college bound graduates (Centreville, Chantilly, McLean: school districts, vs., statistics)

[puffle]

My family and I were going to move to the Boston area where the percentage of high school graduates going on to college is usually 90% and above. As a business move, N.Virginia would be better, but after looking at the percentage of graduates going on to college, and I mean from the supposed best high schools in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, the highest was 87% going to college. Actually Loudoun was about 83%. I was shocked as many of the schools in these areas are usually in the top 200 high schools in the country! A great portion of the schools we were considering in the suburbs of Boston had usually 95% and higher going on to college. I found these figures on Homefair.com. Also, the class sizes in NOVA were double of those in the Metro West area of Boston. Any personal experiences that can be shared would be great.

[saganista]

In the northeast, you have many municipal school systems. In NoVa, you have county-wide systems. Clearly makes for larger schools and school districts, though not necessarily for larger class sizes. Larger districts incline toward greater diversity across socio-economic scales which may in turn have an influence at the margin on (particularly immediate) rates of enrollment in higher education...

[puffle]

I wonder if the information on homefair.com was incorrect reporting most of the top high schools in NoVa have only 87% going on to a 4 year college? The test scores, according to greatschools were very good. Is there something missing between great scores but less going to college?

[saganista]

I believe homefair's college-bound numbers are for the number of seniors who say they have plans to attend either a 2-year or a 4-year institution. That's a pretty squishy concept. Not sure I'd put so much weight on a few percentage points one way or the other. Could just be that kids in New England are more influenced by or susceptible to peer pressure than are kids in NoVa...

[dullnboring]

As saganista noted, school systems in the Northeast are more localized. If we had such things in Northern Virginia, a McLean school system or an Oakton or Vienna school system would rival those that you see in Massachusetts. For the record, the number that I found at a countywide level for Fairfax County Public Schools is 89% of students going onwards to a two year or four year college, which is remarkable for such a large and diverse district.

I found different statistics on the percentage of students going to four or two year institutions. What I found, just looking at Fairfax County Public Schools is that the following high schools have over 90% of their seniors planning to go to a two or four year college, with generally between 70-80% planning on going to a four year and the remainder to a two year.

Thomas Jefferson - 98%
Lake Braddock - 94%
Oakton - 94%
Langley - 93%
Madison - 93%
McLean - 93%
West Springfield - 93%
Woodson - 92%
Chantilly - 91%
Robinson - 91%
Centreville - 90%

I wouldn't worry too much about a few percentage points in this regards. If the difference were incredibly pronounced, like 95% vs. 60% then I would say differently, but that's not the case for most of Northern Virginia's schools.