Follow up question on where to live

darkskyy

I posted a few days ago, but I have things narrowed down a bit more now, and I change my grad school plans.

We live in the NYC area, but DH just got a job in DC. The grad school program I'm now hoping to get into is at University of Maryland College Park.

We THINK we want to live near Silver Spring, but we don't really know the area.

Is that a reasonable choice for a young family? What surrounding towns are also good options?  We'll be renting til I'm done with school, since we are losing money on the sale of our current house. So we want "affordable" - which I know is a relative term. Any specific parts of town to avoid? DS will end up in starting kindergarten while we still live there, so public schools are important.