Magnets smell.

If I ever become important enough to publish an autobiography, I'm pretty sure the most bitter/motivating/grateful/controversial chapter in it would be about my four years in the Montgomery Blair Magnet Program.

A lot of times people hear the word "Blair Magnet" and are really impressed. They associate us with things like 4.0 GPAs, computer science geniuses, Intel-winning research projects, perfect SAT scores, Robotics/Math/Physics competitions, awesome colleges, and rolly backpacks. Those ideals are what motivate parents (mostly Asian) to send their socially awkward and bucktoothed kids to this program whereupon arrival they only become all the more socially awkward and bucktoothed.

OK, so that wasn't really a fair description. I guess my point is that the Magnet only has a handful of exceptionally talented and intelligent students in each class. They serve as the figureheads of success. Everyone else is kind of dumped into a heap behind the curtain and struggles to kill each other.



The Brian Lawrences and Matt McCutchens of the program are so far beyond us lowly serfs that tossing us in the same competitive pool as them is like watching Michael Phelps race Stephen Hawking at an Olympic swimming event. I'm not saying that everybody else is stupid, but rather that the disparity between an average hard-working, sleep-deprived Magnet and a Brian Lawrence who can guest lecture in an AP Econ class is depressingly great. At a certain point, you learn to just accept the fact that you are a peon relative to these intellectual mammoths and that you will always live in their shadow.

Thus the competition between "everyone else" begins. Mastering the SATs or earning A's becomes a ruthless and desperate struggle among those who don't naturally win at life. It's academic Darwinism at the most basic level. Sink or swim. Fight or flight. Over time, everyone is judged and ranked according to their intelligence and ability level.

"Wow, you have him in your research group? Lucky bastard!"

or more commonly,

"LOOOLOL ROSE IS IN YOUR GROUP HAHAHA GOOD LUCK!!"

This competitiveness wasn't just limited to academics either...oh no. Magnets had a funny way of taking over clubs and organizations and turning those into dog-eat-dog environments as well. Orchestra, Quiz Bowls, It's Ac...all of these Magnet-dominated activities were always about status, competition, and prestige. Even the activities that weren't necessarily competitive by nature (Key Club, Silver Chips) turned into battlegrounds over who would win the important, get-me-into-college positions. A perfect example would be with the EICs of our graduating year were accepted into Harvard and Yale. "But they're not even that smart!" The teeth gnashing went on for weeks.

I know that so far this must sound like an angry tirade against the Magnet. But I think that all my complaints boil down to the fact that the program is just way too enclosed within its own rigid ideals. We were like a blind pack of socially retarded mules, wearing our special IDs, confined to our exclusive classes, moving from one computer science lab to another in smelly herds, eating and playing card games at lunch, staying after school for one extra period, getting on our own special buses with middle school Magnet kids...I could go on and on.

High school is when we're supposed to develop some of the most important skills we need for the future. Yes, a strong work ethic is important, but the ability to interact with people who don't have the exact same linear goals in life is arguably just, if not more, vital to a successful career. "But wait!" you cry. "I want to be an actuary! Or a scientist in my own lab! Or a computer programmer who lives happily in his own world! Those jobs don't require extensive social skills or interaction!" You're right, they don't. But you plan to get married one day, don't you? You want children that look up to you, right? You don't want to wear that DARE shirt for the rest of your life, correct? Well you need to know how to connect to, sympathize with, and tolerate other human beings. The Magnet did nothing to promote or emphasize social activity outside its own bubble. By the time we had the freedom to pick non-Magnet classes, our high school identities were already sealed within our peers, teachers, and "Magnet" stigma as a whole.

I think there are plenty of redeeming qualities about the Magnet that serve as enough justification for many students to go through the program anyway. Yes, most of the teachers are very good. Yes, the course selection is much more extensive than those found in other high schools. And yes, Wallops Island was an awesome field trip. But I just think that the program is way too linear and too rigid. The average Magnet graduates with higher scores and more knowledge of math and science than the average high schooler...but to me, those things just aren't worth the constant struggle to stay afloat and the subsequent social sacrifices that have to be made in order to prioritize those lofty academic goals.