Bethesda Magazine College Bound Chart for 2020 grads

[Anonymous]

The Wotton youtube celebration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfVria8bVWc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD with a 64% acceptance rate. Yikes. Let's keep it out of the "selective" discussion, ok? It's a solid Big State U. But not even close to elite.

Whoever said it was elite?

Exactly.

UMD is clearly not elite. It's not even selective, as these acceptance rates confirm. But there seems to be a large contingent of UMD boosters on DCUM who keep talking about how hard it is to get into now, how it's not a safety anymore, etc. They should stop with the nonsense and shenanigans.

It depends on how you define "elite". If your definition is based on excluding the most people, then probably not. If it is based on what happens there, then UMD has a lot to be proud of.

Exactly. This goes for most state schools. They're very diverse in terms of the range of students' abilities. Top students at state achools are really fantastic and get great opportunities.

+1

My high-performing Blair magnet kid (1600 SAT, 4.8 WGPA, 12 APs/all 5s, national recognition for musical instrument) did not apply to HYP or MIT. If we stretched (a lot), we could pay for those schools, but are unwilling to do that for a lot of reasons. DC is in the Honors College at UMD and doing very well.

There are a lot of Blair families like ours, whose kids do not even apply to elite schools. Therefore I don't pay any heed to these stats.

+1 Magnet UME family,
Saving for graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD with a 64% acceptance rate. Yikes. Let's keep it out of the "selective" discussion, ok? It's a solid Big State U. But not even close to elite.

Whoever said it was elite?

Exactly.

UMD is clearly not elite. It's not even selective, as these acceptance rates confirm. But there seems to be a large contingent of UMD boosters on DCUM who keep talking about how hard it is to get into now, how it's not a safety anymore, etc. They should stop with the nonsense and shenanigans.

It depends on how you define "elite". If your definition is based on excluding the most people, then probably not. If it is based on what happens there, then UMD has a lot to be proud of.

Well 57 kids still managed to apply to MIT. 61 to Stanford. Some of those might be non magnet applications but that’s almost 50% of the class.

Maybe you don’t read into the absolute performance but the relative performance compared to non magnet schools is still interesting and those stats are also impacted by the alleged “I didn’t even bother trying to apply” issue.

The relative performance doesn’t seem all that great considering it’s a magnet and the accompanying logistical issues about transportation and hours etc. maybe you are better off staying in your home school.

Exactly. This goes for most state schools. They're very diverse in terms of the range of students' abilities. Top students at state achools are really fantastic and get great opportunities.

+1

My high-performing Blair magnet kid (1600 SAT, 4.8 WGPA, 12 APs/all 5s, national recognition for musical instrument) did not apply to HYP or MIT. If we stretched (a lot), we could pay for those schools, but are unwilling to do that for a lot of reasons. DC is in the Honors College at UMD and doing very well.

There are a lot of Blair families like ours, whose kids do not even apply to elite schools. Therefore I don't pay any heed to these stats.

+1 Magnet UME family,
Saving for graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD with a 64% acceptance rate. Yikes. Let's keep it out of the "selective" discussion, ok? It's a solid Big State U. But not even close to elite.

Whoever said it was elite?

Exactly.

UMD is clearly not elite. It's not even selective, as these acceptance rates confirm. But there seems to be a large contingent of UMD boosters on DCUM who keep talking about how hard it is to get into now, how it's not a safety anymore, etc. They should stop with the nonsense and shenanigans.

It depends on how you define "elite". If your definition is based on excluding the most people, then probably not. If it is based on what happens there, then UMD has a lot to be proud of.

Exactly. This goes for most state schools. They're very diverse in terms of the range of students' abilities. Top students at state achools are really fantastic and get great opportunities.

+1

My high-performing Blair magnet kid (1600 SAT, 4.8 WGPA, 12 APs/all 5s, national recognition for musical instrument) did not apply to HYP or MIT. If we stretched (a lot), we could pay for those schools, but are unwilling to do that for a lot of reasons. DC is in the Honors College at UMD and doing very well.

There are a lot of Blair families like ours, whose kids do not even apply to elite schools. Therefore I don't pay any heed to these stats.

+1 Magnet UME family,
Saving for graduate school.

Well 57 kids still managed to apply to MIT. 61 to Stanford. Some of those might be non magnet applications but that’s almost 50% of the class.

Maybe you don’t read into the absolute performance but the relative performance compared to non magnet schools is still interesting and those stats are also impacted by the alleged “I didn’t even bother trying to apply” issue.

The relative performance doesn’t seem all that great considering it’s a magnet and the accompanying logistical issues about transportation and hours etc. maybe you are better off staying in your home school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD with a 64% acceptance rate. Yikes. Let's keep it out of the "selective" discussion, ok? It's a solid Big State U. But not even close to elite.

Whoever said it was elite?

Exactly.

UMD is clearly not elite. It's not even selective, as these acceptance rates confirm. But there seems to be a large contingent of UMD boosters on DCUM who keep talking about how hard it is to get into now, how it's not a safety anymore, etc. They should stop with the nonsense and shenanigans.

It depends on how you define "elite". If your definition is based on excluding the most people, then probably not. If it is based on what happens there, then UMD has a lot to be proud of.

Exactly. This goes for most state schools. They're very diverse in terms of the range of students' abilities. Top students at state achools are really fantastic and get great opportunities.

+1

My high-performing Blair magnet kid (1600 SAT, 4.8 WGPA, 12 APs/all 5s, national recognition for musical instrument) did not apply to HYP or MIT. If we stretched (a lot), we could pay for those schools, but are unwilling to do that for a lot of reasons. DC is in the Honors College at UMD and doing very well.

There are a lot of Blair families like ours, whose kids do not even apply to elite schools. Therefore I don't pay any heed to these stats.

+1 Magnet UME family,
Saving for graduate school.

Well 57 kids still managed to apply to MIT. 61 to Stanford. Some of those might be non magnet applications but that’s almost 50% of the class.

Maybe you don’t read into the absolute performance but the relative performance compared to non magnet schools is still interesting and those stats are also impacted by the alleged “I didn’t even bother trying to apply” issue.

The relative performance doesn’t seem all that great considering it’s a magnet and the accompanying logistical issues about transportation and hours etc. maybe you are better off staying in your home school.

Mom to the high-performing magnet grad here. College admissions didn't drive the choice for DC to attend the magnet. In fact, college admissions was not a factor at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD with a 64% acceptance rate. Yikes. Let's keep it out of the "selective" discussion, ok? It's a solid Big State U. But not even close to elite.

Whoever said it was elite?

Exactly.

UMD is clearly not elite. It's not even selective, as these acceptance rates confirm. But there seems to be a large contingent of UMD boosters on DCUM who keep talking about how hard it is to get into now, how it's not a safety anymore, etc. They should stop with the nonsense and shenanigans.

It depends on how you define "elite". If your definition is based on excluding the most people, then probably not. If it is based on what happens there, then UMD has a lot to be proud of.

Exactly. This goes for most state schools. They're very diverse in terms of the range of students' abilities. Top students at state achools are really fantastic and get great opportunities.

+1

My high-performing Blair magnet kid (1600 SAT, 4.8 WGPA, 12 APs/all 5s, national recognition for musical instrument) did not apply to HYP or MIT. If we stretched (a lot), we could pay for those schools, but are unwilling to do that for a lot of reasons. DC is in the Honors College at UMD and doing very well.

There are a lot of Blair families like ours, whose kids do not even apply to elite schools. Therefore I don't pay any heed to these stats.

+1 Magnet UME family,
Saving for graduate school.

Well 57 kids still managed to apply to MIT. 61 to Stanford. Some of those might be non magnet applications but that’s almost 50% of the class.

Maybe you don’t read into the absolute performance but the relative performance compared to non magnet schools is still interesting and those stats are also impacted by the alleged “I didn’t even bother trying to apply” issue.

The relative performance doesn’t seem all that great considering it’s a magnet and the accompanying logistical issues about transportation and hours etc. maybe you are better off staying in your home school.

Mom to the high-performing magnet grad here. College admissions didn't drive the choice for DC to attend the magnet. In fact, college admissions was not a factor at all.

Good for you. But would you permit it to be a factor for some of us? And if it is, could we please raise a legitimate question of whether going through the trouble of the magnet program is worth it? Would that be ok with you?

[Anonymous]

PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD with a 64% acceptance rate. Yikes. Let's keep it out of the "selective" discussion, ok? It's a solid Big State U. But not even close to elite.

Whoever said it was elite?

Exactly.

UMD is clearly not elite. It's not even selective, as these acceptance rates confirm. But there seems to be a large contingent of UMD boosters on DCUM who keep talking about how hard it is to get into now, how it's not a safety anymore, etc. They should stop with the nonsense and shenanigans.

It depends on how you define "elite". If your definition is based on excluding the most people, then probably not. If it is based on what happens there, then UMD has a lot to be proud of.

Exactly. This goes for most state schools. They're very diverse in terms of the range of students' abilities. Top students at state achools are really fantastic and get great opportunities.

+1

My high-performing Blair magnet kid (1600 SAT, 4.8 WGPA, 12 APs/all 5s, national recognition for musical instrument) did not apply to HYP or MIT. If we stretched (a lot), we could pay for those schools, but are unwilling to do that for a lot of reasons. DC is in the Honors College at UMD and doing very well.

There are a lot of Blair families like ours, whose kids do not even apply to elite schools. Therefore I don't pay any heed to these stats.

+1 Magnet UME family,
Saving for graduate school.

Well 57 kids still managed to apply to MIT. 61 to Stanford. Some of those might be non magnet applications but that’s almost 50% of the class.

Maybe you don’t read into the absolute performance but the relative performance compared to non magnet schools is still interesting and those stats are also impacted by the alleged “I didn’t even bother trying to apply” issue.

The relative performance doesn’t seem all that great considering it’s a magnet and the accompanying logistical issues about transportation and hours etc. maybe you are better off staying in your home school.

Mom to the high-performing magnet grad here. College admissions didn't drive the choice for DC to attend the magnet. In fact, college admissions was not a factor at all.

Good for you. But would you permit it to be a factor for some of us? And if it is, could we please raise a legitimate question of whether going through the trouble of the magnet program is worth it? Would that be ok with you?

Is your question whether magnets are worth it for college admissions? They answer is absolutely no and I feel bad for the kids whose parents are pushing it for that reason. It’s a self selecting population. It may actually make it harder to get into college because, in comparison to your peers, you don’t look as impressive. The only good reason to go to a magnet high school is because you think it’s a good fit and environment for your child and your child WANTS to go. So many of those high school kids are burnt out already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

Agree with this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

Agree with this

+1 if you want to play that game, you're better off being a big fish in a little pond. Go to a mediocre performing school, and outshine everyone, then apply to elite univ. They'd love to have you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

Can’t it be something less than the sole goal and something more than nothing? If it has a negative impact (maybe yes, maybe no) then it seems like it is one of the things to consider. I don’t understand the logic of saying that the high school experience is so important that we send our kids to a magnet school but the college education is so much less important that we don’t even consider the impact. I get there is a cost issue in most cases but it seems that there is an undercurrent of high school is terribly important, grad school is terribly important but the thing in between just doesn’t matter.

Btw- way to convince yourself that your kid would be at the “tippy top” at a regular school - that’s not condescending in the least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

Agree with this

+1 if you want to play that game, you're better off being a big fish in a little pond. Go to a mediocre performing school, and outshine everyone, then apply to elite univ. They'd love to have you.

So you’d rather do that in college? Isn’t that the same thing people above are arguing? Go to a magnet school, then a mediocre college and shine so some great grad school might take you?

I get you all need to convince yourselves of your noble motives in going through the magnet program but I don’t see some moral failing in considering what impact this has on your kids’ future options. We’ve looked hard at the magnet programs in MoCo - let me tell you something - they aren’t some gift from God. Interesting to be sure but your arrogance at being a magnet parent is astounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

+1

The magnet program is about the experience and whether it will suit a particular student. If the goal is college admissions, then don't attend the magnet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

Agree with this

+1 if you want to play that game, you're better off being a big fish in a little pond. Go to a mediocre performing school, and outshine everyone, then apply to elite univ. They'd love to have you.

So you’d rather do that in college? Isn’t that the same thing people above are arguing? Go to a magnet school, then a mediocre college and shine so some great grad school might take you?

I get you all need to convince yourselves of your noble motives in going through the magnet program but I don’t see some moral failing in considering what impact this has on your kids’ future options. We’ve looked hard at the magnet programs in MoCo - let me tell you something - they aren’t some gift from God. Interesting to be sure but your arrogance at being a magnet parent is astounding.

I'd rather my kid have excellent-quality experiences wherever he is. If he learns to work hard in very challenging classes, he will excel wherever he goes.

It's not about "mediocre" (your word) or "elite" schools. It's about him and his experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP 12:35 If your sole goal is college admissions, please don't apply to the magnet program. It's not what it's about. We understand that our kid would be at the tippy top student at a regular school- but maybe only average in a magnet program.

Sincerely RMIB Magnet Mom.

Agree with this

+1 if you want to play that game, you're better off being a big fish in a little pond. Go to a mediocre performing school, and outshine everyone, then apply to elite univ. They'd love to have you.

So you’d rather do that in college? Isn’t that the same thing people above are arguing? Go to a magnet school, then a mediocre college and shine so some great grad school might take you?

I get you all need to convince yourselves of your noble motives in going through the magnet program but I don’t see some moral failing in considering what impact this has on your kids’ future options. We’ve looked hard at the magnet programs in MoCo - let me tell you something - they aren’t some gift from God. Interesting to be sure but your arrogance at being a magnet parent is astounding.

No I think what we are saying is go the magnet route if that is what your child wants and needs during a very important developmental period.
I think some of us would also disagree with your characterization of UMD as a mediocre school. It is a huge state school with a heterogeneous student body. What this means is that there are lots of super bright students (especially in the honors colleges) and since it is a big research institution there are tons of great learning opportunities for motivated students. If you look at where the Blair magnet kids end up attending college, half end up at UMD, many end up at top 30 schools and many end up at places like CMU, UNC, UC Berkeley. I think all of them will do just fine.