Col. Zadok Magruder High School

Posted June 12, 2009

Graduation at last! I've had lots of great teachers and made the best friends of my life at Magruder. At Magruder, you'll find rich and poor, highly-motivated and ultra-lazy, college-bound and work-bound. If you make a reasonable effort here, there is endless opportunity. Large selection of AP classes, ample opportunity to participate in athletics, and mostly wonderful teachers. Yes, there are some troublemakers at Magruder, but you'll rarely find them in honors and AP classes and they have largely been eliminated from even the on-level classes. A final point is that the SAT stats at Magruder don't tell the real story. Magruder tries to get as many students as possible to take the SAT test, including many students who are very unlikely to go to college. The work-bound students drag the SAT average downward a LOT, but the college-bound students do very well on the SAT at Magruder.
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Posted May 18, 2009

As with any school, this school has great teachers and mediocre and every level in-between. Being one of the largest schools in the county, it has its share of problems but also, because of the large student body, it also has a large selection of course to choose from. Required courses have many levels such as AP, Honors, on-level, remedial, and there's a nice variety of electives. AP classes are almost all college level, which makes it difficult for students; college students have at least a day between classes to do the homework and prepare for the next class where these students have to get it by the next morning. Some teachers who teach AP aren't doing a good job because few of their students pass the AP exams, while others have a high rate of student success. Overall, though, a great academic environment for AP/Honors. Wide selection of after-school activities.
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Posted February 7, 2009

I accidentally came across this site and felt that the rating does not truly represent the heart of this school. I believe Magruder is a unique, free-spirited school that helps students to discover their interest and plan for future. I see students energy and creativity through the float and hallway competition in the fall. I still see Magruder generating a crop of excellent students making into top colleges and universities. In 2008, Magruder sent two kids to Yale along with many prestigious institutions. I also saw Magruder producing many unique talents even at the national level. Being a large high school, it has many faces some good and some not so good. Magruder has a heterogeneous student body that brings out much diversity. Magruder doesn t claim to be the most academically competitive school, but it definitely produces one of the most talented kids. Continues below.
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Posted January 29, 2008

I think that most of the people who read this site probably have children that qualify for honors or AP classes, and those children will end up being very well-prepared for college by the time they graduate from Magruder. Unfortunately, a few small areas of Montgomery County that have extremely difficult-to-educate students also feed into Magruder, which skews the school's overall scores downward. In the honors and AP classes, your child will be treated almost like a college student, and will be rewarded for their performance. Also, the principal is a very straight-shooter (figuratively, of course) and is honest with the community about the behavior issues of the relatively few troublemakers.
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