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I concur with most of what I've read above. I'm a graduate of JL Mann and my children recently graduated Mauldin. Getting Woodruff out of the way the school is highly regarded but sits in a very rural part of the upstate. If you are attracted to that for whatever reason then the school is great.
Mauldin and JL Mann are close in proximity while Mauldin has a few more students than Mann. They are both what you make of them. The AP courses are rigorous, the club selection and athletics plentiful. Mauldin prepared my children well, they enjoyed well-rounded high school careers and were accepted to all of their college choices which included the two largest universities in the state.
One word of caution. You would be safe to proceed with either school so get your children involved in the social media aspect of this by doing some research on their own. Some students find JL Mann to be a bit more clique-ish if you will, and have a difficult time fitting in. This may also be true for some Mauldin students but we have met some students who transferred from Mann to Mauldin who were good students and student-athletes who just were not comfortable at Mann. I enjoyed Mann decades ago but this was also the case for some students back then.
Let the kids decide - you'll be glad that you did. Best wishes.
When we moved to this state, we knew we were coming to the state, and that we didn't want to live too far south. We let our then 8th grader decide which school between Spartanburg and Greenville would meet her needs. Because we are a band family, a marching program was important to her. She wanted to be in a large band and Mauldin fit that bill for her wonderfully. She also looked at students ratings of their school and it seemed to her that students at Mauldin were happier than the students at other schools. I think if you asked her today if she chose wisely, she would say YES. She then went on to graduate from Furman and is doing what her mother was unable to do; raising her kids as a stay at home mom.
The methodology for this list is suspect at best. 25% of the score is the number of AP/IB tests taken per student. The students could do miserably on the tests but the school gets rated well just because they took the tests. 10% for the student scores on AP/IB tests and another 5% for number of students in an AP/IB course. That puts a ridiculous 40% of the score weighted towards AP/IB courses. This is 4 times as much weight as SAT/ACT scores (10%) and almost twice the weight of 4 year graduation rate (25%) or college acceptance rate (25%).
The rankings completely ignore dual enrollment courses which are taken by advanced students at many high schools.
No one ranking list will give a good picture but the one cited for this article is a pretty useless list. It does seem to do a decent job of ranking Greenville County High Schools but I would say that might be coincidence as much as anything.....
The High School I attended in TN isn't even on the list despite being one of the top schools in TN. The reason is probably that Maryville High School only has kids take AP exams if they feel confident the student can pass the exam and receive credit. That suppresses the number of AP exams they give but has no impact on the actual quality of the school. That high school leads almost all the other TN schools that are on the list in graduation rate, college acceptance rate, SAT/ACT scores, and average score received on AP tests.
I don't think passing the AP exam means that much, it would be better to look at how these students do in the AP class thourhgout the year. Even if they don't pass the exam, they will be much better prepared for college. I didn't even try to pass my Calculus AP exam in high school but I made A's at Clemson in it b/c I was familiar with the subject matter.
I'd probagly weight enrollment in AP classes over SAT scores.
It should be pointed out that test scores, graduation rates, college acceptance rates are usually more a function of the type of students who go there than the teachers. There are a lot of solid schools in SC that get flogged b/c they are dealing with students who just don't focus much on academics.
...what areas in greenville are zoned for JL Mann?
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowedHere is the school attendance map for J L Mann. It includes all of the upscale neighborhoods of the Parkins Mill and East Parkins Mill area (Gower, Collins Creek, Parkins Lake, etc) - of course, not all attend public school. Further, J L Mann catchment includes parts of the Eastside, north/west Mauldin, and parts of Five Forks.
I don't think passing the AP exam means that much, it would be better to look at how these students do in the AP class thourhgout the year. Even if they don't pass the exam, they will be much better prepared for college. I didn't even try to pass my Calculus AP exam in high school but I made A's at Clemson in it b/c I was familiar with the subject matter.
I'd probagly weight enrollment in AP classes over SAT scores.
It should be pointed out that test scores, graduation rates, college acceptance rates are usually more a function of the type of students who go there than the teachers. There are a lot of solid schools in SC that get flogged b/c they are dealing with students who just don't focus much on academics.
i would disagree with the analysis of how to measure AP success. AP is designed to simulate the first year or two of college when kids take a lot of survey and pre-req stuff. Unless college has changed in the last 15 years I remember the typical survey course be it in poly sci, econ, calc, english, etc.... typically was assessed using a mid term and a final exam and that was it for your grade. how a kid does during the school, if it doesn't match up with their AP score then you have to question the rigor or the AP course itself, the class and the instructor in my opinion. I would much rather see the AP scores than the AP course. famous quote used by several people throughout history..."don't tell me about the labor, just show me the baby". I worked my rear end off in AP US History and AP English to get 3's on those tests and they both prepared very well for college in terms of coursework. I received an A in AP Calc senior year, scored a 1 b/c i didn't care and then got a C in Calc freshman year. Conversely I did absolutely nothing to prepare myself for the AP Euro History test senior year as a i took as an independent study and scored a 4 on it. IMPO as an educator schools spend too much time misplacing students in AP classes who do not belong in them simply b/c the admins have said we want to get on this newsweek list so we'd better start increasing our AP/IB numbers regardless of actual merit or ability. admins will claim they are doing it to increase rigor....BUT if you really wanted to increase rigor they'd make their CP and Honors level courses much more challenging and reduce the AP enrollment to the top 10% of the school and make entrance into those courses way more competitive.
In the end education has become just a numbers game. admins manipulating numbers and the "books" to show the investors (community) and prospective investors how well the stock is doing. school admins today are no better than the creeps at Enron back in the day.
newsweek should publish their list not as a ranking of schools but as a ranking of communities. communities make schools not the other way around. put the teachers and admins at brashier or greer middle college over at carolina and see how "excellent" they are. i have some friends who taught in GCSD at some of the lower performing schools who now teach at the charter schools / upper economic schools and its not b/c they are amazing teachers trust me. but they teach at riverside or eastside or brashier and are then awarded this distinction of being somehow better than the rest of us.
JL Mann seems like the forgotten school in many ways in the upstate, along with Wade Hampton.
what areas in greenville are zoned for JL Mann?
it's sad too b/c wade hampton in the last 2-3 years has made themselves into a better school than riverside, eastside and mann. if you compare hsap scores, grad rates, eoc pass rates and life scholarship qualifiers among all 4 schools wade hampton surpasses all of them.
i would disagree with the analysis of how to measure AP success. AP is designed to simulate the first year or two of college when kids take a lot of survey and pre-req stuff. Unless college has changed in the last 15 years I remember the typical survey course be it in poly sci, econ, calc, english, etc.... typically was assessed using a mid term and a final exam and that was it for your grade. how a kid does during the school, if it doesn't match up with their AP score then you have to question the rigor or the AP course itself, the class and the instructor in my opinion. I would much rather see the AP scores than the AP course. famous quote used by several people throughout history..."don't tell me about the labor, just show me the baby". I worked my rear end off in AP US History and AP English to get 3's on those tests and they both prepared very well for college in terms of coursework. I received an A in AP Calc senior year, scored a 1 b/c i didn't care and then got a C in Calc freshman year. Conversely I did absolutely nothing to prepare myself for the AP Euro History test senior year as a i took as an independent study and scored a 4 on it. IMPO as an educator schools spend too much time misplacing students in AP classes who do not belong in them simply b/c the admins have said we want to get on this newsweek list so we'd better start increasing our AP/IB numbers regardless of actual merit or ability. admins will claim they are doing it to increase rigor....BUT if you really wanted to increase rigor they'd make their CP and Honors level courses much more challenging and reduce the AP enrollment to the top 10% of the school and make entrance into those courses way more competitive.
In the end education has become just a numbers game. admins manipulating numbers and the "books" to show the investors (community) and prospective investors how well the stock is doing. school admins today are no better than the creeps at Enron back in the day.
newsweek should publish their list not as a ranking of schools but as a ranking of communities. communities make schools not the other way around. put the teachers and admins at brashier or greer middle college over at carolina and see how "excellent" they are. i have some friends who taught in GCSD at some of the lower performing schools who now teach at the charter schools / upper economic schools and its not b/c they are amazing teachers trust me. but they teach at riverside or eastside or brashier and are then awarded this distinction of being somehow better than the rest of us.
We will have to agree to disagree....the AP class itself matters more than a score on a test at the end. It simulates a college experience so the student has a much better appreciation that college is going to be more challenging than high school classes, and it also exposes them to the subject matter so even if they don't pass the test, which might jsut be laziness on the student's part, as was my case with the AP math class, they are better prepared to do well in the same class in college. Also performing well in an AP class over a long period time demonstrates your consistent work ethic, which is actually more vital in college than just overal potential and intellect, which tends to be demonstrated by test scores. I think SAT scores are a good tool but I think GPA and taking more challenging classes in high school tends to predict success in college much more accurately than test scores can.
I don't think too many students who shouldn't be in AP classes are goig to last long in them. I can't recall any students being in those classes with me who you wouldn't expect to be in them. The school officials can't just force kids to take AP classes to exploit the ratings and kids not focused on academics are not going to want to take AP classes if they can take easier classes adn still get the high school diploma.
I think your Enron analogy might be a tad bit of hyperbole. LOL
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