Richard Montgomery IB versus B-CC
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Anonymous
| Median sat score at rm is 2200 |
Anonymous
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I have kids who attended both schools. In 9th and 10th, RM has pre-IB courses; BCC does not. At BCC, 9th grade is rather easy for the top kids and the difficulty ramps up in 10th. In 9th and 10th, kids at BCC just take the regular honors and occasional AP class.
I really prefer BCC. The school was more honest about IB and the administration was more supportive of all the kids learning. RM administration just cared about numbers and stats, even at the cost of learning. As an example, they will place IB kids who want to begin a 2nd foreign language straight into IB and higher level classes just so the students' weighted averages stay high. (In other words, kids who've studied lets say French but never taken any Spanish will suddenly be placed in level 5, along with your kid who has studied Spanish for four years just so the IB kid's transcript looks good-- then the teaching will be dumbed down so that kid will continue to get good grades.) there are exceptions made for IB kids at RM. I wish I were kidding but it's really the way they run the program. Both schools have many of their best teachers teaching IB but electives vary. And, for what it's worth, my BCC kids did better in college admissions than my RM kid but there were RM kids who did very, very well in college admissions. I don't think there's a college admissions benefit to one IB program versus the other. The key is to end up at the top of the heap. If your kid can end up at the top of the graduating class, he or she will do well in college admissions; the colleges know MCPS is a good school district. |
Anonymous
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OK - Allow me to stop you right there. (I don't know if I even have energy to read past that line.)
To receive permission/accreditation in IB (the diploma programme is separate from MYP accreditation, btw), ALL schools follow the same protocol. That means that even the opt-in schools (such as Watkins Mill, Einstein, Springbrook, for example) follow the same guidelines. This also means that ALL external assessments (note the word EXTERNAL) are assessed OUTSIDE of the area. We send them abroad!!! So this need to post that ". . . the standards in Europe IS quite high (are, you mean?)" is erroneous. Furthermore, the curriculum is standard, too. European schools use the same guides. It's an international curriculum. from the website - " What started life as a single programme for internationally mobile students preparing for university, has today grown into four programmes for students aged 3 to 19." So is the grading "harsh?" damn straight it is! The level of rigor is very high, and at RM, kids test in. So the weed out process occurs before they hit the program. In opt in schools, the students weed themselves out when they realize IB is just not for them. no shame in that . . . It just takes a certain type of student to appreciate it and to excel. So BCC's program is EXACTLY the same as RM's. There's no difference in the curriculum and in the assessments. And now, in IB schools, MYP is the philosophical framework used to guide instruction in grades 9-10 (carried over from feeder middle and elementary schools). I can't speak to the instruction. Some teachers are quite talented and dedicated; others are not. But isn't that the case with ALL teachers across the county? and with lawyers and bankers and doctors and plumbers and you name it! I can't stand hearing from "experts" who won't even take the time to search IBO to at least grasp the basics.
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