Anonymous wrote:

I've been a Blair mom (CAP and SMAC magnet) and a Whitman mom, sometimes at the same time, and Blair CAP and SMAC magnets are both better choices than Whitman, by a long shot.

If I'd known how much kids' school choices would have gone, we'd have moved to Silver Spring years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know anything about Whitman, but my daughter is in CAP. She has about two hours of homework every night. She has straight As, but does need to work at it (she got As easily through middle school so I think it was a bit of a shock for her in 9th grade).

Maybe this is just her friends, but it seems like the kids that like CAP the most are quirky, proud of being smart, language and drama oriented kids. Lots of theater kids, into quirky fashion, love reading and talking about books and other language related topics, and social political debating.

Just some thoughts, though not necessarily particular to your question!

Thanks a lot for sharing! My son is currently at Eastern and he complains about the amount of homework at Eastern. He struggles to get A's in English. But he wants to go to CAP because his friends are going. That is what I worry about. Homework might keep him away from sports and other activities, and he might still not be able to get good grades, plus the commute....then why bother? In addition, the qualities you described about your daughter and her friends are awesome. But that is not quite who my child is. He is not drama or language-oriented at all.... My main "concern" about CAP is that it might be time-consuming (commute, homework) and he might still not do that well from a GPA perspective.....

I just want to state that there are kids at CAP definitely into sports and on their teams. It is a lot of work, but my kid wanted to go to Blair after making friends at Eastern. Still, Whitman is an excellent choice. I wouldn’t let GPA play a role in your decision making because he will like take tough classes at either school.

Good point on GPA.... I guess he was frustrated for two years for not getting A's in English (6th and 7th grade), and that is impacting my decision making process as well.

My understanding is that Eastern Magnet English is at a very different level than the English the other MCPS students go through. If I were you, I wouldn't let "not getting A" in magnet English color my decision, especially for CAP - Well, at least not without checking with the CAP coordinator and the Eastern English teachers. Eastern magnet has sent many students to CAP and RMIB over the years, and the teachers can probably give you a good idea of how your DC would do in CAP.

Also, I think CAP English sequence is the same as that in any other school. The attraction is the cohort and the "communication" part of the program. It is not exactly a humanities program ala Poolesville humanities program. (Of course, you might want to check this with the CAP coordinator.)

If your DC has gone through the Eastern grinder, there is a very high chance they will be able to handle the load at CAP.

Anonymous wrote:We chose Whitman over Blair. The end of that horrible commute made me question why I even sent our kid to a magnet middle school for three years. The only thing nice about that was the sweet bus driver.

The drawback is that many of the friendships are formed at Pyle so your magnet child will have to start from scratch at Whitman or reacquaint themself with friends from elementary school.

Anonymous wrote:Whitman's math goes up to Linear Algebra.

Anonymous wrote:Nobody’s math is comparable to Blairs. Multi variable is the highest anyone else’s go. If you need more math than Multivariable from a home school, you need to go to MC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, we've been having the same debate at our house, although in our case it's a different W school vs. CAP. DD also got into RMIB but won't be going there (which is 100% fine with us). We have two older kids, one of whom went to the home W HS and one of whom went to RMIB, so we have those experiences for comparison.

DD is super into drama/theater, as are all of her Eastern friends, so she wants to go to CAP. My spouse and I have been discussing a lot and basically we decided that it's got to be our choice, not her choice, both for family reasons and based on our evaluation of what's best for her. Here's why we have decided she can't go to CAP:

1) CAP has a great program that's a continuation of Eastern (and really Barnsley as well since that's more of a humanities focus), but we are concerned about the quality of the rest of the classes outside CAP, given non-magnet Blair (which admittedly we have no experience with) vs. WJ. I want her to be able to take AP classes in 9th grade (AP Government), and I want her to have a strong all-around education, not simply a specialty in humanities that is most apparent in the first two years and then tapers off in junior/senior years.

2) The length of the school day (eight periods) and the length of the commute are huge factors. She's on the bus at 7 am and doesn't get home until 4:30 pm as it is (and that is the same bus schedule she'd have next year). With eight periods, that's a lot less time for extracurriculars, downtime, family time, and sleep, all of which are important. I can't find what time the activity buses run, but we aren't on a magnet activity bus route for Eastern and I don't think we'd be on one for Blair.

3) I am tired of not having a parent community to exchange favors and information with. Given the distances, there's no one to carpool with for afterschool activities. There aren't any parents I can rely on to exchange favors when there's a time crunch.

4) Relatedly, the logistics of getting her to/from school are too much for us. With traffic (and there's almost always traffic) it's 25-30 minutes each way. My spouse and I are working from home still but that's not going to last forever -- we can't just get over there to get her quickly on a moment's notice.

5) DD went to Barnsley ES before Eastern, so has been out of the neighborhood friend loop since 4th grade. None of her Barnsley friends went to Eastern, and none are going to the home HS. It's really becoming problematic because every get-together is a schlep, as all her friends are in Silver Spring. That's two hours of driving round-trip for us as her parents. She's lonely on weekends because there's no one local to hang out with. She suffers from some social anxiety, too, so is always reluctant to be the one to initiate a hang-out.

6) We know our home high school. It's a happy, well-run place and it's 600 kids fewer than Blair. Our older kid had a great experience there. DD has been out of the loop with her friends from elementary and the neighborhood, but still knows a lot of them and will reconnect and/or make new friendships. Our DD can put together a rigorous, challenging program and have a lot more time in her day both for school and for extracurriculars at the home HS.

7) We let our other kid go to RMIB -- it was her choice even though we weren't thrilled about it. We have experienced some of the issues above, and it's also been a brutal program both on its own merits and because of the pandemic. It's cost a lot in terms of time, stress, pressure, anxiety, etc. We are not happy that we're making this decision for our youngest instead of letting her make it for herself, but we're much more aware now of the impacts to our whole family of one kid going to a magnet program.

So that's where we are. Reading your posts, I'd say there's no compelling reason for your kid to go to CAP for some of the same reasons we have.

Amazing post. Really appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

My son is very stubborn however...haven't found a way to convince him. He insists that he will commit and sacrifice for CAP, putting in the extra hours of work and commute, even though in reality, I think it will be really hard for him. He said he is interested in CAP but deep down I think he is telling himself he is interested because he wants to go. I can't even remember how many times he had previously complained about Eastern, especially during 7th grade (pandemic made it worse).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know anything about Whitman, but my daughter is in CAP. She has about two hours of homework every night. She has straight As, but does need to work at it (she got As easily through middle school so I think it was a bit of a shock for her in 9th grade).

Maybe this is just her friends, but it seems like the kids that like CAP the most are quirky, proud of being smart, language and drama oriented kids. Lots of theater kids, into quirky fashion, love reading and talking about books and other language related topics, and social political debating.

Just some thoughts, though not necessarily particular to your question!

Thanks a lot for sharing! My son is currently at Eastern and he complains about the amount of homework at Eastern. He struggles to get A's in English. But he wants to go to CAP because his friends are going. That is what I worry about. Homework might keep him away from sports and other activities, and he might still not be able to get good grades, plus the commute....then why bother? In addition, the qualities you described about your daughter and her friends are awesome. But that is not quite who my child is. He is not drama or language-oriented at all.... My main "concern" about CAP is that it might be time-consuming (commute, homework) and he might still not do that well from a GPA perspective.....

I just want to state that there are kids at CAP definitely into sports and on their teams. It is a lot of work, but my kid wanted to go to Blair after making friends at Eastern. Still, Whitman is an excellent choice. I wouldn’t let GPA play a role in your decision making because he will like take tough classes at either school.

Good point on GPA.... I guess he was frustrated for two years for not getting A's in English (6th and 7th grade), and that is impacting my decision making process as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading everything here with interest. My DC has also gotten into CAP but from a non-magnet middle school. PP said that their DD has 2 hours of homework/night. Do others find something similar? Just weighing the extra period with my DC's ADHD and commute time and the stamina to handle a huge homework load daily. Thanks.

Yeah, I would love to know what's the homework differential between CAP and Whitman (if honors class, etc.). For example, if CAP is 2 hours of homework every night, what would it be like at Whitman, for example?

Homework load is so kid-dependent. One of my kids handled 5 APs (with As and 5s) both Jr and Sr years and never spent much time on homework. Other had much less rigorous classes but took much more time to do less homework.

Don't expect a light HW load at Whitman in all honors/AP classes. Also, the same sort of group of quirky kids exists at every school, you just have to find them.

I'm sure you can get a fine education at Whitman, but they lack the depth of offerings of Blair because it's not only a large school but hosts 2 magnets.