Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Someone on here suggested the idea of making VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Academy) a county wide program. Einstein has the best visual art, dance , and theatre program in the county. They should just expand it to other like their Visual Art Center.

How do they expand it without expanding Einstein, which as it is will be 500 overcapacity in a few years?

Isn’t the purpose of Woodward to relieve crowding at schools like Einstein? That’s not even a problem for a theory like this. The Visual Art Center and other county-wide programs itself don’t have overcrowding issues. Why? Because they have a certain number of seats available and choose best fit for the program. Einstein VAPA can run a similar way. Once again, Einstein has one of the strongest arts program in the county so I don’t see why this is a issue. Is it because competition would be too high and everyone’s child wouldn’t make it in?

How do define strong performing arts program? Can you provide evidence that Einstein has one of the strongest performing arts programs in the county.

Einstein theatre program has won/nominated for countless Cappies Awards and was invited to an international theatre festival held at Scotland for the best theatre programs in the US. There was a huge fundraiser for it back in 2014. Einstein Dance Company is very competitive and 2 dancers from the program were honored as “All State Dancers” at the Maryland High School Showcase. Einstein Latin team has also won countless 1st place awards and the Einstein Dance team is in Division 1 (The only DCC school that ever accomplished that). However, I don’t know much about their band since the old instructor left but paired wit the Visual Art Center Einstein is the best choice for a performer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Someone on here suggested the idea of making VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Academy) a county wide program. Einstein has the best visual art, dance , and theatre program in the county. They should just expand it to other like their Visual Art Center.

How do they expand it without expanding Einstein, which as it is will be 500 overcapacity in a few years?

Isn’t the purpose of Woodward to relieve crowding at schools like Einstein? That’s not even a problem for a theory like this. The Visual Art Center and other county-wide programs itself don’t have overcrowding issues. Why? Because they have a certain number of seats available and choose best fit for the program. Einstein VAPA can run a similar way. Once again, Einstein has one of the strongest arts program in the county so I don’t see why this is a issue. Is it because competition would be too high and everyone’s child wouldn’t make it in?

How do define strong performing arts program? Can you provide evidence that Einstein has one of the strongest performing arts programs in the county.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Someone on here suggested the idea of making VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Academy) a county wide program. Einstein has the best visual art, dance , and theatre program in the county. They should just expand it to other like their Visual Art Center.

How do they expand it without expanding Einstein, which as it is will be 500 overcapacity in a few years?

Isn’t the purpose of Woodward to relieve crowding at schools like Einstein? That’s not even a problem for a theory like this. The Visual Art Center and other county-wide programs itself don’t have overcrowding issues. Why? Because they have a certain number of seats available and choose best fit for the program. Einstein VAPA can run a similar way. Once again, Einstein has one of the strongest arts program in the county so I don’t see why this is a issue. Is it because competition would be too high and everyone’s child wouldn’t make it in?

I think the idea of a countywide performing arts magnet is great, and having it and Einstein or Woodward would be fine, as long as both of those schools and the other schools in the DCC end up with sufficient capacity for the kids who actually live in their service areas. That has to be the priority, given how limited the options are for school sites downcounty.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Someone on here suggested the idea of making VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Academy) a county wide program. Einstein has the best visual art, dance , and theatre program in the county. They should just expand it to other like their Visual Art Center.

How do they expand it without expanding Einstein, which as it is will be 500 overcapacity in a few years?

Isn’t the purpose of Woodward to relieve crowding at schools like Einstein? That’s not even a problem for a theory like this. The Visual Art Center and other county-wide programs itself don’t have overcrowding issues. Why? Because they have a certain number of seats available and choose best fit for the program. Einstein VAPA can run a similar way. Once again, Einstein has one of the strongest arts program in the county so I don’t see why this is a issue. Is it because competition would be too high and everyone’s child wouldn’t make it in?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Someone on here suggested the idea of making VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Academy) a county wide program. Einstein has the best visual art, dance , and theatre program in the county. They should just expand it to other like their Visual Art Center.

How do they expand it without expanding Einstein, which as it is will be 500 overcapacity in a few years?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Someone on here suggested the idea of making VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Academy) a county wide program. Einstein has the best visual art, dance , and theatre program in the county. They should just expand it to other like their Visual Art Center.

Mine are two years apart. my oldest just found out he didn't get a lottery spot at Wheaton. More experienced parents (and the school counselor) told us not to bother trying to lottery into Blair, but to put Wheaton as our first choice since our homeschool does not offer as many computer science electives.

All of the schools at these information nights encourage kids to list that school as their number 1 choice and don't say anything about the fact you might not get in. As all of these schools fill to capacity in the next year or two, there will be fewer and fewer lottery spots. Probably time for the cluster to rethink all the time and resources spent on these information nights.

I won't bother having my younger one spend their time visiting different schools. Seems pointless.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

NP here, and with a MS-aged child so no skin in this particular game yet.

MCPS has considered an audition-based performing arts school, but it is unclear whether they are going to move foward on it at this point. It was one of the options on the table for Woodward, but the architectural plans that have been made public don't seem to suggest they are rehabbing that space with the goal of performing arts and practice spaces.

In your position, maybe the way forward is to do the second round application, but also look at some non-school options for music. Both DC Youth Orchestra and College Park Youth Orchestra have amazing programs, and if your child is really quite talented, they can audition for one of the more competitive groups.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

I've never understood how they rank/compare music programs amongst different mcps schools. Blair's program is nice because they are large enough to have multiple audition only ensembles. No other program in the DCC comes close. Einstein probably has the 2nd best instrumental program. I've had 2 at einstein. Band is okay, orchestra is meh. There is a good committed director.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just received our DCC lottery results in the mail in Silver Spring.

We also received our lottery results in 20902. DC didn't get first choice, but home school. He is very bummed. I don't know why we went through the whole choice process just to get a kid's hopes up to join an academy and then they don't get in. Would have been better to have just been assigned the home school and not to set high expectations. At least they should get to apply to the academies and get in based on merit, not just lottery.

Was the home school ranked #2? You can try again for your first choice in Round 2.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/downcounty/choice/round2.aspx

You can try again round 2. You can also do it all again during 9th for 10th. There aren’t many participants at that point.

Good to know! We'll keep it as an option if no success with Round 2. Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just received our DCC lottery results in the mail in Silver Spring.

We also received our lottery results in 20902. DC didn't get first choice, but home school. He is very bummed. I don't know why we went through the whole choice process just to get a kid's hopes up to join an academy and then they don't get in. Would have been better to have just been assigned the home school and not to set high expectations. At least they should get to apply to the academies and get in based on merit, not just lottery.

There is a very large cohort of kids going through MCPS in the next few years. I do agree that it doesn't make much sense to have kids go through the process of visiting all these high schools to learn about different "academies" and then not be able to go to them. Some schools have materially different offerings (Wheaton and Blair have more computer programming courses and engineering courses than other schools). If you have a kid who wants to do computer science, they are told, go to Wheaton or Blair. Then they don't get in, what next?

Agreed!!

Thanks for the encouragement for Round 2. I didn't think that would really help, especially if desired school is Blair, but maybe DC can get in that way. I don't know who posted about getting in for merit for music, but that is exactly where we are at. DC REALLY wants to study music at Blair. It has the best music program in the DCC (and I'm sure it is ranked very high in the whole county). According to DC's MS music teacher, Northwood has the worst music program because they cut the music teacher position to less than full time and we heard that teacher quit. Northwood has a music academy which we thought would be a good second choice but apparently it is not. Why is there no application program for Blair music?? Or any county music program? :-/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just received our DCC lottery results in the mail in Silver Spring.

We also received our lottery results in 20902. DC didn't get first choice, but home school. He is very bummed. I don't know why we went through the whole choice process just to get a kid's hopes up to join an academy and then they don't get in. Would have been better to have just been assigned the home school and not to set high expectations. At least they should get to apply to the academies and get in based on merit, not just lottery.

There is a very large cohort of kids going through MCPS in the next few years. I do agree that it doesn't make much sense to have kids go through the process of visiting all these high schools to learn about different "academies" and then not be able to go to them. Some schools have materially different offerings (Wheaton and Blair have more computer programming courses and engineering courses than other schools). If you have a kid who wants to do computer science, they are told, go to Wheaton or Blair. Then they don't get in, what next?

Anonymous wrote:My kid is disappointed he didn’t get a spot at Wheaton. He is my youngest. Everyone we know in the past has been able to lottery in.

Wheaton is a much more popular school nowadays.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is disappointed he didn’t get a spot at Wheaton. He is my youngest. Everyone we know in the past has been able to lottery in.

You should do the 2nd round. Everyone we know who put Wheaton first (it isn’t our home school) got in this year.