Montgomery Blair vs elite privates

[Anonymous]

Most Blair familys never considered private. A tuition of $38K is out of reach. More than 50% kids in Blair magnet are from first generation of immigrants.

[Anonymous]

If you find good fit in private. Go for it.
Here is the problem for many parents: in addition to money (and lack of scholarships for middle class families), there are no real technical private schools in this area. What private can suggest for kid who took AP Cal in 9th or 10th?
Do they have really advanced Science and CS? Look at the curriculum...
Some people will argue that there are some, but not really if you are talking about advanced technical. We searched everywhere... Frankly Montgomery College will be more advanced...
If your child is very technical, and not into humanities at all (our case) there are no choices. And we are not big fans of Blair too.
As a result, in case of our family, we may end up with homeschooling even though we live in W cluster. Unfortunately MCPS approach - one size fits all is not a reality.

[Anonymous]

I teach in MCPS but have also taught in private. Here's my anecdotal assessment. A few kids apply to both, but it's only the real superstars who get INTO both the magnet and a top DC private. Both types of schools are looking for good grades and test scores. BUT, a private also is a smaller community and truly factors in what the kid will bring to the social dynamics and extracurricular life of the school. By high school, the privates are less concerned about what their parents do, unless it looks like the parents are going to be total pains in the butt. Kids DO get rejected based on difficult parents at times. For a truly dynamic kid who's slightly weaker in math than other areas, those privates can take the time to appreciate what he could bring in other areas, especially if he's extraordinary in some other niche, like music, art, lacrosse or drama. He still might not get in depending on the applicant pool. He has to meet standards too, no matter how well he can throw a ball. Smallish privates know that one kid can wreak havoc on a place. But that same kid won't get into Blair. Blair's numbers are large enough that they can rely most heavily on grades/scores and still have enough kids to fill the community's needs, whether it's a robotics team, debate or soccer. It's also big enough that socially, one bad apple is unlikely to affect the overall feel. He can be avoided by other kids. And parents are pretty irrelevant to Blair. Privates also need to factor in where their students might get into college later--it's a bad business decision to let in kids who won't have options later, or who will struggle academically to keep up with massive amounts of reading/writing while in HS. And the trend continues in college. A school like CalBerkeley is going to be weeding out quickly based on scores, whereas a place like Swarthmore is going to want to get a sense of what the child's unique contributions would be. And again, in both cases, grades and scores will matter a lot--just looked at through a different lens. I've had 8th grade students get into Blair OR Sidwell, but never had one get into both. Like I said, I'm just offering anecdotal data. Both types of schools offer terrific educations, and I think it's great that there are good options for all kinds of kids, including autistic kids, who can be wonderful additions to a school--there was some ignorance about that here. And all of these motivated/hard-working kids end up in a good college--there are plenty of those.

[Anonymous]

OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

In other words, he got into both and you had an extra $25k or so lying around every year that you weren't planning on spending on anything. For most people, it really doesn't matter if private is objectively better or not. It's the price of a new car every year, even if you get a little financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

In other words, he got into both and you had an extra $25k or so lying around every year that you weren't planning on spending on anything. For most people, it really doesn't matter if private is objectively better or not. It's the price of a new car every year, even if you get a little financial aid.

+1

Also: Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic.

In other words: No diversity to speak of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

Since you're talking about private school, I don't think that "ironically" is the right word here for the diversity that did not include economic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Somebody asked, person replied. I do not like sarcasm here.
Question was about private vs. Blair. People who cannot afford it do not apply.
It is great when there are choices, and families can find good fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most Blair familys never considered private. A tuition of $38K is out of reach. More than 50% kids in Blair magnet are from first generation of immigrants.

86% of statistics on the internet are made up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Somebody asked, person replied. I do not like sarcasm here.
Question was about private vs. Blair. People who cannot afford it do not apply.
It is great when there are choices, and families can find good fit.

Well said! I am a new poster, interested in this topic, and was very appreciative of the poster who had a responsive experience to share and did so. Please don't let the rude, intemperate posters drive the rest of us off the board.

[Anonymous]

To the parents (and teacher) who said that the Blair acceptance was mostly based on test scores. I'm wondering if you can articulate why you think so. Because I imagine that the kids with great test scores probably also had pretty good ECs and recs, and so it would be hard to isolate this factor as determinative just from anecdotal knowledge about who got in. I actually agree with you, even though I know little about it as my kid was not at TPMS and I know few Blair SMAC kids, so I'm not arguing a point, I'm really just curious about how you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the parents (and teacher) who said that the Blair acceptance was mostly based on test scores. I'm wondering if you can articulate why you think so. Because I imagine that the kids with great test scores probably also had pretty good ECs and recs, and so it would be hard to isolate this factor as determinative just from anecdotal knowledge about who got in. I actually agree with you, even though I know little about it as my kid was not at TPMS and I know few Blair SMAC kids, so I'm not arguing a point, I'm really just curious about how you know.

I think that's a mistaken assumption.

[Anonymous]

Well, the SMAC kids I know or have heard of play an instrument at a high level, do well in chess, etc. But again, I'm curious what others are basing their information on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, the SMAC kids I know or have heard of play an instrument at a high level, do well in chess, etc. But again, I'm curious what others are basing their information on.

What about the kids you know or have heard of who play an instrument at a high level, do well in cheese, etc., and didn't get into Blair SMAC?

[Anonymous]

If that's what the previous posters meant, then that ends the matter. The previous posters could have meant that high test scores were necessary to get in, or that they were sufficient to get in. I thought they meant sufficient, and I was wondering what they knew to justify that belief. Maybe they merely meant necessary.