What happened to Quince Orchard's USNews Rankings?

[Anonymous]

PP with two younger kids (pre-K) looking at purchasing a home in the Quince Orchard or Wootton districts. We are leaning towards the QO area as you can get a better value of house for your money there it seems, and the neighborhood itself seems like a nice place. It seems like many PPs on this forum like QO too as a school overall, though some note Wootton is strictly better academic-wise but perhaps with a bit more pressure at times.

The one main concerning thing we've seen with QO is the Usnews ranking, which I've found to be a pretty good indicator of ranking at least regarding the different high schools we went to growing up. Anything above 1,000 tends to be a decent school.

It looks like back in 2019 QO was ranked a very respectable 533 in the nation.
https://patch.com/maryland/bethesda-chevychase/u-s-news-high-school-rankings-2019-heres-how-montgomery-fared

However in 2021, QO was ranked an atrocious 2,796 nationwide.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/districts/montgomery-county-public-schools/quince-orchard-high-school-9163

Did something happen, like a rezoning that lowered the quality of incoming students? I also see that the Math proficiency here is listed a paltry 5%, maybe is a typo that led to this low ranking?

We recognize that kids will do well based more so on their upbringing and personality rather than the raw quality of a school. However, a child's friends are extremely important and can really affect their outlook on life. Growing up I personally had a friend who probably would have gotten into trouble in the forms of drugs and early sex, if she had not been with the more studious-inclined friend group who persuaded her to avoid those things until after high school. We want to be sure that if we do move to the QO area, that DC will have the opportunity to easily surround themselves with friends who are academically inclined vs snoozing in class or worse.

[Anonymous]

I don't know anything about the school, but US News's rankings are pretty easy to game. It's possible other schools got better at it, or they changed that some metric. Worth looking at a comparison of what was measured.

[Anonymous]

I know PHS got knocked down one year. I think it was because they included how many people passed the Algebra 1 state test in HS. Since over 2/3 of the kids are magnet, the number of kids who even took the test in HS was very low. The next year, the principal retired so maybe she was focused on other things. A one year dip is probably some sort of aberration in the way the data is collected.

[Anonymous]

I also see that the Math proficiency here is listed a paltry 5%, maybe is a typo that led to this low ranking?

The on grade level pathway is for students to complete Algebra by 8th grade. The advanced pathway is Algebra by 7th grade. Any student taking Algebra in High School is behind grade level = not meeting math proficiency. Any ranking that only pulls data from the high school testing in 9th grade is only pulling data for a small subset of under-performing students, and thus is completely useless for evaluating the academics of the school.

[Anonymous]

The truth came out. That's what happened. What makes you think 2021 was a mistake instead of 2019 survey?

[Anonymous]

Qo is a sports oriented school. Not an academically oriented school. You will find many parents who choose to live within the qo boundaries send their children to private. In return, the county pulls students in from far away for the equity initiative.

[Anonymous]

As a parent of high schoolers… I think you have a narrow perspective on this. My kids go to an MCPS school that would frighten you, and they are nonetheless surrounded by bright, responsible, high achieving kids. By high school, kids choose the subgroups they want to be in. There is a “bad crowd” at every school. Raise your children right so they have no interest in joining it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of high schoolers… I think you have a narrow perspective on this. My kids go to an MCPS school that would frighten you, and they are nonetheless surrounded by bright, responsible, high achieving kids. By high school, kids choose the subgroups they want to be in. There is a “bad crowd” at every school. Raise your children right so they have no interest in joining it.

This is about test scores not gangs

[Anonymous]

I know one thing that's happened with US News rankings is that US News has been gaining access to more data about, and then including in their rankings, more small charters and magnets in states like Arizona and Florida. So a school might be just as good as it was six or seven years ago, but appear to be rated much lower nationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Qo is a sports oriented school. Not an academically oriented school. You will find many parents who choose to live within the qo boundaries send their children to private. In return, the county pulls students in from far away for the equity initiative.

And Wootton is an extreme pressure cooker causing anxiety and stress, where every kid
Compares grades with classmates and MUST get into an Ivy or they have not succeeded. Yes that’s what I’ve heard about Wootton from another parent.
So take what you will from these anecdotal comments.

[Anonymous]

Both of these schools have a good peer group as do most schools in the area. Buy a house where you want to live.. Your kids are 10 years from high school, there is no guarantee that anything about these schools will be the same when they are looking to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both of these schools have a good peer group as do most schools in the area. Buy a house where you want to live.. Your kids are 10 years from high school, there is no guarantee that anything about these schools will be the same when they are looking to attend.

When we moved 10 years ago, QO was a great school so we intentionally stayed in-bounds once we left the Kentlands. However, it now is very sports oriented (much more so than academic) as another person noted. FARMs has gone up to 30% which brings its own challenges, but test scores certainly haven’t been improving and chronic absenteeism is a problem. For the average student, Quince Orchard will be fine. One of my kids at Qo simply isn’t challenged academically and doesn’t have many peers who are as motivated as him like you’ll find at the W schools. Other kid, average academics, is doing just fine. Most teachers are good, admin seems to be preoccupied with sports and reducing inequities (which they haven’t done a good job of) while high achievers are left in the dark, taking dumbed down AP courses. The push for AP is WAY too much, it becomes as though “everyone take AP,” which diminishes rigor and ultimately AP scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The truth came out. That's what happened. What makes you think 2021 was a mistake instead of 2019 survey?

OP here - the reason I thought it could be a mistake or something drastically different was introduced into the ranking process is because it was ranked highly as well in 2018 and such. (see link below) Also in previous posts on this forum there are some QO parents who liked the school and there are some parents who love to trash it. So I wanted to understand, from QO parents or people who work there, if the Usnews changing is just a fluke/some changing in the way they rank things, or if there was some actual big recent change at the school that would make us wary of sending DC there.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=8183&type=archive&startYear=2017&pageNumber=2&mode=

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both of these schools have a good peer group as do most schools in the area. Buy a house where you want to live.. Your kids are 10 years from high school, there is no guarantee that anything about these schools will be the same when they are looking to attend.

When we moved 10 years ago, QO was a great school so we intentionally stayed in-bounds once we left the Kentlands. However, it now is very sports oriented (much more so than academic) as another person noted. FARMs has gone up to 30% which brings its own challenges, but test scores certainly haven’t been improving and chronic absenteeism is a problem. For the average student, Quince Orchard will be fine. One of my kids at Qo simply isn’t challenged academically and doesn’t have many peers who are as motivated as him like you’ll find at the W schools. Other kid, average academics, is doing just fine. Most teachers are good, admin seems to be preoccupied with sports and reducing inequities (which they haven’t done a good job of) while high achievers are left in the dark, taking dumbed down AP courses. The push for AP is WAY too much, it becomes as though “everyone take AP,” which diminishes rigor and ultimately AP scores

OP again, This is by far and away the most helpful post on this thread, thank you very much for the clear picture of what has been going on! I'd seen praises of QO by posts in 2011-2015 and it makes sense the rankings went down if the focus has gone primarily to athletics. I read elsewhere about the chronic absenteeism which is definitely questionable. I've heard the whole "admin seems to be preoccupied with sports and reducing inequities, leaving high achievers in the dark" seems to be a concern with all MCPS, which I guess we will just deal with since we probably don't have the funds for 12 years of private school. What you mentioned about everyone being pushed to do AP also makes sense as I noticed that Usnews reported a whopping 80% of students took one AP test but only 50% passed, which would indicate approximately 1/3 of all students in AP classes can't handle the material.

It seems like the "wait and move if necessary" poster is probably wise since high achieving students would likely flourish more at the W schools, but average kids could suffer from confidence or mental health issues at W schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth came out. That's what happened. What makes you think 2021 was a mistake instead of 2019 survey?

OP here - the reason I thought it could be a mistake or something drastically different was introduced into the ranking process is because it was ranked highly as well in 2018 and such. (see link below) Also in previous posts on this forum there are some QO parents who liked the school and there are some parents who love to trash it. So I wanted to understand, from QO parents or people who work there, if the Usnews changing is just a fluke/some changing in the way they rank things, or if there was some actual big recent change at the school that would make us wary of sending DC there.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=8183&type=archive&startYear=2017&pageNumber=2&mode=

It's DCUM: trashing schools is part of the culture.