Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the reputation of these 3 areas? We are in Arlington now. Most people love their elementary school, kind of get through middle school, and then really like their kid’s high school again. It seems like my friends and colleagues in Fairfax and MoCo feel about the same about their schools. But my sense is that things are more intense in Fairfax — more people supplementing outside of school, more competition to get into the AAP program. Although that could just be my friends and not true generally. We are considering moving from Arlington to Fairfax or MoCo and wonder how the school experience would change.

Fairfax > Montgomery > Arlington

Nah. it is
MoCo ---------------->Fairfax ------>Arlington.

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Anonymous wrote:The W schools have the highest test scores in the area, so that makes people assume they are the best schools. But when adjusted for demographics (race, income and education level of parents) they're no better than the Arlington or Fairfax schools. Plus unless you want to shell out $$$ after graduation for private, your best college option is essentially commuting to University of Maryland. No other in state school is any good at all. In Virginia you have access to UVA, William & Mary, and Tech -- plus JMU, Mary Washington and VCU among others. You'd be crazy to walk away from that.

TJ has the highest test scores in the area, followed some some of the W schools, followed by Langley and McLean, followed by other W schools, followed by some of the Arlington schools.

TJ is a much larger STEM magnet than the magnet programs at Blair and Poolesville, so if you reallocated the magnet kids to their base schools, you'd end up with about the same number of "top" schools in Montgomery and Fairfax. The difference between MCPS and FCPS is that FCPS has more high schools that are considered very good, even if not at the W school/Langley/McLean level. Both systems have some lower-performing schools as well.

I love the argument that the Fairfax neighborhood schools would be better than they are if TJ didn't exist and the TJ kids went to them instead. First, that's not a given -- many would probably go private. Second, a school is only as good as the students it has, not the ones that it doesn't.

OK, let's look at the students the schools have. According to the latest US News national rankings, TJ is currently #1 in the country, Whitman is #104, Langley is #136, McLean is #157, Wootton is #167, Churchill is #294, and Walter Johnson is #707.

Eliminate the TJ magnet, however, and Langley and McLean would likely be ranked even higher. Fairfax has a lot more jobs than Montgomery and people would still want to live close to their jobs even if there weren't a TJHSST.

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UMBC and Towson are lightweights. They do not compare to VA schools.


DP- they probably do not compare with UVa, WM and Tech but they compare well with the rest.

NP: Hard to disagree with this. However, VA does have more good-quality public options than MD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The W schools have the highest test scores in the area, so that makes people assume they are the best schools. But when adjusted for demographics (race, income and education level of parents) they're no better than the Arlington or Fairfax schools. Plus unless you want to shell out $$$ after graduation for private, your best college option is essentially commuting to University of Maryland. No other in state school is any good at all. In Virginia you have access to UVA, William & Mary, and Tech -- plus JMU, Mary Washington and VCU among others. You'd be crazy to walk away from that.

TJ has the highest test scores in the area, followed some some of the W schools, followed by Langley and McLean, followed by other W schools, followed by some of the Arlington schools.

TJ is a much larger STEM magnet than the magnet programs at Blair and Poolesville, so if you reallocated the magnet kids to their base schools, you'd end up with about the same number of "top" schools in Montgomery and Fairfax. The difference between MCPS and FCPS is that FCPS has more high schools that are considered very good, even if not at the W school/Langley/McLean level. Both systems have some lower-performing schools as well.

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Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

Fairfax is better than Arlington. But true for colleges. While MoCo has a few highly rated high schools, Maryland has fewer public college options, which makes Fairfax the winner. Unless you plan to do private college.

UMDCP, UMBC, Towson, St Marys, Frostburg, Salisbury..there are a good number of choices and options really.

UMBC and Towson are lightweights. They do not compare to VA schools.

DP- they probably do not compare with UVa, WM and Tech but they compare well with the rest.l

Anonymous wrote:


UMBC and Towson are lightweights. They do not compare to VA schools.


DP- they probably do not compare with UVa, WM and Tech but they compare well with the rest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

Fairfax is better than Arlington. But true for colleges. While MoCo has a few highly rated high schools, Maryland has fewer public college options, which makes Fairfax the winner. Unless you plan to do private college.

UMDCP, UMBC, Towson, St Marys, Frostburg, Salisbury..there are a good number of choices and options really.

UMBC and Towson are lightweights. They do not compare to VA schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

Fairfax is better than Arlington. But true for colleges. While MoCo has a few highly rated high schools, Maryland has fewer public college options, which makes Fairfax the winner. Unless you plan to do private college.

UMDCP, UMBC, Towson, St Marys, Frostburg, Salisbury..there are a good number of choices and options really.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

Fairfax is better than Arlington. But true for colleges. While MoCo has a few highly rated high schools, Maryland has fewer public college options, which makes Fairfax the winner. Unless you plan to do private college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

Fairfax is better than Arlington. But true for colleges. While MoCo has a few highly rated high schools, Maryland has fewer public college options, which makes Fairfax the winner. Unless you plan to do private college.

It's no wonder FCPS/NoVa schools cannot compete with MCPS. They have low expectations; they are aiming for State schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

Fairfax is better than Arlington. But true for colleges. While MoCo has a few highly rated high schools, Maryland has fewer public college options, which makes Fairfax the winner. Unless you plan to do private college.

Anonymous wrote:I'd never switch from Arlington to Montgomery because the in state college options suck. That would be a terrible mistake. As for Fairfax, why bother?

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Anonymous wrote:Fairfax is the gold standard.

Nah, everyone (be it public or private) wants to measure up or surpass MCPS. People don't think much of Fairfax outside of TJ. It is what it is.

-DC resident

I don't think your residence means much on this topic, other than people leaving DC may still be somewhat more likely to move to Bethesda or Chevy Chase (whereas NoVa is now getting more high-income transplants from other parts of the country).

But what the poster said is true. Everyone wants to measure up and beat MCPS.

That might have been true 20 years ago; not today.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax is the gold standard.

Nah, everyone (be it public or private) wants to measure up or surpass MCPS. People don't think much of Fairfax outside of TJ. It is what it is.

-DC resident

I don't think your residence means much on this topic, other than people leaving DC may still be somewhat more likely to move to Bethesda or Chevy Chase (whereas NoVa is now getting more high-income transplants from other parts of the country).

But what the poster said is true. Everyone wants to measure up and beat MCPS.