I don't get it- very few CES kids get into magnet school?

[Anonymous]

My DC is in a Silver Spring CES, and knows of only 2 girls and possibly 1 boy (rumored) who got into magnet. My DC was not one of them. Both girls were invited to both magnets. Neither is my my DC's feeder middle school. Around 20 others DC talked to said they were rejected from both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC is in a Silver Spring CES, and knows of only 2 girls and possibly 1 boy (rumored) who got into magnet. My DC was not one of them. Both girls were invited to both magnets. Neither is my my DC's feeder middle school. Around 20 others DC talked to said they were rejected from both.

This sounds similar to the CES numbers last year but like last year, down a lot from 2 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If these threads are to be believed, this argument is turning into Chinese moms from the west county against white liberal moms from the east county. Meanwhile, MCPS really can run its system any way it wants.

Definitely East vs West.

Chinese vs White is secondary and will soon be blurred as people make strategic housing decisions for magnet admission.

Problem is that since the diversity situation is not improving, the easiest way forward is closing magnets altogether.

There is zero chance that people will begin moving to Silver Spring to game the magnet admissions process. I am one of the liberal moms who is happy here but make no mistake, Chinese parents and wealthy white patents are absolutely allergic to our neighborhoods. They will never move here.

Who said actually move? Homeschool 8th grade + rent a room in Silver Spring to establish residency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If these threads are to be believed, this argument is turning into Chinese moms from the west county against white liberal moms from the east county. Meanwhile, MCPS really can run its system any way it wants.

Definitely East vs West.

Chinese vs White is secondary and will soon be blurred as people make strategic housing decisions for magnet admission.

Problem is that since the diversity situation is not improving, the easiest way forward is closing magnets altogether.

There is zero chance that people will begin moving to Silver Spring to game the magnet admissions process. I am one of the liberal moms who is happy here but make no mistake, Chinese parents and wealthy white patents are absolutely allergic to our neighborhoods. They will never move here.

Who said actually move? Homeschool 8th grade + rent a room in Silver Spring to establish residency.

Not everyone can afford to have a stay-at-home parent to homeschool and/or pay for an extra residence.

[Anonymous]

Relying on lottery to get off wait list, or for any school placement, is a joke. What's the lesson here? Tell the kids to work hard, do their best, study, even from kindergarten, then know that it's all for nothing and they are just lucky or not?

The lottery waitlist is cruel - at least that should be ranked by feeder middle school, if the cohort thing is so important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If these threads are to be believed, this argument is turning into Chinese moms from the west county against white liberal moms from the east county. Meanwhile, MCPS really can run its system any way it wants.

Definitely East vs West.

Chinese vs White is secondary and will soon be blurred as people make strategic housing decisions for magnet admission.

Problem is that since the diversity situation is not improving, the easiest way forward is closing magnets altogether.

There is zero chance that people will begin moving to Silver Spring to game the magnet admissions process. I am one of the liberal moms who is happy here but make no mistake, Chinese parents and wealthy white patents are absolutely allergic to our neighborhoods. They will never move here.

Who said actually move? Homeschool 8th grade + rent a room in Silver Spring to establish residency.

Not everyone can afford to have a stay-at-home parent to homeschool and/or pay for an extra residence.

If you have a magnet-caliber student, they self-direct that endeavor. Kids ended up taking their maths and science labs in Montgomery College. There are amazing homeschoolijg groups in the county for instruction. Public transport is legal for unaccompanied children starting in 7th grade in MoCo.

This is not the only path; others exist. It just irritates me that the county has a great curriculum that so many students could benefit from, and keeps it locked up for 200 students per year. Having seen it applied for my own child, I consider it a national treasure, to be cherished. The county has developed something of true value, and instead of giving it out freely like the Salk's polio vaccine, it is hoarding the product and playing political games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relying on lottery to get off wait list, or for any school placement, is a joke. What's the lesson here? Tell the kids to work hard, do their best, study, even from kindergarten, then know that it's all for nothing and they are just lucky or not?

The lottery waitlist is cruel - at least that should be ranked by feeder middle school, if the cohort thing is so important.

I completely agree. Last year, some people were saying they have until the end of the summer to decide whether to send their child to a magnet. Meanwhile, there are families selling their homes, moving to new towns, paying for private school contracts that may be hard to afford, just so someone can make a last-minute decision. Why is there no hard acceptance deadline?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know that didn’t happen. More like everyone noticed students in the magnet were all coming from the same home middle school. Hey, why don’t we let these kids stay at their home school and give them high level instruction and keep the magnet for those who don’t have a peer cohort? You know? Like a *magnet school* should operate: drawing students from all over.

You are deluded (or dumb) if you think one or two "enriched" classes is the same as a whole magnet program, especially for those kids who score higher than the kids who got accepted to magnet purely because of "peer cohort". Parents of the high scoring students aren't buying it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relying on lottery to get off wait list, or for any school placement, is a joke. What's the lesson here? Tell the kids to work hard, do their best, study, even from kindergarten, then know that it's all for nothing and they are just lucky or not?

The lottery waitlist is cruel - at least that should be ranked by feeder middle school, if the cohort thing is so important.

It’s ALL FOR NOTHING? Everything a child did and learned in kindergarten through 5th grade is all for nothing if they don’t get into a middle school magnet, and thus their lives are ruined and hard work goes unrewarded? Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relying on lottery to get off wait list, or for any school placement, is a joke. What's the lesson here? Tell the kids to work hard, do their best, study, even from kindergarten, then know that it's all for nothing and they are just lucky or not?

The lottery waitlist is cruel - at least that should be ranked by feeder middle school, if the cohort thing is so important.

I completely agree. Last year, some people were saying they have until the end of the summer to decide whether to send their child to a magnet. Meanwhile, there are families selling their homes, moving to new towns, paying for private school contracts that may be hard to afford, just so someone can make a last-minute decision. Why is there no hard acceptance deadline?

There is an acceptance deadline of February 8th, but in reality, what’s MCPS going to do about it if a child accepts by February 8th, then says that he changed his mind in June?

[Anonymous]

Can we turn back the clock two years to the CES admission letters? How many people were complaining that their 95th-99th percentile kids were wait-listed or outright rejected to the CES program? Apparently there were thousands of kids who would benefit from the program but didn't get a chance due to the limited number of seats. It was all we talked about. Literally.

Fast forward two years. There are now less than half the magnet spots available for this class as a whole. Even if you ONLY pulled from the REGIONAL CES schools there would probably be a 45% acceptance rate. And now we have the local center kids also vying for spots. And let's not forget all those kids who just missed out on the CES. They're grabbing those spots now too. Perhaps the CES kids who were prepped for acceptance into that program, weren't able to be prepped for the next level, and those kids with natural ability are getting their time to shine.

There are a lot of bright kids in this county and so few seats... to quote Aladdin, “Phenomenal Cosmic Powers! Itty Bitty Living Space!”

[Anonymous]

I think it’s teally good that we were given the MCPS percentiles in addition to the national percentiles. It really paints the picture for me. I have twins. One scored in the 99th percentile nationally on a particular section of the CogAT, but only in the 93rd percentile for MCPS. The other scored in the 98th percentile nationally on that section, but only in the 85th percentile in MCPS. Another poster that their child scored in the 97th percentile nationally on that section, but in the 83rd percentile in MCPS. That tellls me that among the fifth graders in MCPS who took the CogAT this year, roughly 7-8% were in the 99th percentile nationally for that test section and another 7-8% were in the 98th% nationally. Two kids could both be in the 99th% on a MAP test but have scores that are 20 points apart. If 3% or less of MCPS fifth graders get accepted into the competitive magnets, then they can’t take all the students who have always been in the 99th% nationally on all tests because there aren’t that many seats in the program. The selection committee had to try to determine what separated one 99th% from another. In the end, I’m sure there was a certain amount of luck involved because they were probably looking at very small differences in lots of cases. When you add in the consideration for home middle school cohort, well, it’s easy to see why many parents can’t understand why their very high performing child didn’t get in and it seems unfair to parents because the home cohort aspect is something they couldn’t control for and cannot understand because they don’t get to see the grades and test scores of other students. How do you ever really know how your child compares to other students if even the 99% kids aren’t all the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s teally good that we were given the MCPS percentiles in addition to the national percentiles. It really paints the picture for me. I have twins. One scored in the 99th percentile nationally on a particular section of the CogAT, but only in the 93rd percentile for MCPS. The other scored in the 98th percentile nationally on that section, but only in the 85th percentile in MCPS. Another poster that their child scored in the 97th percentile nationally on that section, but in the 83rd percentile in MCPS. That tellls me that among the fifth graders in MCPS who took the CogAT this year, roughly 7-8% were in the 99th percentile nationally for that test section and another 7-8% were in the 98th% nationally. Two kids could both be in the 99th% on a MAP test but have scores that are 20 points apart. If 3% or less of MCPS fifth graders get accepted into the competitive magnets, then they can’t take all the students who have always been in the 99th% nationally on all tests because there aren’t that many seats in the program. The selection committee had to try to determine what separated one 99th% from another. In the end, I’m sure there was a certain amount of luck involved because they were probably looking at very small differences in lots of cases. When you add in the consideration for home middle school cohort, well, it’s easy to see why many parents can’t understand why their very high performing child didn’t get in and it seems unfair to parents because the home cohort aspect is something they couldn’t control for and cannot understand because they don’t get to see the grades and test scores of other students. How do you ever really know how your child compares to other students if even the 99% kids aren’t all the same?

I tried to make your point last year without the MCPS average data. My 99% kid didn't get in and 2 of DC's classmates did. They were also 99%, but I knew that they scored higher on MAP tests and their raw Cogat scores were higher. My child's school was also listed as one with a high number of cohort kids. This process seems obvious to me! I suspect some people of lying and using the National percentiles to explain the rejections OR their kids scored on the lower end of 99% for other measures such as MAP and PARCC. Is it possible that some kids were overlooked, yes; but I don't think it is a systemic issue because someone would have sued to make sure MCPS couldn't do the same thing 2 years in a row.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s teally good that we were given the MCPS percentiles in addition to the national percentiles. It really paints the picture for me. I have twins. One scored in the 99th percentile nationally on a particular section of the CogAT, but only in the 93rd percentile for MCPS. The other scored in the 98th percentile nationally on that section, but only in the 85th percentile in MCPS. Another poster that their child scored in the 97th percentile nationally on that section, but in the 83rd percentile in MCPS. That tellls me that among the fifth graders in MCPS who took the CogAT this year, roughly 7-8% were in the 99th percentile nationally for that test section and another 7-8% were in the 98th% nationally. Two kids could both be in the 99th% on a MAP test but have scores that are 20 points apart. If 3% or less of MCPS fifth graders get accepted into the competitive magnets, then they can’t take all the students who have always been in the 99th% nationally on all tests because there aren’t that many seats in the program. The selection committee had to try to determine what separated one 99th% from another. In the end, I’m sure there was a certain amount of luck involved because they were probably looking at very small differences in lots of cases. When you add in the consideration for home middle school cohort, well, it’s easy to see why many parents can’t understand why their very high performing child didn’t get in and it seems unfair to parents because the home cohort aspect is something they couldn’t control for and cannot understand because they don’t get to see the grades and test scores of other students. How do you ever really know how your child compares to other students if even the 99% kids aren’t all the same?

99th percentile kid here. Grade, age, national and MCPS scores all the same. V-99%, Q- 99%, NV- 98%. What was interesting was that 51/52 scored 99% for Quantitative, but 43/60 for non-verbal scored 98%. That struck me as odd. I'd be curious to see what the percentile ranges were for each ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s teally good that we were given the MCPS percentiles in addition to the national percentiles. It really paints the picture for me. I have twins. One scored in the 99th percentile nationally on a particular section of the CogAT, but only in the 93rd percentile for MCPS. The other scored in the 98th percentile nationally on that section, but only in the 85th percentile in MCPS. Another poster that their child scored in the 97th percentile nationally on that section, but in the 83rd percentile in MCPS. That tellls me that among the fifth graders in MCPS who took the CogAT this year, roughly 7-8% were in the 99th percentile nationally for that test section and another 7-8% were in the 98th% nationally. Two kids could both be in the 99th% on a MAP test but have scores that are 20 points apart. If 3% or less of MCPS fifth graders get accepted into the competitive magnets, then they can’t take all the students who have always been in the 99th% nationally on all tests because there aren’t that many seats in the program. The selection committee had to try to determine what separated one 99th% from another. In the end, I’m sure there was a certain amount of luck involved because they were probably looking at very small differences in lots of cases. When you add in the consideration for home middle school cohort, well, it’s easy to see why many parents can’t understand why their very high performing child didn’t get in and it seems unfair to parents because the home cohort aspect is something they couldn’t control for and cannot understand because they don’t get to see the grades and test scores of other students. How do you ever really know how your child compares to other students if even the 99% kids aren’t all the same?

I tried to make your point last year without the MCPS average data. My 99% kid didn't get in and 2 of DC's classmates did. They were also 99%, but I knew that they scored higher on MAP tests and their raw Cogat scores were higher. My child's school was also listed as one with a high number of cohort kids. This process seems obvious to me! I suspect some people of lying and using the National percentiles to explain the rejections OR their kids scored on the lower end of 99% for other measures such as MAP and PARCC. Is it possible that some kids were overlooked, yes; but I don't think it is a systemic issue because someone would have sued to make sure MCPS couldn't do the same thing 2 years in a row.

So here's what I want to know: why there aren't "that many" seats in the program to accomodate every 99%? Why can't MCPS offer magnet curriculum to the top 5% other than the top 2%?