Reply to What neighborhoods/school districts are the worst when it comes to high pressure helicopter parenting?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I went to a "W school" middle for one year and it was a miserable experience (Robert Frost feeding to Wooton).   I moved there from an easygoing but good California school district.  And this was before the "W school" phenomenon really took off.

Some things I learned in one year that impacted me for life:

-Learning about the Johns Hopkins Gifted & Talented Search/program.  (I got an award for a high SAT verbal score as a 7th grader.)  This national program still exists but after we left Maryland, I've never been in a district that promotes it.

-Falling behind in math because MCPS was ahead on pushing their "gifted kids".  Had to drop back a grade in math which resulted in me not getting to calculus in high school.  Which by DCUM standards, makes me a dumb kid, never minding the verbal SAT score.  There were no AoPS, RSM, Mathnasium, or Kumon then.  At that time, you either got it or you didn't.  In today's MCPS, my parents undoubtedly would have gotten me tutoring to keep up.

-The importance of branded clothes. And living in Potomac.  I went from a nobody cares region of the US straight into a land of Jordache, Calvin Klein, Nike, Adidas worship.  Also there was a lot of explicit info communicated about how cool/important it was to live in Potomac.  At the time, my house was considered to be in Gaithersburg.  Today's real estate business has upgraded my old neighborhood to North Potomac.  So that's still a thing.

-Nasty, status-conscious people are a drag to be around.  I got menaced by a group of girls I barely knew in an outdoor gym class one day.  The ringleader was an affluent girl I barely knew.  (We were all white, and mostly DCUM MC, with a sprinkle of Potomac DCUM UMC then.) She and her friends singled me out and started saying offensive things to me.  I called one of them a bad name because they wouldn't leave me alone and she punched me in the jaw, hard.  Two of them got suspended.  It's the only violence I was ever subjected to in school - and ironically we were all white kids who were in a "safe" and "good" school.

So basically my 1.25 years in MCPS, gave me a grounding in SAT score snobbery, competition based on accelerated math training, real estate location importance, focus on status goods, and exposure to "Mean Girls".  Quite a lot of indoctrination for such a short period of time.

I was really happy to leave that "W" middle when my dad found a job in PA after about a year.  (He also had culture shock moving from CA to MD.)

I later worked in DC after college for 7 years, but when the time came to raise a family, I decided to GTFO.  Too expensive, too much of a ratrace. I lived in a different "W school" neighborhood during that entire post-college time. (Walter Johnson).

OP- It's smart to think about where you want to live now, based on social characteristics,  but honestly a lot of people reposition at some point K-12 anyway. I do think that perhaps I could have stretched my real estate budget to be house poor for awhile in the DMV or even where I live now. But still the "W school" approach to life is still too much for me. There was even a book about stressed-out Whitman kids a few years back.

I wouldn't recommend buying a house just hoping to find others who shared my philosophies.  Outlier families tend to check out - disappear from PTA, etc.  From what I read on this board now, I'm not sure where I'd head - maybe look inbounds for Richard Montgomery IB?  Maybe Kensington? Maybe the unprestigious hinterlands past "North Potomac"?  DC was too dangerous in the affordable areas when I lived there.  I might have considered being a gentrifier back in the day.

Good for you to be thinking carefully about this now.  I hope you find what you want for you and your family.  I have, just in flyover country.  Where I live now is a lot like old Bethesda before the high-rise/corporate office feel took over downtown.

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haha.. I'm originally from CA. There are pressure cooker schools there, too.

We actually live in the Richard Montgomery cluster now.   One DC went to RMIB magnet, but they didn't feel any "pressure".    Just a lot of work. My other DC is not in the IB magnet program but is taking AP classes.

Having stated that, I do think this entire area is full of high achievers, and it does typically follow income and education level.   Of course, there are pockets of areas that don't care that much about T50 college, but those areas are probably not in the UMC/wealthy areas.

My spouse and I joke that we should've moved to the middle of KS or something to avoid such a large high achieving peer group.[/quote]

Would have had to stay away from the parts of Kansas that are richer and more high achieving than many DC suburbs then. Believe it or not the midwest isn't just flyover country.[/quote]

+1 people have no idea what it's like out there. LOL at this poster thinking Kansas is a bunch of farmers. Anywhere there is a university there is a big group of competitive high achiever professor kids at the very least, but it also includes all the doctor and lawyer kids in town too. Yes, even Kansas has doctors and lawyers.[/quote]

Oh please; Kansas?

They might not all be dumb farmers but they are all MAGA, and therefore really stupid by definition.[/quote]

So no black people in Kansas
[/quote]

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