Best gifted programs in DMV?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

The good privates will do their best to screen out 2E children. I echo what PP said about FCPS having some teachers who are very experienced with ASD, only in our ES those teachers tended to be gen ed.

This list is absurd, OP. No one other than this strange poster would rank schools for gifted kids like this. There are very few gifted kids in top privates. I have kids two of those FWIW. At most you'll have 10 gifted kids in your child's whole grade. They just don't screen for academics the way magnet programs do.

FCPS has the most comprehensive and inclusive gifted programs with many tiers at almost all levels of schooling with TJ being at the top.
MCPS has extremely high quality programs that are almost impossible to access with the new lottery changes for ES and MS. In HS most of the top kids rise to the top but you need more than giftedness to get to the HS magnets. You need to show achievement, effort, motivation. Everyone knows Blair is the best. You can't compare the others to Blair but RM, Poolesville, and Wheaton engineering are also very respected. There are other, smaller programs at many other schools like a leadership magnet somewhere and a few others. If you go with MCPS some high schools also have their own local gifted type programs that families like. I think one is called Apex.

FWIW because of the way Fairfax is set up there are many 2e kids in AAP and even TJ. MCPS screens out many kids with IEPs or 504s although you will find a few of them who are always chiming in on DCUM.

I'm confused- are there fewer spots available than before?

As a backup you could be sure your home ES offers enriched literacy and compacted math in 4th/5th.

The ES/MS programs stopped reserving spots for gifted kids.

DP. Is it an actual lottery? Or lottery as in very few spots so like a lottery?

It’s an actual lottery (number out of a hat) of the kids in the pool. But the requirements to get into the pool are not consistent for all students. Students from high SES schools need way stronger scores than students from low SES schools. And the number of students in the pool is very large compared to the number of available spots. For every kid we know who got an offer of a spot, we know probably 10 more in the pool who did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An outside the box suggestion. Fauquier County has a strong gifted program and comparing it to time in Fairfax seems less rat race driven. It’s also smaller, and your child may benefit from that.

How flexible is it? Would they, for example, accept an (accredited) AoPS class as a math credit? That seems to be the holy grail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS has 2 gifted pathways for 2E kids like your son.

One is competitive, open to all students to compete, and has more qualified students than seats. This option starts at 3rd grade and students must reapply at the end of ES and MS and there is no guarantee of continued access. There is a Center for Enriched Studies (i.e. gifted magnet) for every 2-3 school clusters. So, if your kid is accepted they get bused to the CES. Eastern MS is the humanities magnet for lower MoCo and similarly Takoma Park is the math/science computer magnet. HS magnets are Blair (math, sci & comp sci) and Richard Montgomery for IB.

The second pathway is via an IEP. The homeschool IEP team acknowledges that they can’t meet the needs of the child and he/she would be better served at one of the gifted and learning disabled placements - there is 1 ES, at least 1 MS (North Bethesda) and 1 HS (WJ). This pathway is inly open to those with IEPs, and that usually means that despite being 2E, the student is behind grade level or needs special instruction in at least on academic area. You typically do not have to “reapply” because the placement is a result of the IEP.

Students with IEPs are eligible to apply to either pathway. One of my DC’s is 2E w/ ADHD. He was accepted at TPMS. I think it was helpful for him as it was more interesting teaching/instruction, but the teachers in his area of need were unaware of how to provide appropriate special instruction and we used a lot of private tutoring. Our experience is that this is an MCPS-wide problem.

You can find more MCPS info here:
https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/enriched/

What was your DC below grade level in? How did he get into TPMS while being below grade level in that area? Sorry if this seems rude, I can't figure out how to phrase it in a more polite way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An outside the box suggestion. Fauquier County has a strong gifted program and comparing it to time in Fairfax seems less rat race driven. It’s also smaller, and your child may benefit from that.

How flexible is it? Would they, for example, accept an (accredited) AoPS class as a math credit? That seems to be the holy grail.

Why would that be a holy grail? Promoting (or permitting) external math credits isn't good for the student or for the school and other students. Math class in school can and should be appropriate for gifted students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An outside the box suggestion. Fauquier County has a strong gifted program and comparing it to time in Fairfax seems less rat race driven. It’s also smaller, and your child may benefit from that.

How flexible is it? Would they, for example, accept an (accredited) AoPS class as a math credit? That seems to be the holy grail.

Why would that be a holy grail? Promoting (or permitting) external math credits isn't good for the student or for the school and other students. Math class in school can and should be appropriate for gifted students.

How is it bad for the school and other students? Unless the school in question is The Proof School, no in-school math class will be at the level of AoPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

Yes, because they are so much better.
The best schools for top students are top privates. The only kids who get in without a hook are gifted students. The other kids are legacy, high school athletes, or children of big donors. All the classes cater to gifted kids and make learning fun. In no order: GDS, Sidwell, NCS, STA, Maret, Holten, Bullis, Georgetown Prep, and probably many that I’m forgetting. Public schools simply don’t have the resources for differentiated learning on the scale of good privates. On top of that privates select their students. The only public that comes close is TJ, and still the resources are not comparable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

Yes, because they are so much better.
The best schools for top students are top privates. The only kids who get in without a hook are gifted students. The other kids are legacy, high school athletes, or children of big donors. All the classes cater to gifted kids and make learning fun. In no order: GDS, Sidwell, NCS, STA, Maret, Holten, Bullis, Georgetown Prep, and probably many that I’m forgetting. Public schools simply don’t have the resources for differentiated learning on the scale of good privates. On top of that privates select their students. The only public that comes close is TJ, and still the resources are not comparable.

This poster is as clueless and as delusional as they come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

National merit data says that 10% of finalists in Northern Virginia come from non-publics- proportionately somewhat more. In DC, a large majority of finalists are private, which is wildly disproportionate. All but one of the DC public kids (6) went to the School Without Walls magnet; Sidwell Friends was in second place, with 5.

Yes one has to consider the data, which I have yet to see. If 10% of kids in US attend private school, and public and privates were equal, then 10% of national merit recipients would be from private school. The truth is this data is not published, so we don’t really know. We do know that top private schools have a high percentage of students who qualify; some more than 10% of the class, which is disproportionate. I would like to see a distribution where national merit finalists attended public vs private. This would be more telling than the random speculation we see here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

Yes, because they are so much better.
The best schools for top students are top privates. The only kids who get in without a hook are gifted students. The other kids are legacy, high school athletes, or children of big donors. All the classes cater to gifted kids and make learning fun. In no order: GDS, Sidwell, NCS, STA, Maret, Holten, Bullis, Georgetown Prep, and probably many that I’m forgetting. Public schools simply don’t have the resources for differentiated learning on the scale of good privates. On top of that privates select their students. The only public that comes close is TJ, and still the resources are not comparable.

This poster is as clueless and as delusional as they come.

DP
. . . and you need to point this out because?…
. . . you are clueless and delusional . . .or because you are a mean girl. . . or because you need to make yourself feel better about something. I really don’t understand the point of posts like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

Yes, because they are so much better.
The best schools for top students are top privates. The only kids who get in without a hook are gifted students. The other kids are legacy, high school athletes, or children of big donors. All the classes cater to gifted kids and make learning fun. In no order: GDS, Sidwell, NCS, STA, Maret, Holten, Bullis, Georgetown Prep, and probably many that I’m forgetting. Public schools simply don’t have the resources for differentiated learning on the scale of good privates. On top of that privates select their students. The only public that comes close is TJ, and still the resources are not comparable.

This poster is as clueless and as delusional as they come.

DP
. . . and you need to point this out because?…
. . . you are clueless and delusional . . .or because you are a mean girl. . . or because you need to make yourself feel better about something. I really don’t understand the point of posts like this.

DP. There's really no point in addressing that sort of post. But for anyone else reading, be aware that they are clueless. It's not "mean girl" to point out that a post is hopelessly incorrect. More than just the one poster reads these threads - lots of people read them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

How many of #2 and #4 would accept a child with ADHD and Autism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

Like you said, it's your opinion but it is deeply wrong.
Also OP said "especially in math/STEM", the private schools are nowhere near the top.

Privates can't compete with public magnets.

National merit data says that 10% of finalists in Northern Virginia come from non-publics- proportionately somewhat more. In DC, a large majority of finalists are private, which is wildly disproportionate. All but one of the DC public kids (6) went to the School Without Walls magnet; Sidwell Friends was in second place, with 5.

Yes one has to consider the data, which I have yet to see. If 10% of kids in US attend private school, and public and privates were equal, then 10% of national merit recipients would be from private school. The truth is this data is not published, so we don’t really know. We do know that top private schools have a high percentage of students who qualify; some more than 10% of the class, which is disproportionate. I would like to see a distribution where national merit finalists attended public vs private. This would be more telling than the random speculation we see here.

I think that we would have to account for SES too. Privates generally families with higher SES than public’s and students with higher SES tend to do better on standardized tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

The good privates will do their best to screen out 2E children. I echo what PP said about FCPS having some teachers who are very experienced with ASD, only in our ES those teachers tended to be gen ed.

This list is absurd, OP. No one other than this strange poster would rank schools for gifted kids like this. There are very few gifted kids in top privates. I have kids two of those FWIW. At most you'll have 10 gifted kids in your child's whole grade. They just don't screen for academics the way magnet programs do.

FCPS has the most comprehensive and inclusive gifted programs with many tiers at almost all levels of schooling with TJ being at the top.
MCPS has extremely high quality programs that are almost impossible to access with the new lottery changes for ES and MS. In HS most of the top kids rise to the top but you need more than giftedness to get to the HS magnets. You need to show achievement, effort, motivation. Everyone knows Blair is the best. You can't compare the others to Blair but RM, Poolesville, and Wheaton engineering are also very respected. There are other, smaller programs at many other schools like a leadership magnet somewhere and a few others. If you go with MCPS some high schools also have their own local gifted type programs that families like. I think one is called Apex.

FWIW because of the way Fairfax is set up there are many 2e kids in AAP and even TJ. MCPS screens out many kids with IEPs or 504s although you will find a few of them who are always chiming in on DCUM.

I'm confused- are there fewer spots available than before?

As a backup you could be sure your home ES offers enriched literacy and compacted math in 4th/5th.

The ES/MS programs stopped reserving spots for gifted kids.

DP. Is it an actual lottery? Or lottery as in very few spots so like a lottery?

You need to have certain scores to make it into the pool, and then the pick from the pool is random. Unlike before when they tried to pick the best candidates from the pool.

That was what they were trying to do with TJ. That sounds like an awful method since the smartest kids may not get in if it is random selection.

NYC did this as well. There are no more tests so it is a total crapshoot who gets into their G&T program.

FCPS uses a holistic approach whatever that means to get more URMs.

NYC was missing a lot of the truly gifted students because these students didn’t have coaches or tutors to teach to the test or help with their homework if needed. They might have gone to the worst schools in NYC.

Meanwhile families with money use private schools until middle school or high school and apply for the top public schools pushing out more talented public school students who had none of the advantages of the wealthier students. .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

The good privates will do their best to screen out 2E children. I echo what PP said about FCPS having some teachers who are very experienced with ASD, only in our ES those teachers tended to be gen ed.

This list is absurd, OP. No one other than this strange poster would rank schools for gifted kids like this. There are very few gifted kids in top privates. I have kids two of those FWIW. At most you'll have 10 gifted kids in your child's whole grade. They just don't screen for academics the way magnet programs do.

FCPS has the most comprehensive and inclusive gifted programs with many tiers at almost all levels of schooling with TJ being at the top.
MCPS has extremely high quality programs that are almost impossible to access with the new lottery changes for ES and MS. In HS most of the top kids rise to the top but you need more than giftedness to get to the HS magnets. You need to show achievement, effort, motivation. Everyone knows Blair is the best. You can't compare the others to Blair but RM, Poolesville, and Wheaton engineering are also very respected. There are other, smaller programs at many other schools like a leadership magnet somewhere and a few others. If you go with MCPS some high schools also have their own local gifted type programs that families like. I think one is called Apex.

FWIW because of the way Fairfax is set up there are many 2e kids in AAP and even TJ. MCPS screens out many kids with IEPs or 504s although you will find a few of them who are always chiming in on DCUM.

I'm confused- are there fewer spots available than before?

As a backup you could be sure your home ES offers enriched literacy and compacted math in 4th/5th.

The ES/MS programs stopped reserving spots for gifted kids.

DP. Is it an actual lottery? Or lottery as in very few spots so like a lottery?

You need to have certain scores to make it into the pool, and then the pick from the pool is random. Unlike before when they tried to pick the best candidates from the pool.

That was what they were trying to do with TJ. That sounds like an awful method since the smartest kids may not get in if it is random selection.

NYC did this as well. There are no more tests so it is a total crapshoot who gets into their G&T program.

FCPS uses a holistic approach whatever that means to get more URMs.

NYC was missing a lot of the truly gifted students because these students didn’t have coaches or tutors to teach to the test or help with their homework if needed. They might have gone to the worst schools in NYC.

Meanwhile families with money use private schools until middle school or high school and apply for the top public schools pushing out more talented public school students who had none of the advantages of the wealthier students. .

Putting those kids on classes they can't handle doesn't help them. Those kids need better classes in K-8, not skipping preparation and drowning in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp here. I realize you are looking for gifted programs. I just went through touring privates and we moved to McLean for their top schools not long ago. In my personal opinion, the best schools for the best students are as follows:

1. FCPS TJ
2. Big 3 Private - Sidwell, STA, NCS
3. MCPS - Richard Montgomery Magnet
4. Second tier Privates - Holton, Maret
4. MCPS - W schools
5. FCPS top schools - McLean, Langley, Oakton, Marshall

The good privates will do their best to screen out 2E children. I echo what PP said about FCPS having some teachers who are very experienced with ASD, only in our ES those teachers tended to be gen ed.

This list is absurd, OP. No one other than this strange poster would rank schools for gifted kids like this. There are very few gifted kids in top privates. I have kids two of those FWIW. At most you'll have 10 gifted kids in your child's whole grade. They just don't screen for academics the way magnet programs do.

FCPS has the most comprehensive and inclusive gifted programs with many tiers at almost all levels of schooling with TJ being at the top.
MCPS has extremely high quality programs that are almost impossible to access with the new lottery changes for ES and MS. In HS most of the top kids rise to the top but you need more than giftedness to get to the HS magnets. You need to show achievement, effort, motivation. Everyone knows Blair is the best. You can't compare the others to Blair but RM, Poolesville, and Wheaton engineering are also very respected. There are other, smaller programs at many other schools like a leadership magnet somewhere and a few others. If you go with MCPS some high schools also have their own local gifted type programs that families like. I think one is called Apex.

FWIW because of the way Fairfax is set up there are many 2e kids in AAP and even TJ. MCPS screens out many kids with IEPs or 504s although you will find a few of them who are always chiming in on DCUM.

I'm confused- are there fewer spots available than before?

As a backup you could be sure your home ES offers enriched literacy and compacted math in 4th/5th.

The ES/MS programs stopped reserving spots for gifted kids.

DP. Is it an actual lottery? Or lottery as in very few spots so like a lottery?

You need to have certain scores to make it into the pool, and then the pick from the pool is random. Unlike before when they tried to pick the best candidates from the pool.

That was what they were trying to do with TJ. That sounds like an awful method since the smartest kids may not get in if it is random selection.

NYC did this as well. There are no more tests so it is a total crapshoot who gets into their G&T program.

FCPS uses a holistic approach whatever that means to get more URMs.

"Smarter" kids aren't more deserving of an education. If there aren't enough seats for everyone, lottery is a good way to be fair and incentivize activitism for expanding educational offerings.

Attitudes like this are the reason gifted education is dying off. We aren’t talking about “an education.” We are talking about GIFTED education. No, everyone is not equally deserving of education for the gifted. Only the gifted are. That’s like saying we should give everyone glasses, regardless of eyesight. Why does it make some people so mad that gifted kids receive appropriate education? Don’t you want these kids to succeed and be productive in the future for your own good?

But if all of the kids in the pool have already been identified as gifted, and are kids who would benefit from gifted education, how else would you decide who gets spots?
It's like saying we have 100 kids who need glasses, but we only have 50 pairs of glasses. Not randomly giving glasses to whatever random kids.