Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Some data on test scores and other academic awards is compiled here: http://goo.gl/GgQvR

Well this link proves what we already know. Blair is a smaller program but is doing exceedingly well. In some instances out ranking TJ. However, Blair should expand its program. I would prefer Blair double the size of its magnet program. It also validated DH’s & I decision to move to MoCo vs staying in DC for HS. Wilson, Banneker and SWW don’t even move the needle really when looking at antedoctal data.

Anonymous wrote: Some data on test scores and other academic awards is compiled here: http://goo.gl/GgQvR

Anonymous wrote:Blair has a bunch of negatives against it.

Its very small. Your kid is in a small island of smart kids surrounded by kids who are average to dropping out. At TJ everyone is smart.

There are incidents and gangs at Blair. TJ is pretty crime free.

The non-magnet classes are not very rigorous and designed more for the rest of Blair. This is great if your kid only wants to focus on STEM but not great if your kid is more well rounded. At TJ everyone is smart and the courses all reflect this.

Blair pushes and encourages public competitions and since the program is so small kids are pressured to participate. This is good because spots are easier to get but bad if your child is terrified of competitions. At TJ you have to work harder to make the team but if you don't want to compete you can still succeed.

Blair has connections within MD but few outside MD. TJ is more plugged into west coast and up the eastern seaboard opportunities.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really hard to get into Blair

Blair is like MIT, TJ is like Maryland University.

Haha. Guess again. TJ grads are highly coveted at colleges and at employers. Plus there are more if them, which helps with networking, mentoring, representing the brand. And, as you already noted, it is not a sub scale in size program like the Balir magnet. Nor located in some corner of the county in a traffic nightmare for 2/3s the students to get to.

I never understand this "Blair is a nightmare for people to get to" argument. Is it one of those It's So Crowded, Nobody Goes There Anymore things? Or are people who say it, really saying, "I think the program should be in Bethesda, where I live?" Or what?

Blair is next to the beltway in one of the densest parts of the county. Sure, it isn't convenient for people who chose to live in Potomac, but that's pretty far out there for most of us. I've also read that the largest group of kids in the program live in that area so it works for them.

Duh. It’s a moot offering for half the county due to terrible logistics. How many Churchill or Whitman or BCC or WJ or Wooten kids even apply to Blair our if a 500 kid class each Hs?

+1 Most kids at those high schools prefer their home schools and not to have to commute for hours each days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really hard to get into Blair

Blair is like MIT, TJ is like Maryland University.

Haha. Guess again. TJ grads are highly coveted at colleges and at employers. Plus there are more if them, which helps with networking, mentoring, representing the brand. And, as you already noted, it is not a sub scale in size program like the Balir magnet. Nor located in some corner of the county in a traffic nightmare for 2/3s the students to get to.

OK, so the poster above was cheeky and off base, but this is like tit for tat. I was offered a spot at TJ in the 80s, and my kid is at Blair. I turned TJ down because it was in some corner of a traffic nightmare. Just sayin. They are both great programs. TJs size could mean it's slightly easier to get into, has better networking, but could create more competition for college slots. Blair's size could mean the converse. Could. Silliness. They're both great. Well done, kids!

Exactly. So you agree that traffic and commute factor in to attending a magnet school, and you agree that TJ is a much larger magnet program than Blair is.

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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
A TPMS parent who had the school directory claimed the largest group there had Silver Spring addresses so this makes sense that Blair would be similar.


At Blair SMAC the high school that sends the most students is actually Wootton. I remember it coming up at a Blair Magnet information meeting I actually find there are tons of students coming from Rockville, Bethesda and Potomac as well as kids zoned for Blair and Northwood.


Yes, Wootton is the largest feeder to Blair SMAC. Wootton is further out than Whitman or Churchill but there seems to be less concern among the Wootton crowd about the overall environment and location of Blair.

The magnet student directory indicates this isn't accurate.


I thought Wootton was second after TP..which makes sense.


Wootton is a high school cluster and TPMS is a middle school. In the past some Wootton kids used to go to TPMS as well as Frost and Cabin John.

In the past Wootton was the largest out of boundary feeder into TPMS. In boundary TPMS was equally or a little higher but those were and still are set aside seats for in boundary students that do not need to compete against the other schools for a spot. For Blair SMACs, some of the Wootton kids would have been coming from TPMS. Blair SMACs doesn't have the easier to get in set aside seats so the in boundary TPMS kids didn't necessarily get in. Now that Wootton can't send kids to TPMS, you'll see Frost and Cabin John become the highest feeder schools unless they change the high school admissions.

Churchill has lots of kids that could get in but there has always been less interest in Blair from this cluster.

Saying they could get in but didn't seems dishonest.

No its not at all. From the scores, many could get in but choose not to apply. What is a little more frightening is looking at the results of the universal testing and seeing how many kids in the Churchill cluster were more qualified to get into the middle school magnets than their peers in the east yet never applied in the past. Maybe the schools in the Churchill cluster just create an enormous sense of community that kids don't want to leave them or there is some other reason why Churchill cluster students do not want to travel to Silver Spring.

Anonymous wrote:Wait, how many Churchill 5th graders apply to a Ms magnet? Go to a middle school magnet?

How many 8th graders there apply to a magnet Hs? And go?

Anonymous wrote:TJ is probably much more competitive. It pulls from a larger area, has a much stronger reputation, and is a more comprehensive program. Blair is small and not widely known. Its location in a higher crime area makes some people in MoCo hesitate to consider it. Blair loses potential candidates who prefer to stay in the W schools or apply to other magnets.

They really are not comparable. TJ is nationally known and Blair is only really known in Montgomery County.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really hard to get into Blair

Blair is like MIT, TJ is like Maryland University.

Haha. Guess again. TJ grads are highly coveted at colleges and at employers. Plus there are more if them, which helps with networking, mentoring, representing the brand. And, as you already noted, it is not a sub scale in size program like the Balir magnet. Nor located in some corner of the county in a traffic nightmare for 2/3s the students to get to.

I never understand this "Blair is a nightmare for people to get to" argument. Is it one of those It's So Crowded, Nobody Goes There Anymore things? Or are people who say it, really saying, "I think the program should be in Bethesda, where I live?" Or what?

Blair is next to the beltway in one of the densest parts of the county. Sure, it isn't convenient for people who chose to live in Potomac, but that's pretty far out there for most of us. I've also read that the largest group of kids in the program live in that area so it works for them.

Duh. It’s a moot offering for half the county due to terrible logistics. How many Churchill or Whitman or BCC or WJ or Wooten kids even apply to Blair our if a 500 kid class each Hs?

Churchill is a 20-minute drive from Blair according to Google Maps. Logistics aren't the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really hard to get into Blair

Blair is like MIT, TJ is like Maryland University.

Haha. Guess again. TJ grads are highly coveted at colleges and at employers. Plus there are more if them, which helps with networking, mentoring, representing the brand. And, as you already noted, it is not a sub scale in size program like the Balir magnet. Nor located in some corner of the county in a traffic nightmare for 2/3s the students to get to.

I never understand this "Blair is a nightmare for people to get to" argument. Is it one of those It's So Crowded, Nobody Goes There Anymore things? Or are people who say it, really saying, "I think the program should be in Bethesda, where I live?" Or what?

Blair is next to the beltway in one of the densest parts of the county. Sure, it isn't convenient for people who chose to live in Potomac, but that's pretty far out there for most of us. I've also read that the largest group of kids in the program live in that area so it works for them.

Duh. It’s a moot offering for half the county due to terrible logistics. How many Churchill or Whitman or BCC or WJ or Wooten kids even apply to Blair our if a 500 kid class each Hs?

Churchill is a 20-minute drive from Blair according to Google Maps. Logistics aren't the problem.

Google Maps says that Blair is a 16-minute ride from B-CC and 22 minutes from Whitman.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
A TPMS parent who had the school directory claimed the largest group there had Silver Spring addresses so this makes sense that Blair would be similar.


At Blair SMAC the high school that sends the most students is actually Wootton. I remember it coming up at a Blair Magnet information meeting I actually find there are tons of students coming from Rockville, Bethesda and Potomac as well as kids zoned for Blair and Northwood.


Yes, Wootton is the largest feeder to Blair SMAC. Wootton is further out than Whitman or Churchill but there seems to be less concern among the Wootton crowd about the overall environment and location of Blair.

The magnet student directory indicates this isn't accurate.


I thought Wootton was second after TP..which makes sense.


Wootton is a high school cluster and TPMS is a middle school. In the past some Wootton kids used to go to TPMS as well as Frost and Cabin John.

In the past Wootton was the largest out of boundary feeder into TPMS. In boundary TPMS was equally or a little higher but those were and still are set aside seats for in boundary students that do not need to compete against the other schools for a spot. For Blair SMACs, some of the Wootton kids would have been coming from TPMS. Blair SMACs doesn't have the easier to get in set aside seats so the in boundary TPMS kids didn't necessarily get in. Now that Wootton can't send kids to TPMS, you'll see Frost and Cabin John become the highest feeder schools unless they change the high school admissions.

Churchill has lots of kids that could get in but there has always been less interest in Blair from this cluster.

Saying they could get in but didn't seems dishonest.

No its not at all. From the scores, many could get in but choose not to apply. What is a little more frightening is looking at the results of the universal testing and seeing how many kids in the Churchill cluster were more qualified to get into the middle school magnets than their peers in the east yet never applied in the past. Maybe the schools in the Churchill cluster just create an enormous sense of community that kids don't want to leave them or there is some other reason why Churchill cluster students do not want to travel to Silver Spring.

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
A TPMS parent who had the school directory claimed the largest group there had Silver Spring addresses so this makes sense that Blair would be similar.


At Blair SMAC the high school that sends the most students is actually Wootton. I remember it coming up at a Blair Magnet information meeting I actually find there are tons of students coming from Rockville, Bethesda and Potomac as well as kids zoned for Blair and Northwood.


Yes, Wootton is the largest feeder to Blair SMAC. Wootton is further out than Whitman or Churchill but there seems to be less concern among the Wootton crowd about the overall environment and location of Blair.

The magnet student directory indicates this isn't accurate.


I thought Wootton was second after TP..which makes sense.


Wootton is a high school cluster and TPMS is a middle school. In the past some Wootton kids used to go to TPMS as well as Frost and Cabin John.

In the past Wootton was the largest out of boundary feeder into TPMS. In boundary TPMS was equally or a little higher but those were and still are set aside seats for in boundary students that do not need to compete against the other schools for a spot. For Blair SMACs, some of the Wootton kids would have been coming from TPMS. Blair SMACs doesn't have the easier to get in set aside seats so the in boundary TPMS kids didn't necessarily get in. Now that Wootton can't send kids to TPMS, you'll see Frost and Cabin John become the highest feeder schools unless they change the high school admissions.

Churchill has lots of kids that could get in but there has always been less interest in Blair from this cluster.

Saying they could get in but didn't seems dishonest.