Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the #1 thing to know.

Wilson: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding.

WJ: overcrowded and plan to relieve crowding in 2025

Blair: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding

BCC: not overcrowded… yet.

Inaccurate for Wilson. Crowding to be relieved in 2023 with me MacArthur high school to be open.

Is it clear that the MacArthur high school will open in 2023?

Looks like 2025 based on construction funding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:looking at moving to one of these school districts...curious for people's thoughts on how the high schools compare. particularly, how the moco schools compare to wilson (level of rigor, diverse course offerings, how much of a pressure cooker, "culture"). cross-posting in the dc forum as well.

All will have more rigor than Wilson.

Blair is divided into magnet Vs non magnet, so you are either with the top 2% of students in this highly educated county, or you are in with a lot of Central American immigrants. It’s rough.

WJ is pretty good, though very suburban. A bit of a pressure cooker.

BCC has super high achieving kids from Chevy Chase, Bethesda, and Silver Spring, but it also has another element.

Read the reviews on Great Schools and Niche.

You specifically mention "Central American immigrants" in a derisive way, as though they're lower or inherently not as good. I know quite a few people from that subgroup who have done amazing in their HS experience and their college acceptances. People who hold that identity range from those escaping war to those whose families work in government jobs. Also, everyone knows well-funded schools/communities get higher rankings on Great Schools and Niche. Words matter, please be watchful. Going back to the OP, all of these schools are extremely strong depending on what your student is looking for. Keep in mind that Blair & WJ are quite large population wise, B-CC has a strong IB community, so on and so forth.

Enough with the politically correct BS.

Call a spade a spade. Blair is horrible unless you are in a magnet program.

Absolutely untrue, it's a fine school overall. You're feeding into the argument by essentially saying that magnet (which is mostly White and Asian) is the only good part of the school. It's not "political correctness", it's respect and common sense, especially from somebody who went to the system K-12. I even earned admission to TPMS as a 5th grader but declined it for Francis Scott Key (oh heavens!), not because I didn't think I could compete, but because I didn't want that long commute in and out. You don't just speak about any group of people willy nilly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:looking at moving to one of these school districts...curious for people's thoughts on how the high schools compare. particularly, how the moco schools compare to wilson (level of rigor, diverse course offerings, how much of a pressure cooker, "culture"). cross-posting in the dc forum as well.

All will have more rigor than Wilson.

Blair is divided into magnet Vs non magnet, so you are either with the top 2% of students in this highly educated county, or you are in with a lot of Central American immigrants. It’s rough.

WJ is pretty good, though very suburban. A bit of a pressure cooker.

BCC has super high achieving kids from Chevy Chase, Bethesda, and Silver Spring, but it also has another element.

Read the reviews on Great Schools and Niche.

You specifically mention "Central American immigrants" in a derisive way, as though they're lower or inherently not as good. I know quite a few people from that subgroup who have done amazing in their HS experience and their college acceptances. People who hold that identity range from those escaping war to those whose families work in government jobs. Also, everyone knows well-funded schools/communities get higher rankings on Great Schools and Niche. Words matter, please be watchful. Going back to the OP, all of these schools are extremely strong depending on what your student is looking for. Keep in mind that Blair & WJ are quite large population wise, B-CC has a strong IB community, so on and so forth.

Enough with the politically correct BS.

Call a spade a spade. Blair is horrible unless you are in a magnet program.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: At Blair, or any other MCPS high school, classes are largely homogenous. So, even a non-magnet kid who was university-bound would take Honors English 9, Algebra II, AP US History, and an advanced science class. Unlike Wilson, MCPS is not doing "honors for all" at the HS level, so you do get some differentiation there.

Not true. Blair will be doing honors for all.

It's because the students there are so much more advanced than in other schools!

There's lots of opportunities for enrichment there. My non-magnet child took 11 APs and 6 magnet classes when they were there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: At Blair, or any other MCPS high school, classes are largely homogenous. So, even a non-magnet kid who was university-bound would take Honors English 9, Algebra II, AP US History, and an advanced science class. Unlike Wilson, MCPS is not doing "honors for all" at the HS level, so you do get some differentiation there.

Not true. Blair will be doing honors for all.

It's because the students there are so much more advanced than in other schools!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the #1 thing to know.

Wilson: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding.

WJ: overcrowded and plan to relieve crowding in 2025

Blair: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding

BCC: not overcrowded… yet.

Both WJ and Blair will have some relief from overcrowding in 2025, when Woodward opens. That will pull from WJ, Einstein, and Wheaton, and it’s not unreasonable to think there may be some shifting of Blair and Northwood boundaries then, too. WJ will have more relief from overcrowding.

I think PP’s point about where you want to live is the most important variable. The neighborhoods feeding into these schools vary considerably, both within and between schools.

All of this is right. My kids go to BCC, and we moved here because it offered the quickest commute into the city, and had at least minimal diversity. We came from a DC charter school, and so weren't put off by either racial or economic diversity. Had no interest in Whitman, which is even less diverse, and a real pressure cooker, by accounts of friends' kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:looking at moving to one of these school districts...curious for people's thoughts on how the high schools compare. particularly, how the moco schools compare to wilson (level of rigor, diverse course offerings, how much of a pressure cooker, "culture"). cross-posting in the dc forum as well.

All will have more rigor than Wilson.

Blair is divided into magnet Vs non magnet, so you are either with the top 2% of students in this highly educated county, or you are in with a lot of Central American immigrants. It’s rough.

WJ is pretty good, though very suburban. A bit of a pressure cooker.

BCC has super high achieving kids from Chevy Chase, Bethesda, and Silver Spring, but it also has another element.

Read the reviews on Great Schools and Niche.

As a PP mentioned, these schools are fairly similar in that the same kid will likely do about the same at any of them, but there are things worth noting.

Blair is the most diverse school in the state. It is close to a perfect balance of all major demographic groups. It also offers many courses that go beyond the ordinary APs and are available to everyone but only available at magnets schools. It is by far the most accomplished high school in the state with the best college admission track record. My point is there are amazing opportunities here for anyone, but many parents in western moco suffer from a condition known on this board as Blair envy.

BCC is mostly overrated. For a high-SES school it's stats are very disappointing.

As a new family at BCC I think people have a misconception of how many "wealthy" families there are there. Only about 80 percent of each graduating class goes on to a four year college, according to info from the school. It is not all highly educated well off families who send kids there. Very different than Whitman.

Blair is a great school (for both magnets and non magnets alike). WJ and BCC are pretty wealthy kids IMO, and that means some are extremely hard working and others are very entitled. They are a bit out of touch, much like DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:My kid went to BCC and I am honestly unaware of a reputation for douchey frat bro behavior. Doesn’t mean those kids don’t exist but I hardly think they are representative or dominant.

I think kids view the football games as social events (when they are allowed to go) but honestly the girls sports and club teams seem to be more successful than the bro-ey sports, fwiw.

I do agree BCC is a mix of kids from different backgrounds, although as with Blair, there may be less mixing in practice. I wouldn’t say BCC is overrated— my kid did IB and had a good experience/education.

I don’t follow much about Wilson but people seem unhappy about a 4x4 class schedule these days.

Wilson parent here...
The Good:
Wilson did a very good job during the virtual learning (which was unfortunately all of the 2020-2021 school year); there are a lot of really good, dedicated teachers, particularly starting in 10th grade; wide selection of AP classes (kids can take a total of 2 in 10th grade out of 4 or 5 options that are available to 10th graders and there are something like 25-30 available to 11th-12th graders), great clubs/activities, excellent diversity, not a pressure cooker (even for high stats/type A kids)

The Bad: It has been a tough year this year. To the PP's point, the 4x4 schedule has been awful and the school is overcrowded. There is also an interim principal dealing with kids who have been locked down for a year and behavior has been an issue (though not as bad as people on DCUM say); lots of teacher vacancies, particularly earlier in the year (this is true across DCPS...I assume in MoCo too). Teacher turnover is getting worse (again, I think this is not isolated to Wilson).

On the (somewhat) hopeful front: 1) the 4x4 is gone starting next year--Wilson is going back to it's old A/B schedule (i.e., almost all classes will be year-long again)...this is very, very good news; 2) hopefully, there will be somewhat less chaos overall in the school, as a result of a permanent (not yet named) principal and kids who have been reacclimated to normal school environment; 3) there are also now plans to open a new high school that should relieve the Wilson overcrowding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the #1 thing to know.

Wilson: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding.

WJ: overcrowded and plan to relieve crowding in 2025

Blair: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding

BCC: not overcrowded… yet.

Inaccurate for Wilson. Crowding to be relieved in 2023 with me MacArthur high school to be open.

Is it clear that the MacArthur high school will open in 2023?

Anonymous wrote:Here is the #1 thing to know.

Wilson: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding.

WJ: overcrowded and plan to relieve crowding in 2025

Blair: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding

BCC: not overcrowded… yet.

Inaccurate for Wilson. Crowding to be relieved in 2023 with me MacArthur high school to be open.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the #1 thing to know.

Wilson: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding.

WJ: overcrowded and plan to relieve crowding in 2025

Blair: overcrowded and no plan to relieve crowding

BCC: not overcrowded… yet.

Both WJ and Blair will have some relief from overcrowding in 2025, when Woodward opens. That will pull from WJ, Einstein, and Wheaton, and it’s not unreasonable to think there may be some shifting of Blair and Northwood boundaries then, too. WJ will have more relief from overcrowding.

I think PP’s point about where you want to live is the most important variable. The neighborhoods feeding into these schools vary considerably, both within and between schools.

Woodward will not have any appreciable impact on Blair overcrowding. Banking on shifting other boundaries is not a strong assumption. MCPS also reduced overall capacity at Woodward recently to save costs. So even less seats are available.

The plan for Woodward says that it is to relieve overcrowding from WJ and the DCC. There will be 4400 high school seats between WJ and Woodward, where there are now 2882 at WJ (which is over capacity by 500+ - should be 2321 ). When they open up the boundary study, there could be a lot of moving pieces to sort through.

Anonymous wrote: At Blair, or any other MCPS high school, classes are largely homogenous. So, even a non-magnet kid who was university-bound would take Honors English 9, Algebra II, AP US History, and an advanced science class. Unlike Wilson, MCPS is not doing "honors for all" at the HS level, so you do get some differentiation there.

Not true. Blair will be doing honors for all.

My oldest is at BCC. Great location and a lot of diversity (ethnic, racial, socioeconomic.) The IB program is a great asset but most kids don't opt into IB. I don't know if this is the norm for MCPS HS but BCC has a separate charitable foundation that spends a huge amount of money on teacher support and enrichment each year. I've been really impressed with the college planning - all the guidance counselors in MCPS are way overstretched but BCC seemed to offer a different info session every day for juniors and seniors. Cumulatively this proved more useful for our kid than the expensive college counselors we hired. Again, that may be the norm at all these school, I only know BCC.

Final point: I'm sure there are plenty of lax bro types at BCC. But I have a kid who isn't into sports but also doesn't fit into any of the other cliched groups (drama/music, debate/Model UN, etc) and he has been very happy at BCC.