Confused why BCC and other Western MOCO schools have so few high school options

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

While there is a lot of real good information below in that post, I can't agree with the STEM point.

You can look here for the admission data:
2023 https://moco360.media/2023/09/13/where-montgomery-county-high-school-graduates-are-going-to-college/
2024 https://moco360.media/2024/09/17/where-do-moco-students-attend-college/

They changed the format for 2024, making it much harder to search, but in 2023 Blair had a higher acceptance rate at MIT and CalTech (total 8 people went to those 2 schools from Blair), and RM a (notably) higher acceptance to Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Cornell, UMichigan, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon.
(Ironically, RM also had a higher admission rate to UMCP, which may be a blip, but the school is actually in the top 20 of engineering schools in the nation).

You can also look at AP exam data. It's really hard to parse out the magnet programs from RM or Blair, but I recommend you look at this link for 2023: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/AP-Exam-by-Subject.html


The flexibility point is true, but it's important to remember that it's not a universally good thing - some kids / parents prefer high flexibility that usually comes with a more variable quality of classes, some prefer a low-flexibility program with core classes that are polished to a high quality.

[Anonymous]

MCPS only has magnets in the two extreme corners of the county where major voting concentrations are, and you can vote for another district’s candidate. The new Crown HS seems to be lobbied by Kings Farm and College Gardens (Hungerford CO) to be included in their boundary. Plus the programs already mentioned. See the pattern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS only has magnets in the two extreme corners of the county where major voting concentrations are, and you can vote for another district’s candidate. The new Crown HS seems to be lobbied by Kings Farm and College Gardens (Hungerford CO) to be included in their boundary. Plus the programs already mentioned. See the pattern?

Poolesville is a "major voting concentration"?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS only has magnets in the two extreme corners of the county where major voting concentrations are, and you can vote for another district’s candidate. The new Crown HS seems to be lobbied by Kings Farm and College Gardens (Hungerford CO) to be included in their boundary. Plus the programs already mentioned. See the pattern?

Poolesville is a "major voting concentration"?!

Germantown and Gaithersburg are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since today is notification day, I was looking up what we would apply to next year for my son who is in 7th now. We zone to BCC. Compared to all the other schools, it seems like BCC kids (and the other Western/Southern schools) don’t have any magnet/application based options outside of Blair SMCS, RMIB, and Poolesville Ecology. My kids is a Biomedical/Engineering kid. Those application based magnets look fantastic. Why don’t the kids in our area get that option?

The only one that's a true intellectual standout is the bolded. It's the TJ of Maryland. The other two are very nice, but not any better than W schools. The other "special programs" you are thinking of are not really selective. They're attractively-packaged to attract kids to traditionally under-served areas of the county, but the intellectual rigor, content quality and peer cohort just aren't there.

Eventually most parents realize this, and also take note of the ridiculous commute.

LOL. RMIB is way better than the W schools.

It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

For OP's kid and her or his interests:
BCC has some engineering intro courses, with classes like introduction to engineering design, etc. But these are essentially fancy fillers. Make no mistake, OP. Colleges aren't dazzled by electives or unusual coursework. They want to see RIGOR and national standards. The best engineering colleges are very selective. Your kid needs to do well on his STEM APs. Since they have prerequisites for the most part (math and science courses before you can get to the AP), you have to be very strategic in your kid's high school trajectory planning, because there is only so much you can fit in a 7-period schedule, with all the graduation requirements from the state of MD and the county. Also, you probably don't want to end up with 6 AP classes in one year. You have to distribute the load.

Your kid's math track will determine what STEM courses they can take when. If they're in Algebra 2 by 8th grade, I know some kids who have bypassed the 9th grade Honors Bio suggestion, and done variations of:
9th: Honors Physics / Honors Precalc (or Honors Chem / Honors Precalc)
10th: AP Physics C / AP Calc BC / Honors Chem (or AP Chem / AP Calc BC / Honors Phys)
11th: AP Chem / Multivariable calculus (or AP Phys C / MVC)
12th: AP Bio / dual enrollment higher calculus at Montgomery College or UMD, or relax with AP Stats (the latter might be more useful for medicine, actually).

Along with some BCC engineering electives or computer science (AP Computer Science Principles is the tech requirement, then you can take AP Java).

Essentially, for anyone with a kid in middle school, the 9th grade course registration means coming up with a plan for all 4 years of high school.

TLDR: you only get to elite engineering universities with the most rigorous science classes, and those will either be at the Blair STEM magnet or any W school STEM AP schedule. No need to look further. Question is: is your kid hardcore enough?

It is not just a regional IB center. It is the only magnet that selects from the entire county. Much more selective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since today is notification day, I was looking up what we would apply to next year for my son who is in 7th now. We zone to BCC. Compared to all the other schools, it seems like BCC kids (and the other Western/Southern schools) don’t have any magnet/application based options outside of Blair SMCS, RMIB, and Poolesville Ecology. My kids is a Biomedical/Engineering kid. Those application based magnets look fantastic. Why don’t the kids in our area get that option?

The only one that's a true intellectual standout is the bolded. It's the TJ of Maryland. The other two are very nice, but not any better than W schools. The other "special programs" you are thinking of are not really selective. They're attractively-packaged to attract kids to traditionally under-served areas of the county, but the intellectual rigor, content quality and peer cohort just aren't there.

Eventually most parents realize this, and also take note of the ridiculous commute.

LOL. RMIB is way better than the W schools.

It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

For OP's kid and her or his interests:
BCC has some engineering intro courses, with classes like introduction to engineering design, etc. But these are essentially fancy fillers. Make no mistake, OP. Colleges aren't dazzled by electives or unusual coursework. They want to see RIGOR and national standards. The best engineering colleges are very selective. Your kid needs to do well on his STEM APs. Since they have prerequisites for the most part (math and science courses before you can get to the AP), you have to be very strategic in your kid's high school trajectory planning, because there is only so much you can fit in a 7-period schedule, with all the graduation requirements from the state of MD and the county. Also, you probably don't want to end up with 6 AP classes in one year. You have to distribute the load.

Your kid's math track will determine what STEM courses they can take when. If they're in Algebra 2 by 8th grade, I know some kids who have bypassed the 9th grade Honors Bio suggestion, and done variations of:
9th: Honors Physics / Honors Precalc (or Honors Chem / Honors Precalc)
10th: AP Physics C / AP Calc BC / Honors Chem (or AP Chem / AP Calc BC / Honors Phys)
11th: AP Chem / Multivariable calculus (or AP Phys C / MVC)
12th: AP Bio / dual enrollment higher calculus at Montgomery College or UMD, or relax with AP Stats (the latter might be more useful for medicine, actually).

Along with some BCC engineering electives or computer science (AP Computer Science Principles is the tech requirement, then you can take AP Java).

Essentially, for anyone with a kid in middle school, the 9th grade course registration means coming up with a plan for all 4 years of high school.

TLDR: you only get to elite engineering universities with the most rigorous science classes, and those will either be at the Blair STEM magnet or any W school STEM AP schedule. No need to look further. Question is: is your kid hardcore enough?

It is not just a regional IB center. It is the only magnet that selects from the entire county. Much more selective.

VAC is whole county. Are there others?

[Anonymous]

Out of about 60 cities, the top 5 most populated cities in Montgomery County MD are:
1. Germantown 90.1K (Poolesville Magnet)
2. Silver Spring 83.5K (Blair Magnet)
3. Gaithersburg 69.6K (Poolesville Magnet)
4. Rockville 67K (Crown HS)
5. Bethesda 67K

Once you get past about the top 10, the drop off in population is significant. But if you cover the top three, that's 243.2K or 22.9% of the population of Montgomery County. Although that may not sound like much, it's a lot in an election, and remember that since you can vote for another district's candidates, it helps concentrate voting power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

While there is a lot of real good information below in that post, I can't agree with the STEM point.

You can look here for the admission data:
2023 https://moco360.media/2023/09/13/where-montgomery-county-high-school-graduates-are-going-to-college/
2024 https://moco360.media/2024/09/17/where-do-moco-students-attend-college/

They changed the format for 2024, making it much harder to search, but in 2023 Blair had a higher acceptance rate at MIT and CalTech (total 8 people went to those 2 schools from Blair), and RM a (notably) higher acceptance to Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Cornell, UMichigan, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon.
(Ironically, RM also had a higher admission rate to UMCP, which may be a blip, but the school is actually in the top 20 of engineering schools in the nation).

You can also look at AP exam data. It's really hard to parse out the magnet programs from RM or Blair, but I recommend you look at this link for 2023: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/AP-Exam-by-Subject.html


The flexibility point is true, but it's important to remember that it's not a universally good thing - some kids / parents prefer high flexibility that usually comes with a more variable quality of classes, some prefer a low-flexibility program with core classes that are polished to a high quality.

I think this is the more interesting part of the story - # of county-wide acceptances.

Texas A&M 14
Stanford 9
Princeton 16
MIT 12
JHU 37
Harvard 4
Dartmouth 12
Cornell 58
Columbia 11
Carnegie Mellon 44
Cal Tech 8
Georgia Institute of Technology 41
Purdue 115
University of California, Berkeley 15
University of California, Davis 42
University of California, Irvine 41
University of California, Los Angeles 24
University of California, Riverside 4
University of California, San Diego 43
University of California, Santa Barbara 52
University of California, Santa Cruz 20
University of Michigan 96
Virginia Tech 312
Yale 11

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Out of about 60 cities, the top 5 most populated cities in Montgomery County MD are:
1. Germantown 90.1K (Poolesville Magnet)
2. Silver Spring 83.5K (Blair Magnet)
3. Gaithersburg 69.6K (Poolesville Magnet)
4. Rockville 67K (Crown HS)
5. Bethesda 67K

Once you get past about the top 10, the drop off in population is significant. But if you cover the top three, that's 243.2K or 22.9% of the population of Montgomery County. Although that may not sound like much, it's a lot in an election, and remember that since you can vote for another district's candidates, it helps concentrate voting power.

So you think it's suspicious that the magnets are sort of near where many people live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since today is notification day, I was looking up what we would apply to next year for my son who is in 7th now. We zone to BCC. Compared to all the other schools, it seems like BCC kids (and the other Western/Southern schools) don’t have any magnet/application based options outside of Blair SMCS, RMIB, and Poolesville Ecology. My kids is a Biomedical/Engineering kid. Those application based magnets look fantastic. Why don’t the kids in our area get that option?

The only one that's a true intellectual standout is the bolded. It's the TJ of Maryland. The other two are very nice, but not any better than W schools. The other "special programs" you are thinking of are not really selective. They're attractively-packaged to attract kids to traditionally under-served areas of the county, but the intellectual rigor, content quality and peer cohort just aren't there.

Eventually most parents realize this, and also take note of the ridiculous commute.

LOL. RMIB is way better than the W schools.

It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

For OP's kid and her or his interests:
BCC has some engineering intro courses, with classes like introduction to engineering design, etc. But these are essentially fancy fillers. Make no mistake, OP. Colleges aren't dazzled by electives or unusual coursework. They want to see RIGOR and national standards. The best engineering colleges are very selective. Your kid needs to do well on his STEM APs. Since they have prerequisites for the most part (math and science courses before you can get to the AP), you have to be very strategic in your kid's high school trajectory planning, because there is only so much you can fit in a 7-period schedule, with all the graduation requirements from the state of MD and the county. Also, you probably don't want to end up with 6 AP classes in one year. You have to distribute the load.

Your kid's math track will determine what STEM courses they can take when. If they're in Algebra 2 by 8th grade, I know some kids who have bypassed the 9th grade Honors Bio suggestion, and done variations of:
9th: Honors Physics / Honors Precalc (or Honors Chem / Honors Precalc)
10th: AP Physics C / AP Calc BC / Honors Chem (or AP Chem / AP Calc BC / Honors Phys)
11th: AP Chem / Multivariable calculus (or AP Phys C / MVC)
12th: AP Bio / dual enrollment higher calculus at Montgomery College or UMD, or relax with AP Stats (the latter might be more useful for medicine, actually).

Along with some BCC engineering electives or computer science (AP Computer Science Principles is the tech requirement, then you can take AP Java).

Essentially, for anyone with a kid in middle school, the 9th grade course registration means coming up with a plan for all 4 years of high school.

TLDR: you only get to elite engineering universities with the most rigorous science classes, and those will either be at the Blair STEM magnet or any W school STEM AP schedule. No need to look further. Question is: is your kid hardcore enough?

It is not just a regional IB center. It is the only magnet that selects from the entire county. Much more selective.

VAC is whole county. Are there others?

Magruder aviation, Poolesville global ecology, Sherwood ag science, and Whitman social justice are countywide as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since today is notification day, I was looking up what we would apply to next year for my son who is in 7th now. We zone to BCC. Compared to all the other schools, it seems like BCC kids (and the other Western/Southern schools) don’t have any magnet/application based options outside of Blair SMCS, RMIB, and Poolesville Ecology. My kids is a Biomedical/Engineering kid. Those application based magnets look fantastic. Why don’t the kids in our area get that option?

The only one that's a true intellectual standout is the bolded. It's the TJ of Maryland. The other two are very nice, but not any better than W schools. The other "special programs" you are thinking of are not really selective. They're attractively-packaged to attract kids to traditionally under-served areas of the county, but the intellectual rigor, content quality and peer cohort just aren't there.

Eventually most parents realize this, and also take note of the ridiculous commute.

LOL. RMIB is way better than the W schools.

It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

For OP's kid and her or his interests:
BCC has some engineering intro courses, with classes like introduction to engineering design, etc. But these are essentially fancy fillers. Make no mistake, OP. Colleges aren't dazzled by electives or unusual coursework. They want to see RIGOR and national standards. The best engineering colleges are very selective. Your kid needs to do well on his STEM APs. Since they have prerequisites for the most part (math and science courses before you can get to the AP), you have to be very strategic in your kid's high school trajectory planning, because there is only so much you can fit in a 7-period schedule, with all the graduation requirements from the state of MD and the county. Also, you probably don't want to end up with 6 AP classes in one year. You have to distribute the load.

Your kid's math track will determine what STEM courses they can take when. If they're in Algebra 2 by 8th grade, I know some kids who have bypassed the 9th grade Honors Bio suggestion, and done variations of:
9th: Honors Physics / Honors Precalc (or Honors Chem / Honors Precalc)
10th: AP Physics C / AP Calc BC / Honors Chem (or AP Chem / AP Calc BC / Honors Phys)
11th: AP Chem / Multivariable calculus (or AP Phys C / MVC)
12th: AP Bio / dual enrollment higher calculus at Montgomery College or UMD, or relax with AP Stats (the latter might be more useful for medicine, actually).

Along with some BCC engineering electives or computer science (AP Computer Science Principles is the tech requirement, then you can take AP Java).

Essentially, for anyone with a kid in middle school, the 9th grade course registration means coming up with a plan for all 4 years of high school.

TLDR: you only get to elite engineering universities with the most rigorous science classes, and those will either be at the Blair STEM magnet or any W school STEM AP schedule. No need to look further. Question is: is your kid hardcore enough?

You're saying not all schools offer the STEM AP classes you list above? My DD will be going to Blake and wants to be an engineer so it will be disappointing if the class selection is weak. I guess I should not have assumed courses would be somewhat equal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

While there is a lot of real good information below in that post, I can't agree with the STEM point.

You can look here for the admission data:
2023 https://moco360.media/2023/09/13/where-montgomery-county-high-school-graduates-are-going-to-college/
2024 https://moco360.media/2024/09/17/where-do-moco-students-attend-college/

They changed the format for 2024, making it much harder to search, but in 2023 Blair had a higher acceptance rate at MIT and CalTech (total 8 people went to those 2 schools from Blair), and RM a (notably) higher acceptance to Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Cornell, UMichigan, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon.
(Ironically, RM also had a higher admission rate to UMCP, which may be a blip, but the school is actually in the top 20 of engineering schools in the nation).

You can also look at AP exam data. It's really hard to parse out the magnet programs from RM or Blair, but I recommend you look at this link for 2023: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/AP-Exam-by-Subject.html


The flexibility point is true, but it's important to remember that it's not a universally good thing - some kids / parents prefer high flexibility that usually comes with a more variable quality of classes, some prefer a low-flexibility program with core classes that are polished to a high quality.

I think this is the more interesting part of the story - # of county-wide acceptances.

Texas A&M 14
Stanford 9
Princeton 16
MIT 12
JHU 37
Harvard 4
Dartmouth 12
Cornell 58
Columbia 11
Carnegie Mellon 44
Cal Tech 8
Georgia Institute of Technology 41
Purdue 115
University of California, Berkeley 15
University of California, Davis 42
University of California, Irvine 41
University of California, Los Angeles 24
University of California, Riverside 4
University of California, San Diego 43
University of California, Santa Barbara 52
University of California, Santa Cruz 20
University of Michigan 96
Virginia Tech 312
Yale 11

These are not countywide acceptances. The article includes 10 high schools of 26 in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since today is notification day, I was looking up what we would apply to next year for my son who is in 7th now. We zone to BCC. Compared to all the other schools, it seems like BCC kids (and the other Western/Southern schools) don’t have any magnet/application based options outside of Blair SMCS, RMIB, and Poolesville Ecology. My kids is a Biomedical/Engineering kid. Those application based magnets look fantastic. Why don’t the kids in our area get that option?

The only one that's a true intellectual standout is the bolded. It's the TJ of Maryland. The other two are very nice, but not any better than W schools. The other "special programs" you are thinking of are not really selective. They're attractively-packaged to attract kids to traditionally under-served areas of the county, but the intellectual rigor, content quality and peer cohort just aren't there.

Eventually most parents realize this, and also take note of the ridiculous commute.

LOL. RMIB is way better than the W schools.

It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

For OP's kid and her or his interests:
BCC has some engineering intro courses, with classes like introduction to engineering design, etc. But these are essentially fancy fillers. Make no mistake, OP. Colleges aren't dazzled by electives or unusual coursework. They want to see RIGOR and national standards. The best engineering colleges are very selective. Your kid needs to do well on his STEM APs. Since they have prerequisites for the most part (math and science courses before you can get to the AP), you have to be very strategic in your kid's high school trajectory planning, because there is only so much you can fit in a 7-period schedule, with all the graduation requirements from the state of MD and the county. Also, you probably don't want to end up with 6 AP classes in one year. You have to distribute the load.

Your kid's math track will determine what STEM courses they can take when. If they're in Algebra 2 by 8th grade, I know some kids who have bypassed the 9th grade Honors Bio suggestion, and done variations of:
9th: Honors Physics / Honors Precalc (or Honors Chem / Honors Precalc)
10th: AP Physics C / AP Calc BC / Honors Chem (or AP Chem / AP Calc BC / Honors Phys)
11th: AP Chem / Multivariable calculus (or AP Phys C / MVC)
12th: AP Bio / dual enrollment higher calculus at Montgomery College or UMD, or relax with AP Stats (the latter might be more useful for medicine, actually).

Along with some BCC engineering electives or computer science (AP Computer Science Principles is the tech requirement, then you can take AP Java).

Essentially, for anyone with a kid in middle school, the 9th grade course registration means coming up with a plan for all 4 years of high school.

TLDR: you only get to elite engineering universities with the most rigorous science classes, and those will either be at the Blair STEM magnet or any W school STEM AP schedule. No need to look further. Question is: is your kid hardcore enough?

You're saying not all schools offer the STEM AP classes you list above? My DD will be going to Blake and wants to be an engineer so it will be disappointing if the class selection is weak. I guess I should not have assumed courses would be somewhat equal

Blake has all the STEM AP classes listed: Calc AB and BC and Stats (plus the non-AP multivariable calc), comp sci, chem, bio, physics 1 and physics C

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It's just the regional IB center. Most students aren't interested in IB (compared to their home AP courses) because the IB program is a lot less flexible, and not as advanced in STEM. Also, BCC has a full IB program, plus a ton of AP courses.

While there is a lot of real good information below in that post, I can't agree with the STEM point.

You can look here for the admission data:
2023 https://moco360.media/2023/09/13/where-montgomery-county-high-school-graduates-are-going-to-college/
2024 https://moco360.media/2024/09/17/where-do-moco-students-attend-college/

They changed the format for 2024, making it much harder to search, but in 2023 Blair had a higher acceptance rate at MIT and CalTech (total 8 people went to those 2 schools from Blair), and RM a (notably) higher acceptance to Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Cornell, UMichigan, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon.
(Ironically, RM also had a higher admission rate to UMCP, which may be a blip, but the school is actually in the top 20 of engineering schools in the nation).

You can also look at AP exam data. It's really hard to parse out the magnet programs from RM or Blair, but I recommend you look at this link for 2023: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/data/LAR-charts/AP-Exam-by-Subject.html


The flexibility point is true, but it's important to remember that it's not a universally good thing - some kids / parents prefer high flexibility that usually comes with a more variable quality of classes, some prefer a low-flexibility program with core classes that are polished to a high quality.

they gave us the list of college acceptances at RMIB open house and college admissions were insane - a lot of kids admitted to the tippy top colleges out of a pretty small program. my kid is more interested in blair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since today is notification day, I was looking up what we would apply to next year for my son who is in 7th now. We zone to BCC. Compared to all the other schools, it seems like BCC kids (and the other Western/Southern schools) don’t have any magnet/application based options outside of Blair SMCS, RMIB, and Poolesville Ecology. My kids is a Biomedical/Engineering kid. Those application based magnets look fantastic. Why don’t the kids in our area get that option?

BCC parents fought not to be part of the DCC. That would've given their children many more options. It was literally their choice.