best primary/middle school for highly intelligent kid

[Anonymous]

What are the best primary and middle schools in DC and MD for an exceptionally intelligent kid, if the goals are to ensure that she is challenged intellectually throughout her time there (by both teachers and students) but still gets the social development needed to be well-adjusted. I don't want her to see herself as better or worse than the other kids, but also don't want her to be bored.

When answering, please indicate whether you're basing your answer on reputation, personal experience, or something else.

p.s. If you feel the need to attack a parent for thinking their kid is highly intelligent, gifted, a genius, or whatever, please start your own thread to vent and leave this one alone. If you want to stay here, just accept my premise and answer the question.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for placing your order. We'll get right on that.

[Anonymous]

Personal experience (have had experience with both public and private schools): the MCPS magnets.

[Anonymous]

Personal experience: homeschooling.

[Anonymous]

I love who posters request information by barking out orders. Do the work for me! And justify your response!

[Anonymous]

No one can answer your question. Picking a school for a child is highly individual, even for "super geniuses." I have seen very bright kids thrive and do badly at the same schools, for reasons having nothing to do with their intelligence. You are asking the wrong question, or rather you are asking a question so general that you will not get a helpful answer.

When you post with your dukes up, in such a controlling manner, don't be surprised that no one wants to help you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one can answer your question. Picking a school for a child is highly individual, even for "super geniuses." I have seen very bright kids thrive and do badly at the same schools, for reasons having nothing to do with their intelligence. You are asking the wrong question, or rather you are asking a question so general that you will not get a helpful answer.

When you post with your dukes up, in such a controlling manner, don't be surprised that no one wants to help you.

Seriously. Your kid is going to need help with the social aspect, given her parent's lack of emotional intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the best primary and middle schools in DC and MD for an exceptionally intelligent kid, if the goals are to ensure that she is challenged intellectually throughout her time there (by both teachers and students) but still gets the social development needed to be well-adjusted. I don't want her to see herself as better or worse than the other kids, but also don't want her to be bored.

I would start by thinking about the assumption that there is such a thing as a "best" school.

[Anonymous]

If your DD is that intelligent, perhaps you could ask your DD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the best primary and middle schools in DC and MD for an exceptionally intelligent kid, if the goals are to ensure that she is challenged intellectually throughout her time there (by both teachers and students) but still gets the social development needed to be well-adjusted. I don't want her to see herself as better or worse than the other kids, but also don't want her to be bored.

I would start by thinking about the assumption that there is such a thing as a "best" school.

This!!! It is very important to realize that no school is perfect. That applies to public, private, charter, magnet, etc. On paper, one school can sound "perfect" but if your child is miserable then it isn't so perfect after all. Maybe it's the teacher in any given year, maybe it's the cohort of children, maybe it's the commute, maybe it's some other factor that you can't quite put your finger on. The point is: you can't guarantee (or buy) perfection. Instead, you can find a situation for your child that is good (not perfect) and allows him/her the opportunity to create for him/her self the school experience that works the best for who he/she is. I believe you can find that in public/private/any of the other options.

[Anonymous]

Would really need to know what other interests your child has and what her disposition is. Also, is she competitive or not? Most of the girls schools do really well with super-smart girls. I wouldn't send a super-smart girl to a public school since teacher's tend to favor the boys w/o even knowing it. If I were you, I would choose NCS, Holton, or one of the fine all-girls Catholic Schools. Mine went to Holton with some girls who were more super smart than she was and that drove mine to excel even more.

[Anonymous]

Feynman in bethesda is specifically for gifted kids and they keep the kids about 2 grades ahead.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the helpful replies. She's not that competitive at the moment. Maybe it'll come later, though I'd hope the competitiveness would be constructive.

How's Feynman for social development? And given that it's specifically for gifted kids, does it risk making your kid arrogant or feel bad about herself for being different? How does the school handle those potential problems?

By the way, the part of my post about personal experience wasn't an order. It was a request. I find it helpful to understand where someone's coming from. I wouldn't necessarily discount responses based on reputation rather than personal experience.

[Anonymous]

Call and tour Feynman and see if you fall in love the way I did. We ended up making a different choice for various personal reasons. Your kid may well be 'average' in that crowd and not feel like they stick out at all as long as you act normal about it. I had planned to never ever use the worse 'gifted' in DC's presence. Just check it out because it's a rare kind of school for this area and sounds like it might be a great fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for placing your order. We'll get right on that.

love this!