Top MCPS MS

[Anonymous]

North Bethesda! A hidden gem. Wonderful parent community, engaged teachers and tiny bit more diverse than Pyle

[Anonymous]

There is no best middle schools. They are all pretty terrible.

[Anonymous]

Top MS in terms of what?

Top for sports? Top for diversity? Top for academic (whole school)? Top for least crowded? Top for most foreign language? Top for most AP? Top for most IB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure there will be a lot of debate here but if you're going off of rankings, usually Pyle is at the top for MCPS

TPMS, the most decorated MS is at the top, not only in MCPS but in the whole DMV.

Robert Frost parents would strongly disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:North Bethesda! A hidden gem. Wonderful parent community, engaged teachers and tiny bit more diverse than Pyle

Toured this school, admittedly pre-pandemic. It was hard. Admin didn’t want to let me in but I insisted.

On our tour boy runs - at full speed - and tackles young woman. (With Admin in witnessing everything)

Boy says nothing

Girl was too embarrassed to do anything but struggle to stand.

I asked her if she was okay but it was not my place to do much.

Left county soon after - never looked back.

Hidden Gem is not what I would call this place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:North Bethesda! A hidden gem. Wonderful parent community, engaged teachers and tiny bit more diverse than Pyle

You clearly missed the YouTube of the Principal screaming at the kids in the cafeteria (multiple times)

[Anonymous]

Farquhar is all people who live in Olney and Ashton. I wouldn’t call that a diverse area. They also have a log of drug problems there. I know all the MS too but the Farquhar and Sherwood like to pretend it doesn’t happen there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure there will be a lot of debate here but if you're going off of rankings, usually Pyle is at the top for MCPS

TPMS, the most decorated MS is at the top, not only in MCPS but in the whole DMV.

Robert Frost parents would strongly disagree.

Frost parents can disagree, but it's a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately MCPS ruined the middle school magnets so I guess the “best” ones are the ones in the most wealthy areas or the ones with a good principal

Parent of younger kids here. What do you mean by saying MCPS “ruined” the magnets?

They changed from entry based on merit to entry based on lottery.

Correction : merit AND lottery

Correction: very low bar for merit and lottery. So basically a lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are considered the top 5 MS in MCPS?

TPMS hands down

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TPMS - we had one kid at TPMS and another at a different middle school. TPMS is great - even the non magnet classes. Plus, the admin, school clubs, and community feel are all strong and impressive.

also doesn't hurt they prepare students for other magnets better than the other HS and have won far more awards

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you even rank MS? OP, MS sucks across mcps. Focus on HS.

That's a mistake I made when buying my first home. Where I only looked at the high school rankings and not further down.

So we ended up buying in an area that had the worst elementary school in the cluster. At the same time, it was what we could afford at the time.

Based on our experience, I'd suggest looking at whatever level school your child will be going to.

Also US News does give a rankings on elementary and middle schools as well:

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/elementary-schools/maryland
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/maryland

But it's as other posters mentioned, it generally correlates with income level of the area, maybe with the exceptions of any special programs. And you always have to take these types of rankings with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you even rank MS? OP, MS sucks across mcps. Focus on HS.

That's a mistake I made when buying my first home. Where I only looked at the high school rankings and not further down.

So we ended up buying in an area that had the worst elementary school in the cluster. At the same time, it was what we could afford at the time.

Based on our experience, I'd suggest looking at whatever level school your child will be going to.

Also US News does give a rankings on elementary and middle schools as well:

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/elementary-schools/maryland
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/maryland

But it's as other posters mentioned, it generally correlates with income level of the area, maybe with the exceptions of any special programs. And you always have to take these types of rankings with a grain of salt.

There are multiple ES that feed into a HS cluster. If there is more than one MS in the cluster, you do want to look into which ES feeds into the MS, but each cluster only has one HS, so that's why it also makes sense to start with the HS.

[Anonymous]

School ranking are based on test scores. They don’t rank bullying, school violence etc. you need to talk to actual parents or teachers to get that info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are considered the top 5 MS in MCPS?

TPMS hands down

No one consider TPMS a top school except TP parents who don’t know better. The magnet program is a nice carrot designed to prop up an east count school with kids bused in which is why they had to lower the standards and guarantee 25 slots to local kids who wouldn’t have made the cut otherwise. Even still it typically never makes a top 5 ranking on objective lists for the county.

Even if you like it the fun is short lived as it is tied to Eastern which is one of the worst middle schools in the area.