Best school (public or private) for STEM-interested kid

[Anonymous]

CMIT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ironically when I went to Marshall it seems like it was the county's dumping ground. How things have changes...

Marshall Elementary in PWC? This has never been true. Are you sure you're not talking about a different county?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prince William and Anne Arundel counties are not within easy commuting distance to DC...and the schools there aren't better than the counties surrounding DC.

If you want STEM for your 5 year old, you need to focus on afterschool/weeknd enrichment programs and activities.

Most people around me in PWC including my husband commute into DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief - Blair and TJ parents: GIVE IT UP. No one else cares about how competitive your snowflake's school is. The OP is looking for good non-test-in options for a FIVE YEAR OLD. And you're having a pissing match instead of being helpful.

TJ is the best in the whole country! I even read it in some magazine once!

On paper they are, but in real competitions, they are eating dust!!

TJ beats Blair on practically everything except Intel Science fair which the parents can pay other experts to help out.

[Anonymous]

People! Her kid is 5!
OP, if I were you I would look for elementary schools that offer strong STEM related after school programs. Some schools have Destination Imagination, have robotics programs, coding clubs, etc.. Check out elementary schools like Wood Acres in Bethesda for instance.http://www.woodacrespta.org/index.php/after-school
Also, some elementary schools, have dedicated Science teachers. In Moco, I met one and was pretty impressed.
It's a title 1 school though which gets more funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students, not applicants!

TJ does not take 15% of fcps students.

You are terribly misinformed if you believe that to be the case.

The point stands that Blair's magnet program is more selective.

Which makes it interesting that Blair consistently underperforms in almost all areas of academics as compared to TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ.

there is a cluster where tiger moms move to realize their dreams of TJ.

TJ is a bigger school with a single focus, but pound for pound the magnet program within Blair outperforms it. It seems likely this is because Blair's magnet admits the top 3% of applicants as opposed to the top 15% like TJ.

blair > tj

Blair is not that selective. Around 500 people applied last year-- if the rate was 3% then 15 people would have got in.

This isn't rocket science.
TJ admits roughly 500 students from FCPS annually.
The Blair STEM program only admits 100 students from the entire county each year.
MCPS and FCPS are comparable.

TJ's class of 2020 has 450 kids from PWCS, APS, FCPS, FCCS and LCPS.

[Anonymous]

If you want FCPS STEM, the strong (GS 8-10) ESs that feed into Carson, Rocky Run or Longfellow for middle schools will have strong STEM. These are the 3 TJ "feeders" (almost 200 admits to TJ last year from all 3 combined). Even if you don't want TJ, these feeder schools all have very strong STEM and STEM extracurriculars because there is a lot of talent and demand. The Longfellow feeders are much more expensive that Carson/ RR. But Carson/RR is the far Western part of the county, so a long commute. It's a tradeoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prince William and Anne Arundel counties are not within easy commuting distance to DC...and the schools there aren't better than the counties surrounding DC.

If you want STEM for your 5 year old, you need to focus on afterschool/weeknd enrichment programs and activities.

Most people around me in PWC including my husband commute into DC.

Yes, people do a lot of crazy stuff (like commuting for over an hour each way). But, the OP doing so because her 5 year old might be into science is cuckoo--especially when there is plenty of STEM for kids in counties bordering DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief - Blair and TJ parents: GIVE IT UP. No one else cares about how competitive your snowflake's school is. The OP is looking for good non-test-in options for a FIVE YEAR OLD. And you're having a pissing match instead of being helpful.

TJ is the best in the whole country! I even read it in some magazine once!

On paper they are, but in real competitions, they are eating dust!!

TJ beats Blair on practically everything except Intel Science fair which the parents can pay other experts to help out.

LOL
If that's the case, why don't parents from TJ pay other experts to help out??? Actually, they do and there is a lot of cheating at TJ and they still cannot beat Blair where it counts..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students, not applicants!

TJ does not take 15% of fcps students.

You are terribly misinformed if you believe that to be the case.

The point stands that Blair's magnet program is more selective.

Which makes it interesting that Blair consistently underperforms in almost all areas of academics as compared to TJ.

Wrong. Blair Magnet does not underperform.
You do understand that Blair scores consists of all Blair not just the Magnet program? While TJ is an all-magnet, selective school? hence, TJ scores will always be higher than Blair (on paper).
But when it comes to real life competitions, Blair Magnet outperforms TJ hands down

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students, not applicants!

TJ does not take 15% of fcps students.

You are terribly misinformed if you believe that to be the case.

The point stands that Blair's magnet program is more selective.

Which makes it interesting that Blair consistently underperforms in almost all areas of academics as compared to TJ.

Wrong. Blair Magnet does not underperform.
You do understand that Blair scores consists of all Blair not just the Magnet program? While TJ is an all-magnet, selective school? hence, TJ scores will always be higher than Blair (on paper).
But when it comes to real life competitions, Blair Magnet outperforms TJ hands down

Only with the Intel competition which is known to have problems of parents or others conducting the research for students etc. In fact, Blair magnet's curriculum is primarily focused on science fairs from the 9th grade.

[Anonymous]

TJ parent, and I do not get the weird TJ - Blair rivalry. Bright kids from NOVA apply to TJ, bright kids from MCPS apply to Blair. No one can apply to both and choose between them. Somwhich one is "better" is irrelevant. No one has the luxury of deciding IRL. They are 2 of the best schools in the country. We're lucky to have them. Kids who go to either school and put in the work are going to get into the same colleges and have the pretty much the same opportunities.

So last year, Blair had 2 kids on the physics olympics team and TJ had one. But the TJ kid made the travel squad and the Blair kids did not. Or some such. My details may be off. But there was a DCUM brawl about whether this made TJ or Blair better. How about this-- any school with a kid or kids on the National Physics Olympics team is pretty damn impressive.

And BTW, while the parents are fighting on DCUM, a TJ and a Blair student teamed up on a project and advanced pretty far in one of the major science fairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ parent, and I do not get the weird TJ - Blair rivalry. Bright kids from NOVA apply to TJ, bright kids from MCPS apply to Blair. No one can apply to both and choose between them. Somwhich one is "better" is irrelevant. No one has the luxury of deciding IRL. They are 2 of the best schools in the country. We're lucky to have them. Kids who go to either school and put in the work are going to get into the same colleges and have the pretty much the same opportunities.

So last year, Blair had 2 kids on the physics olympics team and TJ had one. But the TJ kid made the travel squad and the Blair kids did not. Or some such. My details may be off. But there was a DCUM brawl about whether this made TJ or Blair better. How about this-- any school with a kid or kids on the National Physics Olympics team is pretty damn impressive.

And BTW, while the parents are fighting on DCUM, a TJ and a Blair student teamed up on a project and advanced pretty far in one of the major science fairs.

Thank you. My kids are too young for either Blair or TJ, but I completely fail to understand the rivalry here. Maybe folks should live where they want, and then be happy they have these kinds of choices whether than choose MD or VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ parent, and I do not get the weird TJ - Blair rivalry. Bright kids from NOVA apply to TJ, bright kids from MCPS apply to Blair. No one can apply to both and choose between them. Somwhich one is "better" is irrelevant. No one has the luxury of deciding IRL. They are 2 of the best schools in the country. We're lucky to have them. Kids who go to either school and put in the work are going to get into the same colleges and have the pretty much the same opportunities.

So last year, Blair had 2 kids on the physics olympics team and TJ had one. But the TJ kid made the travel squad and the Blair kids did not. Or some such. My details may be off. But there was a DCUM brawl about whether this made TJ or Blair better. How about this-- any school with a kid or kids on the National Physics Olympics team is pretty damn impressive.

And BTW, while the parents are fighting on DCUM, a TJ and a Blair student teamed up on a project and advanced pretty far in one of the major science fairs.

Thank you. My kids are too young for either Blair or TJ, but I completely fail to understand the rivalry here. Maybe folks should live where they want, and then be happy they have these kinds of choices whether than choose MD or VA.

This rivalry thing usually starts because some Blair booster puts down TJ (maybe because TJ is more recognized, well known, higher ranked who knows) and says things like TJ eats dust, Blair is better, Blair outperforms TJ, Blair is more selective etc. etc. Please stop attacking TJ and this silly rivalry will stop.