What's wrong with being a FARMS kids with credentials that aren't necessarily outstanding?

13:02 - what facts are you citing? it seems you'll believe what you want to believe which is your right. but if you've got facts, please share them.

I'd buy into the WaPo challenge index based on AP participation before placing any stock in the # of NM Scholars in a school. But I'd go one step further and look into the success of those students. The breakdowns by school make for some pretty interesting reading for those who are inclined to wonder about access and equity: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/info/pdf/10.12.03APAttachment_lw.pdf

Blair and Whitman share bragging rates for aggregate success rates, with some glaring differences in non-white and FARMs participation and success:
- Blair, 55% of students scoring 3 or higher are non-white vs. 23% at Whitman;
- Blair - 71% of 117 FARMs students to Whitman - 77% of 9 FARMs students - taking APs were successful;

the reports also show the downside of schools pushing for participation vs. success. For instance, Einstein and Northwood place their freshman in AP US History with very low success rates while Blair makes the class available only to seniors.

Anonymous wrote:NMS are the top 1%, people, which in MoCo is >2200. Anyone that claims that xyz school is responsible for minting more NMS is just finding another way to say they have more students in a particular upper middle class demographic.

This board is not going to change anyone's comfort level with diversity. The Ws appear to thrive on those fears. Give parents at Blair/Einstein/Northwood/Kennedy/Wheaton and even B-CC credit for working as hard as they do on behalf of a truly diverse group of students. The rest of you can just keep writing those taxes for your expensive homes.

Or perhaps it's a response to those who repeatedly claim, with scant evidence to back it up, that their own upper middle class kids do just as well as DCC schools like Einstein as they would at the Ws or B-CC.

Guess it's harder to deal with the facts than to give lectures to others on how they overpaid for their expensive homes and can't handle diversity.

9:36 is painting paretns as being classist, not racist.

If you want to see where high-achieving non-white students are clustered, look at the 2011 National Achievement Program Semifinalists, the NMS program for Black American high school seniors:

Blair - 10
Richard Montgomery - 5
Poolesville - 2
Blake, Magruder, Watkins Mill , Whitman - 1 each
Rest of MoCo - 0

9:36, why do you assume that high achievers are from a "particular upper middle class demographic"? High achievement and diversity are not mutually exclusive. Please stop painting parents who care about academic achievement as racist.

Who cares about the Ivy League anyway? Students should be encouraged to pick the school that's right for them and what they want to achieve. For everyone--including high fliers--that isn't always an Ivy League school.

My brother and I both had our pick of top universities, and both of us independently decided against Ivy.
And I'll give you three guesses where we went to high school...

"Give parents at Blair/Einstein/Northwood/Kennedy/Wheaton and even B-CC credit for working as hard as they do. . ."

and staff :0)

NMS are the top 1%, people, which in MoCo is >2200. Anyone that claims that xyz school is responsible for minting more NMS is just finding another way to say they have more students in a particular upper middle class demographic.

This board is not going to change anyone's comfort level with diversity. The Ws appear to thrive on those fears. Give parents at Blair/Einstein/Northwood/Kennedy/Wheaton and even B-CC credit for working as hard as they do on behalf of a truly diverse group of students. The rest of you can just keep writing those taxes for your expensive homes.

Anonymous wrote:
But what does the number of NMS really tell you about the school or the quality of the students, beyond how many kids have gotten good test prep? I went to school in another state, and attended a high school that would be considered similar to the DCC high schools. Out of 300 kids, we had one NMS. OTOH, we had 3 kids go to Yale, 1 to Harvard, 2 to Brown, 2 to Penn, one to Stanford, one to Duke, a couple to Cornell, and various Vassar, Michigan, Wesleyan, Hamilton, etc. I was not a NMS, and I have two Ivy League degrees.

Consider yourself lucky. No high school in the DC region with that profile would get that many kids admitted to top schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is not a very impressive list of colleges. Especially compared with the Bethesda/Chevy Chase high schools. Just sayin.

full scholarship to Yale
student from the "red zone"

You can make the best out of any situation.

I hate elitists; the only thing that makes them special is their bank account.

I hate haters.

ahh - self-loathing

How do you live with yourself then?

By reading your crap and knowing I am not you. Oh, and better than you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, a school in the much maligned DCC has the most NMSs in all of Montgomery County.

]

Four of the five DCC schools collecitvely produce one NMS, while Blair has a magnet program open to all county students. Blair's numbers certainly don't reflect positively on Einstein.

But what does the number of NMS really tell you about the school or the quality of the students, beyond how many kids have gotten good test prep? I went to school in another state, and attended a high school that would be considered similar to the DCC high schools. Out of 300 kids, we had one NMS. OTOH, we had 3 kids go to Yale, 1 to Harvard, 2 to Brown, 2 to Penn, one to Stanford, one to Duke, a couple to Cornell, and various Vassar, Michigan, Wesleyan, Hamilton, etc. I was not a NMS, and I have two Ivy League degrees.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, a school in the much maligned DCC has the most NMSs in all of Montgomery County.

]

Four of the five DCC schools collecitvely produce one NMS, while Blair has a magnet program open to all county students. Blair's numbers certainly don't reflect positively on Einstein.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is not a very impressive list of colleges. Especially compared with the Bethesda/Chevy Chase high schools. Just sayin.

full scholarship to Yale
student from the "red zone"

You can make the best out of any situation.

I hate elitists; the only thing that makes them special is their bank account.

I hate haters.

ahh - self-loathing

How do you live with yourself then?

Yes, a school in the much maligned DCC has the most NMSs in all of Montgomery County.