NMSF are out - why does BCC have so very, very few semifinalists?

[Anonymous]

... compared to other non-magnets Walter Johnson, Churchill, Whitman? Five kids out of ~ 580 who took the PSAT at BCC were selected. I don't get it.


https://www.reddit.com/r/psat/comments/1fej2md/nmsf_2025_maryland/#lightbox

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
... compared to other non-magnets Walter Johnson, Churchill, Whitman? Five kids out of ~ 580 who took the PSAT at BCC were selected. I don't get it.


https://www.reddit.com/r/psat/comments/1fej2md/nmsf_2025_maryland/#lightbox

Same number as Wootton.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting. Congrats to those kids!

[Anonymous]

People think BCC is a high end school because of the name but a lot of the families in that super expensive part of bethesda/cc send their kids to private school and it tends to pull heavily from other neighborhoods. It’s very different demographics than Whitman and Churchill. WJ is sort of its own particular mix of kids.

[Anonymous]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1227209.page

[Anonymous]

BCC is a very good school, but the least strong, I feel, of the so-called W schools. It's an honorary W school. My second kid goes there. My first kid went to WJ because he was part of a special program. WJ has more rigorous instruction with better teachers (overall, of course, there are exceptions). As PP explained, Bethesda has a high mean HHI, but a lot of its wealthy families send their kids to privates, and the rest ends up at the public school. On my street of 1.5M+ houses, about two thirds of the families send their kids to privates. Before the pandemic, it was the reverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People think BCC is a high end school because of the name but a lot of the families in that super expensive part of bethesda/cc send their kids to private school and it tends to pull heavily from other neighborhoods. It’s very different demographics than Whitman and Churchill. WJ is sort of its own particular mix of kids.

No sorry there are literally hundreds and hundreds of upper middle-class students in the grade that took the PSAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
... compared to other non-magnets Walter Johnson, Churchill, Whitman? Five kids out of ~ 580 who took the PSAT at BCC were selected. I don't get it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/psat/comments/1fej2md/nmsf_2025_maryland/#lightbox

How do you know how many took the test? Or are you just listing the number of students in 11th grade when that PSAT was offered?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People think BCC is a high end school because of the name but a lot of the families in that super expensive part of bethesda/cc send their kids to private school and it tends to pull heavily from other neighborhoods. It’s very different demographics than Whitman and Churchill. WJ is sort of its own particular mix of kids.

No sorry there are literally hundreds and hundreds of upper middle-class students in the grade that took the PSAT.

In each grades. Not every one of those 11th grade students take the PSAT/NMSQT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BCC is a very good school, but the least strong, I feel, of the so-called W schools. It's an honorary W school. My second kid goes there. My first kid went to WJ because he was part of a special program. WJ has more rigorous instruction with better teachers (overall, of course, there are exceptions). As PP explained, Bethesda has a high mean HHI, but a lot of its wealthy families send their kids to privates, and the rest ends up at the public school. On my street of 1.5M+ houses, about two thirds of the families send their kids to privates. Before the pandemic, it was the reverse.

Lol. Only because it is located in same-named city as Whitman and WJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
... compared to other non-magnets Walter Johnson, Churchill, Whitman? Five kids out of ~ 580 who took the PSAT at BCC were selected. I don't get it.


https://www.reddit.com/r/psat/comments/1fej2md/nmsf_2025_maryland/#lightbox

Doesn't BCC have the same number of NMSFS as Wootton?

[Anonymous]

People assume wealth with smarts... parents are smart enough to hold down good jobs or come from family money but that's not always true of the kids inheriting the smart genes. Also MCPS's dumbed down curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BCC is a very good school, but the least strong, I feel, of the so-called W schools. It's an honorary W school. My second kid goes there. My first kid went to WJ because he was part of a special program. WJ has more rigorous instruction with better teachers (overall, of course, there are exceptions). As PP explained, Bethesda has a high mean HHI, but a lot of its wealthy families send their kids to privates, and the rest ends up at the public school. On my street of 1.5M+ houses, about two thirds of the families send their kids to privates. Before the pandemic, it was the reverse.

Lol. Only because it is located in same-named city as Whitman and WJ.

Hence the term honorary. Although to be entirely fair, BCC is much more rigorous and studious than the non-magnet Blair, Poolesville, and Rockville, Einstein, Wheaton, etc. So the description is apt. Wootton is another W that's a little weaker than the three big ones: Whitman, WJ and Winston Churchill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People assume wealth with smarts... parents are smart enough to hold down good jobs or come from family money but that's not always true of the kids inheriting the smart genes. Also MCPS's dumbed down curriculum.

Idiotic. NMSF students are far above the curriculum everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BCC is a very good school, but the least strong, I feel, of the so-called W schools. It's an honorary W school. My second kid goes there. My first kid went to WJ because he was part of a special program. WJ has more rigorous instruction with better teachers (overall, of course, there are exceptions). As PP explained, Bethesda has a high mean HHI, but a lot of its wealthy families send their kids to privates, and the rest ends up at the public school. On my street of 1.5M+ houses, about two thirds of the families send their kids to privates. Before the pandemic, it was the reverse.

Lol. Only because it is located in same-named city as Whitman and WJ.

Hence the term honorary. Although to be entirely fair, BCC is much more rigorous and studious than the non-magnet Blair, Poolesville, and Rockville, Einstein, Wheaton, etc. So the description is apt. Wootton is another W that's a little weaker than the three big ones: Whitman, WJ and Winston Churchill.

You obviously have no idea of what you're talking about.
Wootton is weaker than the three big ones? Weaker than JW, because it has fewer NMSFS on year?
Child, have a seat. Clearly this convo is beyond your comprehension