Bethesda - Whitman Cluster vs. BCC Cluster - Advice please

[Anonymous]

I would love to get some opinions . I'm in the midst of researching areas to move in Bethesda - I'm looking at elementary schools now but we plan to be there long-term, through high school. I know Whitman and BCC are both amazing schools, but I've gotten the impression that Whitman and the ES and Middle Schools that feed into it are slightly better. But is this a correct impression? Do you have experience of either cluster? If you could choose one of the other, which would you choose. Thanks so much for any help!

[Anonymous]

I'm sure this will set off a firestorm, but I think your impression is widely recognized as correct. By reputation, Whitman is regarded as THE top school in Montgomery County. I think there is a legitimate debate as to whether Whitman is a "better" school (better teachers, better classes, better facilities), but fairly wide recognition that Whitman tends to be tops in test scores, college admissions, etc.

Having said that, BCC is an excellent school, and kids from there routinely graduate and go to the best schools in the country. I think in large part, Whitman's success is self-fulfilling -- the students who go there are highly motivated from families who value education very highly. There is little room for failure.

I think when you're property hunting, there are two types of buyers.... those who absolutely positively MUST be in the Whitman district, and those who recognize that the surrounding districts are 98% as good, and they're willing to compromise on the name of the high school in order to get something else (bigger house, shorter commute, etc. etc.).

Either way, you really can't go wrong. Bethesda has some of the best high schools in the country. You could go to any of the top 4-5 (Wooten, Whitman, BCC, Churchill) and do just fine.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thanks for the feedback. I'm also curious about the atmosphere of each cluster - if that's even possible to generalize? I of course want my kids to have a top-notch education but am also worried that the atmosphere of the schools (Whitman in particular?) are almost too high achieving and may be too pressure filled. Both DS and I went to state schools for college and aren't lawyers (to further generalize!) so the East-Coast-Ivy-school thing isn't part of our experience. Of course that's great if our child ends up at an Ivy college but I don't want her to feel like she's in a pressure cooker either. Are any of the Bethesda schools more down to earth than others? Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

There are many threads in the archives on this topic. I'd do a search to pull them up--the stereotype that Whitman is the BEST high school in MoCo has been around for decades. I'm a Whitman grad, I know.

P.S. In my opinion, you are doing yourself a disservice to rule out the other local high schools just because they are NOT Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Do you drive an SUV or a volvo?
If the former, I suggest Whitman, if the latter, BCC.

[Anonymous]

My opinion - both are excellent schools academically. BCC has more diversity, if that is important to you, as well as an IB program. If you're interested in a great book - The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins was written about students from Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you drive an SUV or a volvo?
If the former, I suggest Whitman, if the latter, BCC.

LOL, too bad I didn't know this before we bought in the Whitman cluster. DH and I drive subcompacts.

[Anonymous]

My impression is that Whitman does tend to be a little of an over-pressured atmosphere, but that is second-hand gossip on a anonymous website, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

Whitman grad here. While each of the top schools can be a fairly pressureized environment, I think Whitman is "tops" in that regard. There is a lot of pressure to succeed there. Lots and lots of kids take all honors/AP courses and have multiple sports teams/extracurricular activities. I remember my Freshman year, I took all honors courses (even though I SUCKED at Math). It truly was just the expectation. Only the really dumb kids took "regular" classes. That was years ago, but I understand from friends, it hasn't changed at all. Its a great school for highly motivated, smart kids. It is (in most cases) not a very good school for kids who are immature, or struggle academically.

For better or worse, I think BCC (and maybe Wooten) both have more diverse environments (more minorities, more socio-economic diversity, and more "academic" diversity). Whitman is very very white (with a fair number of high achieving Asian and diplomatic kids thrown into the mix), and all of the kids who go there are expected to go to 4 year colleges.

Churchill is also very white, and may actually be from a wealthier socio-economic area.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in MoCo, but didn't go to either B-CC or Whitman. Based on my experiences being friends (later) with people who graduated from both, I definitely wanted to buy in the B-CC cluster. It is an excellent school, more diverse, and there's less pressure. Plus, I like living in a more urban environment and can walk to Metro.

[Anonymous]

I think PP makes some good points. Whitman has better test scores, so if that is what you care about you can go down that route.

But that doesn't necessarily mean your child will emerge from Whitman with higher scores than if they were to go to BCC. And in the meantime, you would be subordinating all types of other important questions: diversity, walkability etc to this one elusive goal...

[Anonymous]

Whitman grad here,

I agree with the points above. I get the impression that Whitman is seen as "the best" high school in Montgomery county, but BCC definitely offers more in terms of diversity, urban campus etc,.. Also, BCC now has an IB program that is very well thought of.

FWIW my class at an Ivy League school had about equal representation from Whitman and BCC kids so I got the impression that there were a lot of high achieving kids from BCC as well.

If I had to choose, I would choose BCC for the diversity and the IB program, but I would need to do more research.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We live in the BCC cluster and most of the kids we know who are current BCC students or recent alums were very happy with their experience at the school as were their parents. The student body is definitely more diverse than Whitman, but I'm not sure that there's much interaction among kids from different socio-economic backgrounds. Bethesda Magazine did a story on this some time back, reporting that the accelerated tracks (AP and IB) include very few Latino and African-American kids. That was a big reason we chose to send our kids to independent schools after going to our local public elementary school -- which was terrific, BTW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in the BCC cluster and most of the kids we know who are current BCC students or recent alums were very happy with their experience at the school as were their parents. The student body is definitely more diverse than Whitman, but I'm not sure that there's much interaction among kids from different socio-economic backgrounds. Bethesda Magazine did a story on this some time back, reporting that the accelerated tracks (AP and IB) include very few Latino and African-American kids. That was a big reason we chose to send our kids to independent schools after going to our local public elementary school -- which was terrific, BTW.

I am a BCC alum and found this to be true when I was there (admittedly many, many years ago). Yes, the school was probably more economically/racially diverse than Whitman, but I felt that it was pretty socially segregated. I was largely in honors classes which were predominantly white.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, BCC is actually much more highly ranked than Whitman in this year's annual Newsweek top high schools list. BCC is ranked 56 in the country with an index score of 4.552, a subsidized lunch rate of 9 and an equity and excellence score of 69 vs. Whitman's rank of 1037 w/ 3.746/2/77 numbers respectively. For some reason, Whitman's index score dropped dramatically between this year and last. Prior to this year, Whitman usually scored in the top 100 or so. Can anybody out there explain why Whitman dropped so much?

For more info about the Newsweek lists see http://www.newsweek.com/id/201160

BTW, I don't really want to start a discussion about how right/wrong the Newsweek methodology is as a reflection of what is a "good school" and ranking, etc. I recognize there are plenty of arguments on both sides, but, it does provide several more pieces of information about the number of AP tests and proportion of kids taking them at a school.