Best gifted programs in DMV?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

Yes, because they are so much better.
The best schools for top students are top privates. The only kids who get in without a hook are gifted students. The other kids are legacy, high school athletes, or children of big donors. All the classes cater to gifted kids and make learning fun. In no order: GDS, Sidwell, NCS, STA, Maret, Holten, Bullis, Georgetown Prep, and probably many that I’m forgetting. Public schools simply don’t have the resources for differentiated learning on the scale of good privates. On top of that privates select their students. The only public that comes close is TJ, and still the resources are not comparable.

DP.. there are some private school kids who will apply to magnets from their private school, and if they get in, they go to the magnet.

The magnet programs have way more high achieving peer cohorts than private schools do.

I can't speak to the programs, and neither can you, since no one has experienced all of the private schools you mentioned AND all of the magnet programs listed, but you can't argue that the peer cohort at these magnets can be replicated in the private schools. It's a numbers game.

[Anonymous]

Every single kid we know who got in to a top magnet (TJ, Blair, RMIB, SWW) from private or public took the magnet spot. The kids who did not get in to a magnet continued in private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

How many of #2 and #4 would accept a child with ADHD and Autism?

This isn't really correct or what most people think. This is more the conventional wisdom

1. FCPS TJ or Blair magnet
2. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
3. Top Privates - Sidwell, STA, NCS, GDS, and more or top MCPS W schools or top FCPS McLean schools

Poolesville magnets are somewhere up there too these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every single kid we know who got in to a top magnet (TJ, Blair, RMIB, SWW) from private or public took the magnet spot. The kids who did not get in to a magnet continued in private.

+1
Kids we know turned down Sidwell, GDS, Cathedral schools for magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

How many of #2 and #4 would accept a child with ADHD and Autism?

This isn't really correct or what most people think. This is more the conventional wisdom

1. FCPS TJ or Blair magnet
2. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
3. Top Privates - Sidwell, STA, NCS, GDS, and more or top MCPS W schools or top FCPS McLean schools

Poolesville magnets are somewhere up there too these days.

All good advice…a decade ago.

For today there’s only one program I would suggest: Urbana High IB cluster.

You asked about forever home/school decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

How many of #2 and #4 would accept a child with ADHD and Autism?

This isn't really correct or what most people think. This is more the conventional wisdom

1. FCPS TJ or Blair magnet
2. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
3. Top Privates - Sidwell, STA, NCS, GDS, and more or top MCPS W schools or top FCPS McLean schools

Poolesville magnets are somewhere up there too these days.

All good advice…a decade ago.

For today there’s only one program I would suggest: Urbana High IB cluster.

You asked about forever home/school decision.

Hahaha… time to time you get these out of nowhere posters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

How many of #2 and #4 would accept a child with ADHD and Autism?

This isn't really correct or what most people think. This is more the conventional wisdom

1. FCPS TJ or Blair magnet
2. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
3. Top Privates - Sidwell, STA, NCS, GDS, and more or top MCPS W schools or top FCPS McLean schools

Poolesville magnets are somewhere up there too these days.

Again OP said "especially Math/STEM ". The top privates are nowhere near the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

The good privates will do their best to screen out 2E children. I echo what PP said about FCPS having some teachers who are very experienced with ASD, only in our ES those teachers tended to be gen ed.

This list is absurd, OP. No one other than this strange poster would rank schools for gifted kids like this. There are very few gifted kids in top privates. I have kids two of those FWIW. At most you'll have 10 gifted kids in your child's whole grade. They just don't screen for academics the way magnet programs do.

FCPS has the most comprehensive and inclusive gifted programs with many tiers at almost all levels of schooling with TJ being at the top.
MCPS has extremely high quality programs that are almost impossible to access with the new lottery changes for ES and MS. In HS most of the top kids rise to the top but you need more than giftedness to get to the HS magnets. You need to show achievement, effort, motivation. Everyone knows Blair is the best. You can't compare the others to Blair but RM, Poolesville, and Wheaton engineering are also very respected. There are other, smaller programs at many other schools like a leadership magnet somewhere and a few others. If you go with MCPS some high schools also have their own local gifted type programs that families like. I think one is called Apex.

FWIW because of the way Fairfax is set up there are many 2e kids in AAP and even TJ. MCPS screens out many kids with IEPs or 504s although you will find a few of them who are always chiming in on DCUM.

I'm confused- are there fewer spots available than before?

As a backup you could be sure your home ES offers enriched literacy and compacted math in 4th/5th.

The ES/MS programs stopped reserving spots for gifted kids.

DP. Is it an actual lottery? Or lottery as in very few spots so like a lottery?

You need to have certain scores to make it into the pool, and then the pick from the pool is random. Unlike before when they tried to pick the best candidates from the pool.

That was what they were trying to do with TJ. That sounds like an awful method since the smartest kids may not get in if it is random selection.

NYC did this as well. There are no more tests so it is a total crapshoot who gets into their G&T program.

FCPS uses a holistic approach whatever that means to get more URMs.

NYC was missing a lot of the truly gifted students because these students didn’t have coaches or tutors to teach to the test or help with their homework if needed. They might have gone to the worst schools in NYC.

Meanwhile families with money use private schools until middle school or high school and apply for the top public schools pushing out more talented public school students who had none of the advantages of the wealthier students. .

That happens a little bit, but if you can afford private K-8, you can afford private through high school. Most families don't bother switching to public.

I also wouldn't worry too much about the talented students, especially if you mean URMs. The top privates work with non profits to scout for promising URMs. Once identified, the non profits coach and groom those URMs for entry into private school. Those kids get free rides into those elite institutions.

This is partly why the racial numbers at the specialized schools are so skewed. The URMs with talent are going to private schools for free.

[Anonymous]

Not exactly what you asked, but keep in mind that a significant majority of 2e kids are homeschooled for part of their education. I mention it because I have two of them (both highly gifted and ADHD), and I never had homeschool on my radar, and yet it's been amazing for us for the last few years. When you have a counselor at a wonderful private school tell you your 6yo, academically, needs to skip at least one grade but ideally two, and socially would be happiest if he moved back a year, homeschooling starts to seem like an option. Not saying it will be for you, but I wish someone had planted this seed with me earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not exactly what you asked, but keep in mind that a significant majority of 2e kids are homeschooled for part of their education. I mention it because I have two of them (both highly gifted and ADHD), and I never had homeschool on my radar, and yet it's been amazing for us for the last few years. When you have a counselor at a wonderful private school tell you your 6yo, academically, needs to skip at least one grade but ideally two, and socially would be happiest if he moved back a year, homeschooling starts to seem like an option. Not saying it will be for you, but I wish someone had planted this seed with me earlier.

Please show us the data that says a significant portion of 2e kids are homeschooled for part of their education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

How many of #2 and #4 would accept a child with ADHD and Autism?

This isn't really correct or what most people think. This is more the conventional wisdom

1. FCPS TJ or Blair magnet
2. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
3. Top Privates - Sidwell, STA, NCS, GDS, and more or top MCPS W schools or top FCPS McLean schools

Poolesville magnets are somewhere up there too these days.

Again OP said "especially Math/STEM ". The top privates are nowhere near the top.

+1 I wish the privates could compete in math/stem. DD attended one that was a reputation as being one of the best and it was. She was accelerated, they created a small class for her and a few others but she was so behind her peers at magnets. I am not sure they can replicate the exchange of ideas and the breadth and depth of the curriculum with the size of the top privates. There aren't enough top kids in math/stem to do that by just raw numbers.