Top 10 Schools in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Well if I had to choose I'd choose Gaithersburg over Germantown! Kentlands is actually really nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No that's about 10 minutes away. I'm saying the main area of Gaithersburg.

I'm another PP who wants to know where "the main area of Gaithersburg" is. You can refer to this map in your answer: https://www.maptechnica.com/city-map/Gaithersburg/MD/2431175

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1- WJ
2- BCC
3- Whitman
4- QO
4- Churchill
4- Wootton
4- Northwest
5- Sherwood

I changed the rankings a PP made a bit. I removed the magnet schools. Poolesville, RM and Blair. If we want to talk about non-magnet students then we cannot have the magnet students in the mix. The magnet students are handpicked, highest performers in the most rigerous programs. They are in a league of their own and not really comparable to the rest of the school. Poolesville is the top students because it is a whole school magnet with a smattering of local students. It does not fit the school within a school model of Blair or RM. So it is better to remove these three schools.

Among the W schools I have always thought the WJ and BCC are the best schools. Whitman has a pressure cooker environment or it would be in the same category as WJ and BCC, Wootton, Churchil, QO, Northwest is in the same category, except Churchill and Wootton have a toxic environment.

- Ganglandia parent (or do we live in Bumfu*kistan? I no longer know)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I changed the rankings a PP made a bit. I removed the magnet schools. Poolesville, RM and Blair. If we want to talk about non-magnet students then we cannot have the magnet students in the mix. The magnet students are handpicked, highest performers in the most rigerous programs. They are in a league of their own and not really comparable to the rest of the school. Poolesville is the top students because it is a whole school magnet with a smattering of local students. It does not fit the school within a school model of Blair or RM. So it is better to remove these three schools.

Among the W schools I have always thought the WJ and BCC are the best schools. Whitman has a pressure cooker environment or it would be in the same category as WJ and BCC, Wootton, Churchil, QO, Northwest is in the same category, except Churchill and Wootton have a toxic environment.

- Ganglandia parent (or do we live in Bumfu*kistan? I no longer know)

Half the students at Poolesville HS are home-school students. I wouldn't describe that as a "smattering".

-parent from the Siberian Hinterlands

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing students in any school - W or ganglandia- will end up in mostly AP classes. You could be in W or QO or Watkins Mill HS and not take AP classes and the chances would be that you were mediocre or below. There is a reason that colleges look for mostly A's in the hardest courses that your school offers. Hardest classes currently are either AP or IB.

The AP courses at these schools are not at the same level. Look at the test results (just a selection of schools):

2017 AP Pass Rates (3 or above):
Kennedy - 36.2
Watkins Mill - 34.1
Rockville - 54.9
QO - 57.2
Einstein - 61.9
Clarksburg - 69.1
RM - 79.9
B-CC - 80.4
Churchill - 85.3
Blair - 86.3
WJ - 87.1
Poolesville - 87.7
Whitman - 88.2
Wootton - 89.2

These pass rates also don't show the wide disparity between schools on scores between 3 and 5. The schools at the low end do not provide the same quality of education.

Do they not provide the same level of education, or they educating students from differing backgrounds with different starting points? A kid from a two lawyer family in Whitman is (on the whole) going to be exposed to a lot more in terms of education at home than the kid of a first generation parent (who may not speak English as a first language) working a blue collar job.

Getting the latter kid caught up to the point of getting a 3 may take a better education than getting the Whitman kid a 5.

+1 test scores are usually a reflection of SES, and that ranking shows it, for the most part.

That said, my Asian American kids will do fine at RM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well if I had to choose I'd choose Gaithersburg over Germantown! Kentlands is actually really nice.

Absolutely! We live in Kentlands and love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why anyone would consider BCC a 7 and Whitman a 4 a top school is beyond reason.

Yes, it's true especially when you look at real-world outcomes like college admissions published by Bethesda Magazine.

What about the BCC or Whitman college results would make you question that they are strong schools?

[Anonymous]

college admissions can be influenced by the wealth of the parents who donate to alma mater. Legacy is not merit, even though in this country you can become a POTUS without any merit.

Doesn't matter where your kid goes to school. If their AP/IB scores and SAT scores are less than that of someone from a lesser rated school then they are not higher achieving. What are you going to do with the school ranking? Bake it in a pie?

What is your own kid's ranking and how do they stack up against other students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Poolesville is obviously a top school but take out the magnets then what do you have? I'm saying the whole school as a whole including local students. Overall still a top 10 school in the county.

Whitman is obviously a top school but take out the affluent kids then what do you have?

An empty building

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't tell that to the W school parents! They believe their kids are smarter and that they care about education more than the upcounty parents.

I don't think it's that W school parents think Quince Orchard HS is Ganglandia. It's that Quince Orchard HS is in Gaithersburg, and there are people who think that all of Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. (They also probably think that all of Gaithersburg is east of 270...) Germantown is Ganglandia too, of course. And Clarksburg - after all, rapper Shy Glizzy came up in Clarksburg's gritty, mean, urban streets.

Ok, so just say it a different way: Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. QO is in Gaithersburg. Therefore, QO is gang-filled.

QO isn't in Gaithersburg though. It is in North Potomac. It draws from some areas of Gaithersburg though. Look on a map. It is pretty far from Gaithersburg and on the opposite side of the highway as well. It also draws from North Potomac and Darnestown.

Most people joke that North Potomac is really just South Gaithersburg. Just like North Bethesda is really just South Rockville. These are not real town names. They don't actually exist on maps. They were invented by real estate agents...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:college admissions can be influenced by the wealth of the parents who donate to alma mater. Legacy is not merit, even though in this country you can become a POTUS without any merit.

Doesn't matter where your kid goes to school. If their AP/IB scores and SAT scores are less than that of someone from a lesser rated school then they are not higher achieving. What are you going to do with the school ranking? Bake it in a pie?

What is your own kid's ranking and how do they stack up against other students?

As a Churchill parent, I agree with the above post. I only know our cluster and if Churchill is considered to be a top school in MCPS then all of MCPS is crap.

Kids at Churchill will always do well as a whole because parents are engaged and they can afford to supplement. Parents pay $2,000 for SAT or ACT test prep. Obviously that influences scores. When teachers struggle to teach a class they do not have the basic knowledge to teach (ie Math Department) parents hire tutors. If I had to do it all over again, I would have bought a house in a cheaper area and sent my kids to private school especially when the 2.0 disaster was rolled out.

Don't fool yourself if you think the quality of the education is better at W schools than the rest of the county.

[Anonymous]

Here are my top 10 excluding schools with test in magnets:
1. WJ
2. Whitman
3. BCC
4. Wootton
5. Churchill
6. Quince Orchard
7. Sherwood
8. Northwest
9. Clarksburg
10. Damascus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't tell that to the W school parents! They believe their kids are smarter and that they care about education more than the upcounty parents.

I don't think it's that W school parents think Quince Orchard HS is Ganglandia. It's that Quince Orchard HS is in Gaithersburg, and there are people who think that all of Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. (They also probably think that all of Gaithersburg is east of 270...) Germantown is Ganglandia too, of course. And Clarksburg - after all, rapper Shy Glizzy came up in Clarksburg's gritty, mean, urban streets.

Ok, so just say it a different way: Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. QO is in Gaithersburg. Therefore, QO is gang-filled.

QO isn't in Gaithersburg though. It is in North Potomac. It draws from some areas of Gaithersburg though. Look on a map. It is pretty far from Gaithersburg and on the opposite side of the highway as well. It also draws from North Potomac and Darnestown.

Most people joke that North Potomac is really just South Gaithersburg. Just like North Bethesda is really just South Rockville. These are not real town names. They don't actually exist on maps. They were invented by real estate agents...

Yeah and for some reason people who don’t even seem to live in Gaithersburg can’t accept that good schools like QO or nice neighborhoods like Kentlands could possibly exist in Gaithersburg, so they say those places are actually in North Potomac or at least not in the “main part” of Gaithersburg. I live in Kentlands and am perfectly happy saying I live in Gaithersburg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't tell that to the W school parents! They believe their kids are smarter and that they care about education more than the upcounty parents.

I don't think it's that W school parents think Quince Orchard HS is Ganglandia. It's that Quince Orchard HS is in Gaithersburg, and there are people who think that all of Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. (They also probably think that all of Gaithersburg is east of 270...) Germantown is Ganglandia too, of course. And Clarksburg - after all, rapper Shy Glizzy came up in Clarksburg's gritty, mean, urban streets.

Ok, so just say it a different way: Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. QO is in Gaithersburg. Therefore, QO is gang-filled.

QO isn't in Gaithersburg though. It is in North Potomac. It draws from some areas of Gaithersburg though. Look on a map. It is pretty far from Gaithersburg and on the opposite side of the highway as well. It also draws from North Potomac and Darnestown.

Most people joke that North Potomac is really just South Gaithersburg. Just like North Bethesda is really just South Rockville. These are not real town names. They don't actually exist on maps. They were invented by real estate agents...

North Bethesda is real..has a zip code.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't tell that to the W school parents! They believe their kids are smarter and that they care about education more than the upcounty parents.

I don't think it's that W school parents think Quince Orchard HS is Ganglandia. It's that Quince Orchard HS is in Gaithersburg, and there are people who think that all of Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. (They also probably think that all of Gaithersburg is east of 270...) Germantown is Ganglandia too, of course. And Clarksburg - after all, rapper Shy Glizzy came up in Clarksburg's gritty, mean, urban streets.

Ok, so just say it a different way: Gaithersburg is Ganglandia. QO is in Gaithersburg. Therefore, QO is gang-filled.

QO isn't in Gaithersburg though. It is in North Potomac. It draws from some areas of Gaithersburg though. Look on a map. It is pretty far from Gaithersburg and on the opposite side of the highway as well. It also draws from North Potomac and Darnestown.

Most people joke that North Potomac is really just South Gaithersburg. Just like North Bethesda is really just South Rockville. These are not real town names. They don't actually exist on maps. They were invented by real estate agents...

North Bethesda is real..has a zip code.

These are census designated unincorporated places. Towns and cities have to be incorporated. A census designated, unincorporated place has no official legal status. While they might not be real estate agent creations, they don’t count as the official place you live in.