According to materials from the school, Quince Orchard "encourages advanced studies in both the arts and books." To this end, 31 Advanced Placement courses are offered, ranging from the arts to world history to science and math. The school boasts higher-than-average SAT and ACT scores, and requires 75 hours of community service for graduation. In 2006, Quince Orchard High School was the 456th highest-rated school according to Newsweek magazines list of the top 1,300 high schools in the United States. In 2014, Quince Orchard was ranked the sixth best high school in the state of Maryland and 176th in the United States by U.S. News & World Report on their list of best high schools.
Arts
The school has theater and music departments. In the spring of 2008, the Quince Orchard High School Chamber Singers performed at the Kennedy Center with the Manhattan Concert Productions. Over the years the theater department has staged nearly 50 productions, including Up the Down Staircase and the musical Grease, which was critically acclaimed by the National Theater Critics Program. Students produce The Prowler newspaper and the yearbookTracks. The Quince Orchard High School Marching Band went to the inaugural USSBA National Championship and achieved a Montgomery County-record score of 90.275. The next year, the band received their second record-breaking score for Montgomery County, Maryland, of 92.325, and placed 9th out of 18 national groups. In 2008, the marching band won the USSBA Group IV Open Maryland State Championships with the show "Jekyll and Hyde". In 2012, the marching band won the USSBA Group IIIA Maryland State Championships with the show "Alive and Amplified".
Quince Orchard's incoming freshmen come from Lakelands Park and Ridgeview Middle School, as well as Roberto Clemente Middle School's magnet program. Until the end of the 2007 school year, Quince Orchard also enrolled students who had graduated from Kingsview Middle School. Starting in 2010, Quince Orchard High School enrolled students who graduated from Parkland Middle School.
History
In 1984, the Montgomery County Council voted to build Quince Orchard High School in order to reduce crowding at Gaithersburg High School, and it allocated $20 million for its construction in 1984. The school was expected to have 1,680 students upon opening, and it was designed to have a capacity of 2,000 students. In 1987, a group of parents asked the Board of Education to name the school Potomac Falls High School instead, but the Board of Education decided to name it Quince Orchard High School because it was being built on Quince Orchard Road. Construction costs ended up totaling $26 million by the time the school opened on September 6, 1988. Quince Orchard High School did not have a senior class during its first school year open, which made it difficult for its athletic teams to compete with other high schools in sports where size and experience are particularly advantageous. Its football team's record was 1-8 in its first season. The softball field was not built in time for the first school year, and the school used the baseball field for field hockey. Despite tennis courts not being completed until midway through the first school year, the tennis team finished 5-7 that year.
