Greenhill vs St Marks/Hockaday (Houston, Dallas: public school, living in, stats)

[stan4]

https://youtu.be/vwi-fGf0rm4

Interesting

We don't serve our gifted kids well enough.

[jennifw]

Originally Posted by cordata

What about schools like the DISD Magnets? Is there less gaming the system there ?

As far as I know, the DISD Magnets don't rank their students. (They might do Val/Sal). The parent who I was discussing it with had a point - the top 6% or top 10% at a DISD TAG school are likely stronger candidates than the top 10% at other districts. Not ranking allows each student's application to be looked at rather than just separated based on class rank. Makes sense to me.

[Taub201]

Not sure how UT & A&M undergrad engineering are better than Rice. The former two surely have lots of resources and probably more in total with gobs of endowed professors and research funding. I don't know a lot about Rice except that they reject NM Scholars and are known for their sciences. The key is the type of jobs they get after college, as well as the learning and peers they had in college. Per cap, Rice grads get more investment banking jobs than any other TX school. They also get into med school at the highest rate in TX.


I believe Rice really improved its rankings when it was ranked #1 in the Forbes best value poll. It had a 30% increase in applications after that year. Now, it's tuition is near or at the top end of TX privates and not too far below the East Coast elites.


Regarding Harvard Med School, do they get the same type of residencies as UTSW? Aren't their alumni spread out more around the world? It just seems like they have more opportunities than a school like UTSW. Isn't Baylor med school higher ranked than UTSW? UTSW has a fabulous rep around here but Baylor is all the rage in the Houston area.

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by walker1977

I think your thread instead of boosting up Plano’s schools and achievements, actually exposes the problem and explains why many parents don’t want that for their kids. The rat race mentality of trying to outdo the other kids and game the class rank system through endless AP classes, etc. is not ideal even though many kids can handle it.It’s nice to know that even elite top 50 national private schools (SM/Hock/GH) don’t want any part of that for their students and take a way more holistic approach and still maintain excellent college matriculations.

Holistic is the screen to admit legacy, URM, donors, athletes, development cases etc without having to explain selective disregard of merit. Small rich private schools have special relationships with elite colleges, public schools kids , specially Asians have to fight for limited merit quota. This competition is created by college admission system, not by public schools. You can drop AP or rank or GPA but that won't fix college admission system.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by EDS_

IMO most children respond very well to involved, engaged and demanding parents who set high expectations. Teens are only children if we treat them as such.

So far as the Asian thing............Asians from China to S. Korea to Singapore etc. - and in The USA for that matter are thrashing us/whites/blacks/hispanics in K-12 attainment, embarrassingly so I might add. While we sit around hoping Jr. has a fun summer and enjoys Disneyland and 12 hrs. per day of cartoons/video games his/her counterpart is studying multi-variable calculus and Latin in 9th grade.

I would pump the brakes on the Asian love fest. I can’t find the articles right now but there are several detailing Asian students suffering high stress levels, far higher suicide rates compared to Americans. The other notable observation was that while Asians do outperform Americans in science, much of that is due to rote memorization and not genuine innovative thought and growth.
So let’s just say there are pros and cons to both

[walker1977]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Holistic is the screen to admit legacy, URM, donors, athletes, development cases etc without having to explain selective disregard of merit. Small rich private schools have special relationships with elite colleges, public schools kids , specially Asians have to fight for limited merit quota. This competition is created by college admission system, not by public schools. You can drop AP or rank or GPA but that won't fix college admission system.

While I agree with you that competition is created by the college admission system, high performing public schools don’t have to partake of it just like private schools don’t. Why should PW have 100 kids obsessed and fighting over GPA to the hundredths place for 4 years? Getting rid of ranking won’t fix the college problem completely but may allow some of these kids to actually “explore” different things in life/academics/sports/extracurriculars/etc. which short and long term is better for them. You still have SAT scores, achievement tests, LOR’s, extracurriculars to distinguish kids.

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by biafra4life

I would pump the brakes on the Asian love fest. I can’t find the articles right now but there are several detailing Asian students suffering high stress levels, far higher suicide rates compared to Americans. The other notable observation was that while Asians do outperform Americans in science, much of that is due to rote memorization and not genuine innovative thought and growth.
So let’s just say there are pros and cons to both

Don't use a broad brush to paint Asians as a monolithic entity, stereotyping of a whole race is just stupid, even if there were "studies" to support racism.

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by walker1977

While I agree with you that competition is created by the college admission system, high performing public schools don’t have to partake of it just like private schools don’t. Why should PW have 100 kids obsessed and fighting over GPA to the hundredths place for 4 years? Getting rid of ranking won’t fix the college problem completely but may allow some of these kids to actually “explore” different things in life/academics/sports/extracurriculars/etc. which short and long term is better for them. You still have SAT scores, achievement tests, LOR’s, extracurriculars to distinguish kids.

If St Marks or Hockaday had 1400+ middle class student in every senior high's graduating class as PW does, you would see similar competition. By the way, don't minimize accomplishements of these students, each does a lot more with lot less resources then rich students from private schools.

[biafra4life]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Don't use a broad brush to paint Asians as a monolithic entity, stereotyping of a whole race is just stupid, even if there were "studies" to support racism.

I’m not stereotyping. It’s a FACT that students from Asia especially Japan and South Korea, suffer much higher rates of depression and suicide compared to American students. This is attributed mainly to the INTENSE competition to get into good universities over there. As bad and unhealthy as we think it is for kids here, it’s even worse over there. Now do I think it’s all bad? No. There are elements of their culture which we can definitely try to incorporate here. Finding the balance is the tricky part, and I don’t claim to know the answer to that.

[calgirlinnc]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Don't use a broad brush to paint Asians as a monolithic entity, stereotyping of a whole race is just stupid, even if there were "studies" to support racism.