One More Way Timmy Won't Get Into Harvard

By Garrett M. Graff

If you want to get your child into Harvard, don’t send him or her to a public school in DC.

This year Harvard had more than 640 applications from the Washington region and accepted 66—barely one out of ten. Not a single student was admitted from a traditional DC public school, not even from the Banneker and Ellington magnet schools, according to statistics from Harvard admissions. One student was admitted from the alternative program at the School Without Walls.

In the suburbs, Thomas Jefferson, the magnet science-and-technology school in Northern Virginia, led the way, as did Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland. In DC, Sidwell Friends topped the number of admitted students; St. Albans saw only one senior get in.

One notable absence from the list: Landon, which has one of the area’s highest tuitions at $27,100.

The Harvard list:

Virginia

Thomas Jefferson - 10

Potomac Falls - 2

Potomac School - 2

West Springfield - 2

Bishop O’Connell - 1

Foxcroft School - 1

Loudoun County - 1

McLean - 1

Paul VI - 1

Yorktown - 1

District of Columbia

Sidwell - 6

Georgetown Day - 3

Maret - 2

National Cathedral -2

Gonzaga - 1

School Without Walls - 1

St. Albans - 1

Washington International - 1

Maryland

Montgomery Blair - 5

Bethesda–Chevy Chase - 4

Walt Whitman - 4

Stone Ridge - 3

Eleanor Roosevelt - 2

Holton-Arms - 2

Winston Churchill - 2

Georgetown Prep - 1

Good Counsel - 1

James Hubert Blake - 1

Springbrook - 1

Wheaton - 1

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