It will only be a rat race if you turn it in to one...

My DD attended a K-8 parochial school and is switching to one of the magnet programs this year (not SMCS). I'm being intentionally semi-vague as I don't want to out her either.

For us, it was very difficult decision as we really like the nurturing aspect of private. Unfortunately, the HS privates that we liked would have required her to wake up before 6:00 am and she wouldn't have been home until close to 6:00 p.m. if she had taken the bus/Marc/Metro. We have multiple children and it would have been very difficult to have tried to transport her ourselves directly each day to school.

Due to the location of the PS, we are able to drive her each day to school and she can take the bus home when needed as we are in boundary. She will save at least 3 hours a day in commuting time. Also while we could afford private (we weren't looking at an elite private)- $100k over 4 years would have been a significant expense.

In our case, a three hour round trip commute and $100K tuition delta was too great of a trade-off "cost". I laugh when I read things from the magnet program staff about apologizing for the cost of field trips- I think I read that it's $50-$100 per year...at my daughter's private that was close to the cost of a single field trip.

I asked about laptops. At the privates, parents must buy one. At the public magnet, they "understand" that some kids can't afford them.

My daughter also felt on the fringe at her private- there were a lot of nouveau riche families so she was concerned about having to deal with that dynamic for another 4 years.

The thing that I'll miss most about the private is that they care about each and every student and no student fell through the cracks academically. At the magnet, I feel like it's going to be one big rat race. I hope I'm wrong.

PP with kid who went to elite private rather than Blair magnet. The reason I used the comparison of tuition to a new car is because someone earlier in the thread said that the tuition was equivalent to a new car every year. I certainly don't believe that public school parents prefer cars to education or that they are buying a new car every year.


I don't want to be too specific because I could out my child. She attended a middle school magnet . She did well academically but had some problems socially. She was one of the few Latino/Black students in the magnet program that year. She had a hard time making friends. Some of the Asian girls she befriended said their parents would not approve of their friendship with her. In the elite private school she attended for high school there were many more black/Latino students who were high achieving. She finally felt she had a peer group. The white and Asian students in the private high school were also much more open to forming friendships. Some of this could just involve the increased maturity of high school students, but it is very difficult to be a very high performing URM, and she felt more supported in his private.

Can you expand on why he felt this way?
Did he attend private middle school?
Thanks

" Since my child is a non-Asian person of color, he felt socially more comfortable in his private. His school has a higher percentage of black and Latino students than the Blair magnet. I totally understand why someone would make a different choice."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

People on this board are very hostile when someone actually answers a question directly. I am the above poster. The tuition was a burden for us, but we thought it was worth it. We prefer to spend money on education than on new cars. Since my child is a non-Asian person of color, he felt socially more comfortable in his private. His school has a higher percentage of black and Latino students than the Blair magnet. I totally understand why someone would make a different choice. No need to be rude about it.

of course.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

People on this board are very hostile when someone actually answers a question directly. I am the above poster. The tuition was a burden for us, but we thought it was worth it. We prefer to spend money on education than on new cars. Since my child is a non-Asian person of color, he felt socially more comfortable in his private. His school has a higher percentage of black and Latino students than the Blair magnet. I totally understand why someone would make a different choice. No need to be rude about it.

That one sentence tells us a lot about the assumptions you make about people with kids in public school.

Seriously! I don't know anyone in our public school riding around in a new car. A new-to-you car, maybe. Ha!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

People on this board are very hostile when someone actually answers a question directly. I am the above poster. The tuition was a burden for us, but we thought it was worth it. We prefer to spend money on education than on new cars. Since my child is a non-Asian person of color, he felt socially more comfortable in his private. His school has a higher percentage of black and Latino students than the Blair magnet. I totally understand why someone would make a different choice. No need to be rude about it.

That one sentence tells us a lot about the assumptions you make about people with kids in public school.

Anonymous wrote:OK so we are one of the rare families that applied to both. DC was in a magnet program in MCS for middle school and applied for high school magnets and a elite private. He got into both with some FA for the private. We went the private route for several reasons: smaller classes, a great supportive social environment, better social science teaching (his favorite subject), and although people will jump all over this we preferred the type of math education they provided. It was very comprehensive, deep, and emphasized developing from first principles. Ironically there was also much more diversity in his class in every sense of the word except economic. There were also many opportunities for extracurricular foreign travel which for our DC was life changing.And the arts program was wonderful. He made great friends who are still close now that they are all in college. He and all his friends are i all n top twenty universities and are doing well. I am certain he would have been just fine at the Blair magnet, but we are happy with our choice. He is still in contact with some of is high school teachers, whom he regards as mentors and friends.

People on this board are very hostile when someone actually answers a question directly. I am the above poster. The tuition was a burden for us, but we thought it was worth it. We prefer to spend money on education than on new cars. Since my child is a non-Asian person of color, he felt socially more comfortable in his private. His school has a higher percentage of black and Latino students than the Blair magnet. I totally understand why someone would make a different choice. No need to be rude about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the parents (and teacher) who said that the Blair acceptance was mostly based on test scores. I'm wondering if you can articulate why you think so. Because I imagine that the kids with great test scores probably also had pretty good ECs and recs, and so it would be hard to isolate this factor as determinative just from anecdotal knowledge about who got in. I actually agree with you, even though I know little about it as my kid was not at TPMS and I know few Blair SMAC kids, so I'm not arguing a point, I'm really just curious about how you know.

The Blair SMAC magnet is purely an academic program offering higher-level learning and experiences to the county's most talented math and science students. I am sure that teacher recs matter, but ECs do not. They do not care if your kid is well-rounded. Of course, many are, but their violin skills did not get them into the program.

Now if you had one spot left in the class, and two kids with the exact same academic record, test scores and effusive recommendations, I don't know what the tie breaker would be. Maybe then.

This is a good summary. They just offer different experiences and pick students who can succeed based in different criteria. The experience is not for everyone. I appreciate the reading list provided. I've met many, many private school kids who must have read those books. I agree that those children would not like Blair SMAC. The parent that listed those books also would not appreciate SMAC. That is the beauty of having options even within MCPS.

The PP does make an excellent point that there are many valedictorians in private schools who do not 'test well'. I've heard this complaint from private school parents when it comes time for them to apply to college. This also reinforces the notion that private school's pick on much more than test scores versus Blair's SMAC (and RM's IB program) where the average SAT scores hover above 750.

- Blair SMAC parent.

It's hard to get bad scores on the Math & Logic portion of SAT if you know your content very well. If a student doesn't do well, it's more likely he/she and the parents are over confident than the student being a bad test taker. It happens, but not common.

As a test prep tutor, I can say this is absolutely wrong. Many, many kids who are slow processors or slow readers or struggle with anxiety do poorly on these tests because of the timed nature, despite being very bright and having solid knowledge of math material. Others who have attentional issues also have difficulty with timed tests despite solid knowledge. Other kids who are not so bright but have been explicitly taught advanced math at home or in afterschool or summer camps do very well simply because they were taught the material. And still other kids are so bright that they overthink some questions and end up with excelent but not perfect scores.

These timed tests are not very good and separating kids accurately.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the parents (and teacher) who said that the Blair acceptance was mostly based on test scores. I'm wondering if you can articulate why you think so. Because I imagine that the kids with great test scores probably also had pretty good ECs and recs, and so it would be hard to isolate this factor as determinative just from anecdotal knowledge about who got in. I actually agree with you, even though I know little about it as my kid was not at TPMS and I know few Blair SMAC kids, so I'm not arguing a point, I'm really just curious about how you know.

The Blair SMAC magnet is purely an academic program offering higher-level learning and experiences to the county's most talented math and science students. I am sure that teacher recs matter, but ECs do not. They do not care if your kid is well-rounded. Of course, many are, but their violin skills did not get them into the program.

Now if you had one spot left in the class, and two kids with the exact same academic record, test scores and effusive recommendations, I don't know what the tie breaker would be. Maybe then.

This is a good summary. They just offer different experiences and pick students who can succeed based in different criteria. The experience is not for everyone. I appreciate the reading list provided. I've met many, many private school kids who must have read those books. I agree that those children would not like Blair SMAC. The parent that listed those books also would not appreciate SMAC. That is the beauty of having options even within MCPS.

The PP does make an excellent point that there are many valedictorians in private schools who do not 'test well'. I've heard this complaint from private school parents when it comes time for them to apply to college. This also reinforces the notion that private school's pick on much more than test scores versus Blair's SMAC (and RM's IB program) where the average SAT scores hover above 750.

- Blair SMAC parent.

It's hard to get bad scores on the Math & Logic portion of SAT if you know your content very well. If a student doesn't do well, it's more likely he/she and the parents are over confident than the student being a bad test taker. It happens, but not common.

Anonymous wrote:The handful of kids that are the absolute smartest in the whole entire region are at Blair. They have one kid who may be the smartest in the country .

or they don't bother since its way east county, horrible commute, their home school is excellent, and they have hockey/swim in the morning and after school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about Blair CAP but RMIB teaches extensive writing for 4 years. Kids read and write EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.

It's just not comparable. Here's the difference - RMIB's 12th grade reading list: Pride and Prejudice, Hamlet , A Room of One’s Own, Selected poems (Margaret Atwood), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

In the elite privates, the Rushdie and Twain are middle school texts. The Austen is often a 9th grade book. These are all important books to read, but they are pretty foundational. At the privates, senior lit classes are more likely reading The Waste Land, Mrs. Dalloway, Absalom, Absalom!, The Myth of Sisyphus and Lolita that mirror core college English courses. And they offer additional electives that go deep on Ondaatje and Zadie Smith and Baldwin and Murakami in addition to Ovid, Homer,Virgil,and Sophocles classics.

Interesting. Can you provide links to your sources please?

I'm curious too about the source for the RMIB 12th grade reading list. I'm fine with that list, actually,it depends on what you do with it, and I'm sure the works are studied at a worthwhile and appropriate level at RMIB. I actually think I prefer it to the private school list - the kids are not yet in college, after all, so why the constant push for increased complexity. But when I went to the RMIB Open House and saw the reading list for ninth graders, it mirrored my honors college freshman year course, e.g. Homer, Virgil, etc. And I thought to myself that was too hard, even though my kid was admitted, and wished for some Jane Austen. So can anyone with first-hand knowledge fill in here?

The summer reading assignment details the 12th grade IB reading list. http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/rmhs/departments/english/2017-2018%20IB%20Summer%20Reading%20%20List.pdf

Just like most of the RMIB students hunger for really challenging math and science, there are some students that are sophisticated readers or have a deep understanding of policy, politics and social sciences (b/c they grew up in the DC area). Your child may need to be on a path to take differential equations and linear algebra in high school, while another student needs to be in classes that expect a high-level understanding of historiography or literary techniques. It would be wrong to limit your child to pre-calculus or have a literary student reading A Separate Peace as a 12th grader.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The handful of kids that are the absolute smartest in the whole entire region are at Blair. They have one kid who may be the smartest in the country .

cool, can't wait to see what she does for herself and society. about time I get some ROI on my high MoCo taxes.

The kid will probably go back to China or India or wherever she came from. Yes, your tax money at work for sure.

Insulting. I don't see what a student's ethnicity has to do with anything. Students don't put their ethnicity on their test nor do they make note of it when they win the Intel Science fair.

You will need to find some other excuse to explain why some students do better at these things. It's not 'merely' their ethnicity.

- White Blair SMAC parent.

Not to mention that people of x ethnicity, who were born in the US, can't "go back to wherever they came from", because they came from the US.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The handful of kids that are the absolute smartest in the whole entire region are at Blair. They have one kid who may be the smartest in the country .

cool, can't wait to see what she does for herself and society. about time I get some ROI on my high MoCo taxes.

The kid will probably go back to China or India or wherever she came from. Yes, your tax money at work for sure.

Insulting. I don't see what a student's ethnicity has to do with anything. Students don't put their ethnicity on their test nor do they make note of it when they win the Intel Science fair.

You will need to find some other excuse to explain why some students do better at these things. It's not 'merely' their ethnicity.

- White Blair SMAC parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the parents (and teacher) who said that the Blair acceptance was mostly based on test scores. I'm wondering if you can articulate why you think so. Because I imagine that the kids with great test scores probably also had pretty good ECs and recs, and so it would be hard to isolate this factor as determinative just from anecdotal knowledge about who got in. I actually agree with you, even though I know little about it as my kid was not at TPMS and I know few Blair SMAC kids, so I'm not arguing a point, I'm really just curious about how you know.

The Blair SMAC magnet is purely an academic program offering higher-level learning and experiences to the county's most talented math and science students. I am sure that teacher recs matter, but ECs do not. They do not care if your kid is well-rounded. Of course, many are, but their violin skills did not get them into the program.

Now if you had one spot left in the class, and two kids with the exact same academic record, test scores and effusive recommendations, I don't know what the tie breaker would be. Maybe then.

This is a good summary. They just offer different experiences and pick students who can succeed based in different criteria. The experience is not for everyone. I appreciate the reading list provided. I've met many, many private school kids who must have read those books. I agree that those children would not like Blair SMAC. The parent that listed those books also would not appreciate SMAC. That is the beauty of having options even within MCPS.

The PP does make an excellent point that there are many valedictorians in private schools who do not 'test well'. I've heard this complaint from private school parents when it comes time for them to apply to college. This also reinforces the notion that private school's pick on much more than test scores versus Blair's SMAC (and RM's IB program) where the average SAT scores hover above 750.

- Blair SMAC parent.