned citizen I believe the schools on the "silver tier' are mostly reflective of both the better aspects of what most home buyers should strive for, as well as the limitations of the US public education system. The opportunity for kids who are well prepared to take advantage of the most challenges courses offered at "silver tier" schools gives any motivated student a real shot at some of the most well regarded colleges on the planet. For some kids the path to a great career might include time on the football team at well regarded college, or in the marching band, or cranking through ideas on computer science internship, or heading to professional schools in medicine / law / business, but is it well within the possibility to do so coming from ANY silver tier school. That said too many kids at even the BEST silver tier schools are going to run into some challenges -- some might be traced to problems getting services for special needs, some might be due to wide differences in best students / teachers and the least motivated, some might due to issues of economic hardship. Schools are asked to SOLVE all these issues and most smart people realize that by "asking too much" we set ourselves up to blame then when they deliver too little but that is NOT the real problem!
The lower tier schools in "bronze" and "honorable mention" should serve as both congratulatory praise for the fact that SOME kids in those settings MIGHT have a chance at a good college and way out of the tough conditions that nearly every bronze or lower school faces BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY THE RANKING SHOULD MOTIVATE the communities that these schools are in to STRIVE FOR IMPROVEMENT so that with more efforts they too have a shot at being the sort of silver tier school where it is a given that there is a legitimate path to career success.
I know that virtually nobody applauds an athlete that never wins gold but manages to earn 4 silver and 6 bronze Olympic finishes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franziska_van_Almsick, but THAT is what the whole purpose of "rankings" is supposed to accomplish -- keeping school leaders and their community involved in the HARD WORK of improvement. When a swimmer like Franziska gets up to cold winter mornings of Berlin and plunges into the pool she does not think "10,000 meters of training a day and still I might get touched out by .01 second" but instead she must've have known "to be a champion means I must push myself every day". Schools that push themselves to ensure success of their students are going to get the medals and schools that allow their crappy circumstance to continue to hold back students are going to be places to avoid...
My point is that my father would have gone to Harvard if his parents had the income he made. My mother's father would have gone to MIT instead of UW. I would have gone to Oberlin instead of Bates to begin my college career [edit: had my parents been poor], and probably never have gone to Northwestern.
It's not that they're not going to do as well, it's that students with the same qualifications who are marginal are going to go to different schools based on the cost. I could afford to go to a $50,000 a year school. Were my parents poorer, I would have gone to a school offering me a merit-based scholarship, or a state school. The person who scored the same as I did and had the same grades and was poor would definitely be going state.
That's going on at mass scale in the state. Students of roughly identical qualifications are going to sort by family wealth into schools (as always, controlling for race).
There are really very few opportunities that are lost for a smart kid going to and doing well at a good state school like UW-Madison or UM vs a Ivy League (or northwestern or chicago). You can get into the same professional or grad schools. You can get hired by the same consulting companies, etc.
I'm not saying i won't sent my kids to northwestern but I have never been restricted or seen a hard working motivated good state school graduate suffer career limitations.
There are really very few opportunities that are lost for a smart kid going to and doing well at a good state school like UW-Madison or UM vs a Ivy League (or northwestern or chicago). You can get into the same professional or grad schools. You can get hired by the same consulting companies, etc.
I'm not saying i won't sent my kids to northwestern but I have never been restricted or seen a hard working motivated good state school graduate suffer career limitations.
Correct, there are no limitation as such, but IME, the Northwestern graduates can often get face-time with select recruiters vs @ a larger school like U of I. YMMV.
I am aware that they are in the same district, but that does not mean that both schools perform the same. Libertyville and Vernon Hills are in the same district and Libertyville consistently ranks better than Vernon Hills (though the gap is closing). Hersey and Prospect are in the same district as Wheeling and no one would say Wheeling is at the same level as Hersey or Prospect. So being in the same district really does not mean much.
I have lived in Lake County for 30 years and know people from all over the north and northwest suburban area and their kids who attended many of these Lake County schools including Stevenson (where my kids went), Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Lake Forest, Highland Park, Deerfield, Mundelein, Lake Zurich, Antioch, Warren, Wauconda as well as northern Cook County schools like New Trier, Fremd, Palatine, the Glenbrooks, etc. There are plenty of threads on this forum discussing issues at HPHS. Anyone can cherry pick this or that statistic to try to make a point, even if misplaced. My response was to a top 5 list that excluded both Deerfield and HP. All I said was that IMO, it was crazy to exclude Deerfield which has #1 or #2 along with Stevenson for years. I did not, and do not think that HPHS is a slam dunk consistently top 5 Lake County school like Deerfield, Stevenson, or Libertyville. Top 10? Sure. But this was a top 5 list.
Correct, there are no limitation as such, but IME, the Northwestern graduates can often get face-time with select recruiters vs @ a larger school like U of I. YMMV.
I think the networking point is valid. But honestly if a kid knows what type of career they want to pursue a good state school won't block many options. I think if you are breaking into a family business it might make more of an impact but at the end of the day i think college prestige isn't as valuable as some would like to believe. If the student will have loans from their undergrad I would almost always agrue that limiting the size of those should be the biggest goal and free up opportunities that don't have to be determined by income alone.
There are really very few opportunities that are lost for a smart kid going to and doing well at a good state school like UW-Madison or UM vs a Ivy League (or northwestern or chicago). You can get into the same professional or grad schools. You can get hired by the same consulting companies, etc.
I'm not saying i won't sent my kids to northwestern but I have never been restricted or seen a hard working motivated good state school graduate suffer career limitations.
You've missed the point, which was that the kids going state from less wealthy districts will tend to be smarter than kids going state from wealthier districts.
Not to drag things too far from the topic, but if the ONLY goal of a seeking out a home nice town was to have the best shot at the most prestigious college there are really no ways to measure such a result.
On some level I do believe that there are all kinds of sieving effects that make it more or less likely that any individual kid will get into their "dream career" -- for kids with hopes of being a student athlete the exact month of their birth can give them a nice boost in growth that lasts through their whole youth sports adventure. For kids with musical ambitions there are all sorts of ways to set yourself apart vs blending in Hold That Tuba! It is no secret that the best computer science internships are disporportionately filled by students from a tiny handful of colleges -- Best computer science engineering schools in America - Business Insider
The issue is that there are ALL KINDS of valid reasons to prefer one town with nearly the same "silver tier" high school over another. Folks who don't acknowledge that are going to make themselves completely nuts when some kids from the town they rejected ends up being their boss...
I am aware that they are in the same district, but that does not mean that both schools perform the same. Libertyville and Vernon Hills are in the same district and Libertyville consistently ranks better than Vernon Hills (though the gap is closing). Hersey and Prospect are in the same district as Wheeling and no one would say Wheeling is at the same level as Hersey or Prospect. So being in the same district really does not mean much.
I have lived in Lake County for 30 years and know people from all over the north and northwest suburban area and their kids who attended many of these Lake County schools including Stevenson (where my kids went), Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Lake Forest, Highland Park, Deerfield, Mundelein, Lake Zurich, Antioch, Warren, Wauconda as well as northern Cook County schools like New Trier, Fremd, Palatine, the Glenbrooks, etc. There are plenty of threads on this forum discussing issues at HPHS. Anyone can cherry pick this or that statistic to try to make a point, even if misplaced. My response was to a top 5 list that excluded both Deerfield and HP. All I said was that IMO, it was crazy to exclude Deerfield which has #1 or #2 along with Stevenson for years. I did not, and do not think that HPHS is a slam dunk consistently top 5 Lake County school like Deerfield, Stevenson, or Libertyville. Top 10? Sure. But this was a top 5 list.
Ok. Why don't you cherry pick data that puts other schools ahead of HP (besides Deerfield and Stevenson)? Besides ACT scores, performance at state schools based on freshman GPA over a three-year period, and national rankings, what have you got? What exactly did I cherry pick? And what did I misplace? If I made an error in transferring the data from the sources to my post, please show me where. If so, I apologize. Otherwise, the objective data I presented trumps your subjective opinion. Subjectively, having lived on the North Shore for 25 years, I would say that most would place HP in the top three. But I don't like to be subjective when I have other means of supporting my position.
I'm also curious what the "issues" are at HPHS? What you mind find interesting is that the superintendent of Stevenson, Dr. Twadell, sends his children to HPHS. I'm sure he wouldn't do that if there were "issues". He'd know, wouldn't he?
I'm also curious what the "issues" are at HPHS? What you mind find interesting is that the superintendent of Stevenson, Dr. Twadell, sends his children to HPHS. I'm sure he wouldn't do that if there were "issues". He'd know, wouldn't he?
There are issues at every school. Back in 1999 Life magazine did a 50 year followup story on the state of the nation's schools, focused on New Trier. The cover model was a crack and heroin addict within a year of the photo shoot.
There are issues at every school. Back in 1999 Life magazine did a 50 year followup story on the state of the nation's schools, focused on New Trier. The cover model was a crack and heroin addict within a year of the photo shoot.
Exactly. So why would one single out HPHS as having "issues" like it's something unique that prevents it from being highly regarded?
Last edited by Paige65; 10-06-2016 at 05:58 AM..
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