Magnet High Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the parent of a recent Blair graduate (2021) and would like to correct some misinformation in this thread.

About 1/3 of Blair students attend ivy-plus schools each year - many more get in. My child attends an ivy and credits her admission in great part due to the education and resources Blair offered her. Top colleges know about magnet programs beyond US NEWS rankings and a special "Blair magnet program" letter is attached to every child's college application.

The math and science teachers at Blair are incredible, the student body is collaborative, and Mr. Ostrander (magnet coordinator) will move boulders for his kids. They have a class dedicated to research internships that provides them with resume correction, interview techniques, and connections that have taken previous Blair juniors for research positions. In Senior Fall, the program helps students enter all major science fair competitions. This is only one example of the incredible guidance that accompanies academic coursework.

If your child is passionate about engineering, Blair may be the wrong choice. Math classes are great: calc, differential equations, discrete, logic, advanced geometry, complex analysis, linear algebra... However, engineering classes can be subpar. In this area, clubs are superior and the Robotics team regularly wins awards at Worlds. Robotics is definitely a commitment, consisting of a 25+ student team staying 3+ hours after school during Build season. It does become, as one would expect, into a tight knit family. Additionally, Math/Physics classes are exceptional and provide a great foundation for any engineer. However, Wheaton may be better if you want to get right into engineering classwork beginning in 9th grade.

I can not fully speak to the Lottery aspect of current admissions, but from my understanding this is currently impacting the middle school magnets rather than the high school magnets. Blair still has autonomy over admissions and teachers have conferences during non-teaching periods to hand-select kids alongside Mr. Ostrander. This may have changed in the last year, but I am hopeful that is not the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS have a school similar to TJ in Virginia? What school would that be?

No. They have magnet programs embedded in different schools. The top three in demand are Blair, Richard Montgomery, and Poolesville. But there are many more.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high/

Are they any good? Is it a difficult process to get in? I had a foster child this year who went to an engineering magnet middle school and I was shocked at how easy her classes were and how bad her teachers were.

Blair magnet is a rough equivalent of TJ. Probably, slightly less rigorous but equally difficult to get in. RM magnet is humanities so can't be compared to TJ.
Don't know much about Poolesville.

No, Blair is definitely more difficult to get in and is honestly a bit more rigorous than TJ

Although smaller Blair has a higher SAT average, Intel scholars, NMSF, members of USA Math & Physics Olympiads and beats the stuffing out of TJ on It's Academic just for fun.

The smaller is the key part. Blair picks the roughly 100 great students out of a similar sized county and TJ picks hundreds every year. They get to dip a lower in the pool due to being lager. That will always dilute your scores. The same effect why Blair has one of the lower SAT scores in the county despite having the program embedded to boost scores and perceptions. The larger school simply drowns out the statistics but one can speculate how low they would rank without importing those almost 100 kids assuming a few make it in form the IB naturally. While Takoma middle puts more kids in the program than any other middle, most of those kids are out of bounds too in the middle magnet except for the 25 set aside seats which were created because local kids were getting squeezed out of the local program by higher testing W kids.

This is where all the prepping accusations come from (because how dare a kids read a book prior to a test, cheaters) and why the East county wants to consider local peer group for admissions to tip the scales in the local favor. Funny part it is a quiet self own to all people who claim to have bought cheaper houses to get a more “better” peer group but turn around and want considerations for not having better peers for their kids.

Wrong, idiot.

Delusional striver. Blair is a joke to everyone outside the DCC. It is the cheap side of town, anyone can go there, most don’t want to.

I think this applies to RM and Blair both. Without magnets, these two are basically ghetto schools. PHS, I suppose, is fine either way.

yea, all those JWMS kids of doctors, lawyers, scientists, IT Professionals.. so ghetto. LOL

Agree, the breakdown of SAT averages by demographic per high-school released by MCPS showed that Blair had the highest SATs for the largest cohort common to it and any W, and this wasn't Asians so magnet kids weren't a factor.

Here we go again. I don't know who this nutcase is, but they're only quoting White SAT scores.

IMHO, Blair isn't what it used to be.

1. The lottery has damaged the Magnet program. The best-of-the-best aren't in the MS magnets anymore, which will start affecting HS magnets, not next year but the year after.
2. If you look at Blair overall, it's one of the lower-middle performing schools in MCPS. Remove about 100 Magnet kids jacking up the scores, and it's really a meh.
3. The Blair crowd isn't going to like this part. They can argue all they want, but college admissions boards look at the stats. Remember that U.S. News looks at the whole school, not just a few classrooms, so I do feel very sorry for the Blair kids applying to college this year.

Whitman made #1 in Maryland and #104 in National rankings this year.
Wootton #2 MD, #167 National
Poolesville #4 MD, #248 National
Churchill #5 MD, #294 National
MCC, RM, WJ, NW, QO, Damascus all scored higher than Blair (#34 in MD, #1,476 in National rankings)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/rankings

The only score that surprised me was Poolesville. At first, I expected it to be higher than Whitman, but the lightbulb went on when I saw the SAT and AP/IB passing scores. Although Poolesville edged out Whitman in meeting UofMD college entrance requirements, on the national requirements (e.g. SAT, AP/IB), Whitman did spank Poolesville a bit.

Remember that the point of HS is college readiness at the National scale. No one cares what MCPS equity thinks - they care about who is Nationally (and Globally) competitive. In that respect, yes, Whitman is currently #1.

You clearly don't know Blair. Any lottery component to Blair admission would have been very recent. Even in 2020, when magnet admissions centralized, there was no lottery component, Blair still retained admissions control, and all magnets required essay and recs. Class of '22 was admitted under the old system that was completely separate apps for each program with absolutely no lottery factor. So, there is no way you can support your claim with data as the data on having a lottery component to an application based threshold hasn't been tested (if that is even in effect). I think getting more students into the program who haven't been able to get the outside enrichment on their own would be better for the students and be better educating. I frankly think we need more magnet seats overall.
I really hate this one-upmanship from the W people (and from some of the mag parents as well). Let's just continue to invest in the kids!

This post if FOS, 1/3 of Blair kids do not go Ivy, hell less than 2/3rds of Blair kids meet college entrance requirements when graduating. Not even close to 1/3 of the magnet kids go ivy and in fact on a few do every year which is still very good. Blair is a respected program but it isn't even nationally elite among magnets. The Blair program isn't even a strong concentration of talent compared to any honors dorm at any state school and we all know those aren't even the preferred dentations for the best of the best in most cases.

I think she meant the magnet class, which would be fairly accurate in terms of admissions. Some kids choose umd for financial reasons. Mine 22 is Ivy bound, but we qualify for FA. The PP was very accurate to our Blair experience. There was on change for '22 -- I don't think magnet letters were automatically attached to transcripts. Mine uploaded or copied it to Common App in additional section. Blair is among nationally elite programs.

To the person who made tge "watered-down " argument, hogwash! Many kids will benefit from Blair, and part of the mission should be to reach those who haven't had as much outside enrichment. Mcps just needs more program spaces overall. I concur with other PP that Wheaton is an excellent choice for those interested in engineering.

Although I'm sure many kids could get into Ivy's from Blair, I'm also guessing at 80k/year most take a hard pass.

This is true for my 2 sons. Both are at UMD after graduating top 5%. We are saving our money for where it counts -- grad school. DH and i did the same -- both went to UMD undergrad, both of us to MIT for grad school.

This comment makes no sense.

If you went to MIT for grad school, you'd know that grad school is free for sciences.

Law school and MBA are expensive grad schools, but those instantly pay for themselves after graduation. (For MBA, the student can often save to pay before school starts.)
Medical school is the case where it's a long expensive slog before the money comes back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the parent of a recent Blair graduate (2021) and would like to correct some misinformation in this thread.

About 1/3 of Blair students attend ivy-plus schools each year - many more get in. My child attends an ivy and credits her admission in great part due to the education and resources Blair offered her. Top colleges know about magnet programs beyond US NEWS rankings and a special "Blair magnet program" letter is attached to every child's college application.

The math and science teachers at Blair are incredible, the student body is collaborative, and Mr. Ostrander (magnet coordinator) will move boulders for his kids. They have a class dedicated to research internships that provides them with resume correction, interview techniques, and connections that have taken previous Blair juniors for research positions. In Senior Fall, the program helps students enter all major science fair competitions. This is only one example of the incredible guidance that accompanies academic coursework.

If your child is passionate about engineering, Blair may be the wrong choice. Math classes are great: calc, differential equations, discrete, logic, advanced geometry, complex analysis, linear algebra... However, engineering classes can be subpar. In this area, clubs are superior and the Robotics team regularly wins awards at Worlds. Robotics is definitely a commitment, consisting of a 25+ student team staying 3+ hours after school during Build season. It does become, as one would expect, into a tight knit family. Additionally, Math/Physics classes are exceptional and provide a great foundation for any engineer. However, Wheaton may be better if you want to get right into engineering classwork beginning in 9th grade.

I can not fully speak to the Lottery aspect of current admissions, but from my understanding this is currently impacting the middle school magnets rather than the high school magnets. Blair still has autonomy over admissions and teachers have conferences during non-teaching periods to hand-select kids alongside Mr. Ostrander. This may have changed in the last year, but I am hopeful that is not the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS have a school similar to TJ in Virginia? What school would that be?

No. They have magnet programs embedded in different schools. The top three in demand are Blair, Richard Montgomery, and Poolesville. But there are many more.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high/

Are they any good? Is it a difficult process to get in? I had a foster child this year who went to an engineering magnet middle school and I was shocked at how easy her classes were and how bad her teachers were.

Blair magnet is a rough equivalent of TJ. Probably, slightly less rigorous but equally difficult to get in. RM magnet is humanities so can't be compared to TJ.
Don't know much about Poolesville.

No, Blair is definitely more difficult to get in and is honestly a bit more rigorous than TJ

Although smaller Blair has a higher SAT average, Intel scholars, NMSF, members of USA Math & Physics Olympiads and beats the stuffing out of TJ on It's Academic just for fun.

The smaller is the key part. Blair picks the roughly 100 great students out of a similar sized county and TJ picks hundreds every year. They get to dip a lower in the pool due to being lager. That will always dilute your scores. The same effect why Blair has one of the lower SAT scores in the county despite having the program embedded to boost scores and perceptions. The larger school simply drowns out the statistics but one can speculate how low they would rank without importing those almost 100 kids assuming a few make it in form the IB naturally. While Takoma middle puts more kids in the program than any other middle, most of those kids are out of bounds too in the middle magnet except for the 25 set aside seats which were created because local kids were getting squeezed out of the local program by higher testing W kids.

This is where all the prepping accusations come from (because how dare a kids read a book prior to a test, cheaters) and why the East county wants to consider local peer group for admissions to tip the scales in the local favor. Funny part it is a quiet self own to all people who claim to have bought cheaper houses to get a more “better” peer group but turn around and want considerations for not having better peers for their kids.

Wrong, idiot.

Delusional striver. Blair is a joke to everyone outside the DCC. It is the cheap side of town, anyone can go there, most don’t want to.

I think this applies to RM and Blair both. Without magnets, these two are basically ghetto schools. PHS, I suppose, is fine either way.

yea, all those JWMS kids of doctors, lawyers, scientists, IT Professionals.. so ghetto. LOL

Agree, the breakdown of SAT averages by demographic per high-school released by MCPS showed that Blair had the highest SATs for the largest cohort common to it and any W, and this wasn't Asians so magnet kids weren't a factor.

Here we go again. I don't know who this nutcase is, but they're only quoting White SAT scores.

IMHO, Blair isn't what it used to be.

1. The lottery has damaged the Magnet program. The best-of-the-best aren't in the MS magnets anymore, which will start affecting HS magnets, not next year but the year after.
2. If you look at Blair overall, it's one of the lower-middle performing schools in MCPS. Remove about 100 Magnet kids jacking up the scores, and it's really a meh.
3. The Blair crowd isn't going to like this part. They can argue all they want, but college admissions boards look at the stats. Remember that U.S. News looks at the whole school, not just a few classrooms, so I do feel very sorry for the Blair kids applying to college this year.

Whitman made #1 in Maryland and #104 in National rankings this year.
Wootton #2 MD, #167 National
Poolesville #4 MD, #248 National
Churchill #5 MD, #294 National
MCC, RM, WJ, NW, QO, Damascus all scored higher than Blair (#34 in MD, #1,476 in National rankings)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/rankings

The only score that surprised me was Poolesville. At first, I expected it to be higher than Whitman, but the lightbulb went on when I saw the SAT and AP/IB passing scores. Although Poolesville edged out Whitman in meeting UofMD college entrance requirements, on the national requirements (e.g. SAT, AP/IB), Whitman did spank Poolesville a bit.

Remember that the point of HS is college readiness at the National scale. No one cares what MCPS equity thinks - they care about who is Nationally (and Globally) competitive. In that respect, yes, Whitman is currently #1.

You clearly don't know Blair. Any lottery component to Blair admission would have been very recent. Even in 2020, when magnet admissions centralized, there was no lottery component, Blair still retained admissions control, and all magnets required essay and recs. Class of '22 was admitted under the old system that was completely separate apps for each program with absolutely no lottery factor. So, there is no way you can support your claim with data as the data on having a lottery component to an application based threshold hasn't been tested (if that is even in effect). I think getting more students into the program who haven't been able to get the outside enrichment on their own would be better for the students and be better educating. I frankly think we need more magnet seats overall.
I really hate this one-upmanship from the W people (and from some of the mag parents as well). Let's just continue to invest in the kids!

This post if FOS, 1/3 of Blair kids do not go Ivy, hell less than 2/3rds of Blair kids meet college entrance requirements when graduating. Not even close to 1/3 of the magnet kids go ivy and in fact on a few do every year which is still very good. Blair is a respected program but it isn't even nationally elite among magnets. The Blair program isn't even a strong concentration of talent compared to any honors dorm at any state school and we all know those aren't even the preferred dentations for the best of the best in most cases.

I think she meant the magnet class, which would be fairly accurate in terms of admissions. Some kids choose umd for financial reasons. Mine 22 is Ivy bound, but we qualify for FA. The PP was very accurate to our Blair experience. There was on change for '22 -- I don't think magnet letters were automatically attached to transcripts. Mine uploaded or copied it to Common App in additional section. Blair is among nationally elite programs.

To the person who made tge "watered-down " argument, hogwash! Many kids will benefit from Blair, and part of the mission should be to reach those who haven't had as much outside enrichment. Mcps just needs more program spaces overall. I concur with other PP that Wheaton is an excellent choice for those interested in engineering.

Although I'm sure many kids could get into Ivy's from Blair, I'm also guessing at 80k/year most take a hard pass.

This is true for my 2 sons. Both are at UMD after graduating top 5%. We are saving our money for where it counts -- grad school. DH and i did the same -- both went to UMD undergrad, both of us to MIT for grad school.

This comment makes no sense.

If you went to MIT for grad school, you'd know that grad school is free for sciences.

Law school and MBA are expensive grad schools, but those instantly pay for themselves after graduation. (For MBA, the student can often save to pay before school starts.)
Medical school is the case where it's a long expensive slog before the money comes back

What are you talking about?

https://registrar.mit.edu/registration-academics/tuition-fees/graduate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS have a school similar to TJ in Virginia? What school would that be?

No. They have magnet programs embedded in different schools. The top three in demand are Blair, Richard Montgomery, and Poolesville. But there are many more.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high/

Are they any good? Is it a difficult process to get in? I had a foster child this year who went to an engineering magnet middle school and I was shocked at how easy her classes were and how bad her teachers were.

They have a high number of NMSF, Regeneron, and Math Olympiads students. Although smaller, IMO it's a step up compared to TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the parent of a recent Blair graduate (2021) and would like to correct some misinformation in this thread.

About 1/3 of Blair students attend ivy-plus schools each year - many more get in. My child attends an ivy and credits her admission in great part due to the education and resources Blair offered her. Top colleges know about magnet programs beyond US NEWS rankings and a special "Blair magnet program" letter is attached to every child's college application.

The math and science teachers at Blair are incredible, the student body is collaborative, and Mr. Ostrander (magnet coordinator) will move boulders for his kids. They have a class dedicated to research internships that provides them with resume correction, interview techniques, and connections that have taken previous Blair juniors for research positions. In Senior Fall, the program helps students enter all major science fair competitions. This is only one example of the incredible guidance that accompanies academic coursework.

If your child is passionate about engineering, Blair may be the wrong choice. Math classes are great: calc, differential equations, discrete, logic, advanced geometry, complex analysis, linear algebra... However, engineering classes can be subpar. In this area, clubs are superior and the Robotics team regularly wins awards at Worlds. Robotics is definitely a commitment, consisting of a 25+ student team staying 3+ hours after school during Build season. It does become, as one would expect, into a tight knit family. Additionally, Math/Physics classes are exceptional and provide a great foundation for any engineer. However, Wheaton may be better if you want to get right into engineering classwork beginning in 9th grade.

I can not fully speak to the Lottery aspect of current admissions, but from my understanding this is currently impacting the middle school magnets rather than the high school magnets. Blair still has autonomy over admissions and teachers have conferences during non-teaching periods to hand-select kids alongside Mr. Ostrander. This may have changed in the last year, but I am hopeful that is not the case.


It has changed, Blair does not have autonomy over admissions anymore; neither does Wheaton. Everything is done centrally in Rockville. It is unmistakable that the magnets are now watered down with admission policies aimed at avoiding lawsuits. Wheaton now has academy/magnet kids taking the same classes and Blair has a noticeable sprinkling of participants from each middle school (still a number from TPMS, but much less), which was clearly intended. It really has changed, but also maybe the magnets’ time has run their course. As the teacher commented earlier, what is the point when there are so many qualified kids outside the magnet as in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS have a school similar to TJ in Virginia? What school would that be?

No. They have magnet programs embedded in different schools. The top three in demand are Blair, Richard Montgomery, and Poolesville. But there are many more.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high/

Are they any good? Is it a difficult process to get in? I had a foster child this year who went to an engineering magnet middle school and I was shocked at how easy her classes were and how bad her teachers were.

Blair magnet is a rough equivalent of TJ. Probably, slightly less rigorous but equally difficult to get in. RM magnet is humanities so can't be compared to TJ.
Don't know much about Poolesville.

No, Blair is definitely more difficult to get in and is honestly a bit more rigorous than TJ

Although smaller Blair has a higher SAT average, Intel scholars, NMSF, members of USA Math & Physics Olympiads and beats the stuffing out of TJ on It's Academic just for fun.

The smaller is the key part. Blair picks the roughly 100 great students out of a similar sized county and TJ picks hundreds every year. They get to dip a lower in the pool due to being lager. That will always dilute your scores. The same effect why Blair has one of the lower SAT scores in the county despite having the program embedded to boost scores and perceptions. The larger school simply drowns out the statistics but one can speculate how low they would rank without importing those almost 100 kids assuming a few make it in form the IB naturally. While Takoma middle puts more kids in the program than any other middle, most of those kids are out of bounds too in the middle magnet except for the 25 set aside seats which were created because local kids were getting squeezed out of the local program by higher testing W kids.

This is where all the prepping accusations come from (because how dare a kids read a book prior to a test, cheaters) and why the East county wants to consider local peer group for admissions to tip the scales in the local favor. Funny part it is a quiet self own to all people who claim to have bought cheaper houses to get a more “better” peer group but turn around and want considerations for not having better peers for their kids.

Wrong, idiot.

Delusional striver. Blair is a joke to everyone outside the DCC. It is the cheap side of town, anyone can go there, most don’t want to.

I think this applies to RM and Blair both. Without magnets, these two are basically ghetto schools. PHS, I suppose, is fine either way.

yea, all those JWMS kids of doctors, lawyers, scientists, IT Professionals.. so ghetto. LOL

Agree, the breakdown of SAT averages by demographic per high-school released by MCPS showed that Blair had the highest SATs for the largest cohort common to it and any W, and this wasn't Asians so magnet kids weren't a factor.

Here we go again. I don't know who this nutcase is, but they're only quoting White SAT scores.

IMHO, Blair isn't what it used to be.

1. The lottery has damaged the Magnet program. The best-of-the-best aren't in the MS magnets anymore, which will start affecting HS magnets, not next year but the year after.
2. If you look at Blair overall, it's one of the lower-middle performing schools in MCPS. Remove about 100 Magnet kids jacking up the scores, and it's really a meh.
3. The Blair crowd isn't going to like this part. They can argue all they want, but college admissions boards look at the stats. Remember that U.S. News looks at the whole school, not just a few classrooms, so I do feel very sorry for the Blair kids applying to college this year.

Whitman made #1 in Maryland and #104 in National rankings this year.
Wootton #2 MD, #167 National
Poolesville #4 MD, #248 National
Churchill #5 MD, #294 National
MCC, RM, WJ, NW, QO, Damascus all scored higher than Blair (#34 in MD, #1,476 in National rankings)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/rankings

The only score that surprised me was Poolesville. At first, I expected it to be higher than Whitman, but the lightbulb went on when I saw the SAT and AP/IB passing scores. Although Poolesville edged out Whitman in meeting UofMD college entrance requirements, on the national requirements (e.g. SAT, AP/IB), Whitman did spank Poolesville a bit.

Remember that the point of HS is college readiness at the National scale. No one cares what MCPS equity thinks - they care about who is Nationally (and Globally) competitive. In that respect, yes, Whitman is currently #1.

You clearly don't know Blair. Any lottery component to Blair admission would have been very recent. Even in 2020, when magnet admissions centralized, there was no lottery component, Blair still retained admissions control, and all magnets required essay and recs. Class of '22 was admitted under the old system that was completely separate apps for each program with absolutely no lottery factor. So, there is no way you can support your claim with data as the data on having a lottery component to an application based threshold hasn't been tested (if that is even in effect). I think getting more students into the program who haven't been able to get the outside enrichment on their own would be better for the students and be better educating. I frankly think we need more magnet seats overall.
I really hate this one-upmanship from the W people (and from some of the mag parents as well). Let's just continue to invest in the kids!

———- Blair still retains control over admissions. This is incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the parent of a recent Blair graduate (2021) and would like to correct some misinformation in this thread.

About 1/3 of Blair students attend ivy-plus schools each year - many more get in. My child attends an ivy and credits her admission in great part due to the education and resources Blair offered her. Top colleges know about magnet programs beyond US NEWS rankings and a special "Blair magnet program" letter is attached to every child's college application.

The math and science teachers at Blair are incredible, the student body is collaborative, and Mr. Ostrander (magnet coordinator) will move boulders for his kids. They have a class dedicated to research internships that provides them with resume correction, interview techniques, and connections that have taken previous Blair juniors for research positions. In Senior Fall, the program helps students enter all major science fair competitions. This is only one example of the incredible guidance that accompanies academic coursework.

If your child is passionate about engineering, Blair may be the wrong choice. Math classes are great: calc, differential equations, discrete, logic, advanced geometry, complex analysis, linear algebra... However, engineering classes can be subpar. In this area, clubs are superior and the Robotics team regularly wins awards at Worlds. Robotics is definitely a commitment, consisting of a 25+ student team staying 3+ hours after school during Build season. It does become, as one would expect, into a tight knit family. Additionally, Math/Physics classes are exceptional and provide a great foundation for any engineer. However, Wheaton may be better if you want to get right into engineering classwork beginning in 9th grade.

I can not fully speak to the Lottery aspect of current admissions, but from my understanding this is currently impacting the middle school magnets rather than the high school magnets. Blair still has autonomy over admissions and teachers have conferences during non-teaching periods to hand-select kids alongside Mr. Ostrander. This may have changed in the last year, but I am hopeful that is not the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS have a school similar to TJ in Virginia? What school would that be?

No. They have magnet programs embedded in different schools. The top three in demand are Blair, Richard Montgomery, and Poolesville. But there are many more.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high/

Are they any good? Is it a difficult process to get in? I had a foster child this year who went to an engineering magnet middle school and I was shocked at how easy her classes were and how bad her teachers were.

Blair magnet is a rough equivalent of TJ. Probably, slightly less rigorous but equally difficult to get in. RM magnet is humanities so can't be compared to TJ.
Don't know much about Poolesville.

No, Blair is definitely more difficult to get in and is honestly a bit more rigorous than TJ

Although smaller Blair has a higher SAT average, Intel scholars, NMSF, members of USA Math & Physics Olympiads and beats the stuffing out of TJ on It's Academic just for fun.

The smaller is the key part. Blair picks the roughly 100 great students out of a similar sized county and TJ picks hundreds every year. They get to dip a lower in the pool due to being lager. That will always dilute your scores. The same effect why Blair has one of the lower SAT scores in the county despite having the program embedded to boost scores and perceptions. The larger school simply drowns out the statistics but one can speculate how low they would rank without importing those almost 100 kids assuming a few make it in form the IB naturally. While Takoma middle puts more kids in the program than any other middle, most of those kids are out of bounds too in the middle magnet except for the 25 set aside seats which were created because local kids were getting squeezed out of the local program by higher testing W kids.

This is where all the prepping accusations come from (because how dare a kids read a book prior to a test, cheaters) and why the East county wants to consider local peer group for admissions to tip the scales in the local favor. Funny part it is a quiet self own to all people who claim to have bought cheaper houses to get a more “better” peer group but turn around and want considerations for not having better peers for their kids.

Wrong, idiot.

Delusional striver. Blair is a joke to everyone outside the DCC. It is the cheap side of town, anyone can go there, most don’t want to.

I think this applies to RM and Blair both. Without magnets, these two are basically ghetto schools. PHS, I suppose, is fine either way.

yea, all those JWMS kids of doctors, lawyers, scientists, IT Professionals.. so ghetto. LOL

Agree, the breakdown of SAT averages by demographic per high-school released by MCPS showed that Blair had the highest SATs for the largest cohort common to it and any W, and this wasn't Asians so magnet kids weren't a factor.

Here we go again. I don't know who this nutcase is, but they're only quoting White SAT scores.

IMHO, Blair isn't what it used to be.

1. The lottery has damaged the Magnet program. The best-of-the-best aren't in the MS magnets anymore, which will start affecting HS magnets, not next year but the year after.
2. If you look at Blair overall, it's one of the lower-middle performing schools in MCPS. Remove about 100 Magnet kids jacking up the scores, and it's really a meh.
3. The Blair crowd isn't going to like this part. They can argue all they want, but college admissions boards look at the stats. Remember that U.S. News looks at the whole school, not just a few classrooms, so I do feel very sorry for the Blair kids applying to college this year.

Whitman made #1 in Maryland and #104 in National rankings this year.
Wootton #2 MD, #167 National
Poolesville #4 MD, #248 National
Churchill #5 MD, #294 National
MCC, RM, WJ, NW, QO, Damascus all scored higher than Blair (#34 in MD, #1,476 in National rankings)

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/rankings

The only score that surprised me was Poolesville. At first, I expected it to be higher than Whitman, but the lightbulb went on when I saw the SAT and AP/IB passing scores. Although Poolesville edged out Whitman in meeting UofMD college entrance requirements, on the national requirements (e.g. SAT, AP/IB), Whitman did spank Poolesville a bit.

Remember that the point of HS is college readiness at the National scale. No one cares what MCPS equity thinks - they care about who is Nationally (and Globally) competitive. In that respect, yes, Whitman is currently #1.

You clearly don't know Blair. Any lottery component to Blair admission would have been very recent. Even in 2020, when magnet admissions centralized, there was no lottery component, Blair still retained admissions control, and all magnets required essay and recs. Class of '22 was admitted under the old system that was completely separate apps for each program with absolutely no lottery factor. So, there is no way you can support your claim with data as the data on having a lottery component to an application based threshold hasn't been tested (if that is even in effect). I think getting more students into the program who haven't been able to get the outside enrichment on their own would be better for the students and be better educating. I frankly think we need more magnet seats overall.
I really hate this one-upmanship from the W people (and from some of the mag parents as well). Let's just continue to invest in the kids!

This post if FOS, 1/3 of Blair kids do not go Ivy, hell less than 2/3rds of Blair kids meet college entrance requirements when graduating. Not even close to 1/3 of the magnet kids go ivy and in fact on a few do every year which is still very good. Blair is a respected program but it isn't even nationally elite among magnets. The Blair program isn't even a strong concentration of talent compared to any honors dorm at any state school and we all know those aren't even the preferred dentations for the best of the best in most cases.

I think she meant the magnet class, which would be fairly accurate in terms of admissions. Some kids choose umd for financial reasons. Mine 22 is Ivy bound, but we qualify for FA. The PP was very accurate to our Blair experience. There was on change for '22 -- I don't think magnet letters were automatically attached to transcripts. Mine uploaded or copied it to Common App in additional section. Blair is among nationally elite programs.

To the person who made tge "watered-down " argument, hogwash! Many kids will benefit from Blair, and part of the mission should be to reach those who haven't had as much outside enrichment. Mcps just needs more program spaces overall. I concur with other PP that Wheaton is an excellent choice for those interested in engineering.

Although I'm sure many kids could get into Ivy's from Blair, I'm also guessing at 80k/year most take a hard pass.

This is true for my 2 sons. Both are at UMD after graduating top 5%. We are saving our money for where it counts -- grad school. DH and i did the same -- both went to UMD undergrad, both of us to MIT for grad school.

This comment makes no sense.

If you went to MIT for grad school, you'd know that grad school is free for sciences.

Law school and MBA are expensive grad schools, but those instantly pay for themselves after graduation. (For MBA, the student can often save to pay before school starts.)
Medical school is the case where it's a long expensive slog before the money comes back

What are you talking about?

https://registrar.mit.edu/registration-academics/tuition-fees/graduate

All phd students are at least on teaching fellowships and tuition wavers. Many have other fellowships. Nobody sane is paying for their PhD.