Wheaton HS magnet programs

[Anonymous]

Looking for more recent student and families' experience (since 2022) with Wheaton's magnet programs:
Engineering
Biomedical

MCPS/Wheaton key takeaways:
1. Magnet is only for students who live in DC or attend a DCC MS

2. Student must have strong math background and keen interest in healthcare or engineering. Algebra 1 required.

3. Magnet Pre-calc is 2yr math course that includes Honors Algebra 2, Honors Precalc, bit of Calculus.

4. Students take one AP class in 9th and 10th, two AP classes in 11th and 12th.

5. Applicants: 240. Accepted: 30 to each program.

[Anonymous]

*live in DCC, not DC (autocorrect!)

[Anonymous]

I would be worried about that compressed math class as those classes are hard. Most kids take 1-2 ap classes or more freshman and sophomore years depending on offering and more as upperclassman if on that track. I’ve heard good things about it.

[Anonymous]

Can you use out of school activities/classes to show the interest and math background?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking for more recent student and families' experience (since 2022) with Wheaton's magnet programs:
Engineering
Biomedical

MCPS/Wheaton key takeaways:
1. Magnet is only for students who live in DC or attend a DCC MS

2. Student must have strong math background and keen interest in healthcare or engineering. Algebra 1 required.

3. Magnet Pre-calc is 2yr math course that includes Honors Algebra 2, Honors Precalc, bit of Calculus.

4. Students take one AP class in 9th and 10th, two AP classes in 11th and 12th.

5. Applicants: 240. Accepted: 30 to each program.

12% admission rate? Or is that their intended enrollment and accepted kids might be higher?
Is the number of applicants similar to CAP at Blair? If so that would mean about 50% accepted to CAP since they aim for about 100. Could that be right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking for more recent student and families' experience (since 2022) with Wheaton's magnet programs:
Engineering
Biomedical

MCPS/Wheaton key takeaways:
1. Magnet is only for students who live in DC or attend a DCC MS

2. Student must have strong math background and keen interest in healthcare or engineering. Algebra 1 required.

3. Magnet Pre-calc is 2yr math course that includes Honors Algebra 2, Honors Precalc, bit of Calculus.

4. Students take one AP class in 9th and 10th, two AP classes in 11th and 12th.

5. Applicants: 240. Accepted: 30 to each program.

12% admission rate? Or is that their intended enrollment and accepted kids might be higher?
Is the number of applicants similar to CAP at Blair? If so that would mean about 50% accepted to CAP since they aim for about 100. Could that be right?

CAP is usually around 75 students .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking for more recent student and families' experience (since 2022) with Wheaton's magnet programs:
Engineering
Biomedical

MCPS/Wheaton key takeaways:
1. Magnet is only for students who live in DC or attend a DCC MS

2. Student must have strong math background and keen interest in healthcare or engineering. Algebra 1 required.

3. Magnet Pre-calc is 2yr math course that includes Honors Algebra 2, Honors Precalc, bit of Calculus.

4. Students take one AP class in 9th and 10th, two AP classes in 11th and 12th.

5. Applicants: 240. Accepted: 30 to each program.

12% admission rate? Or is that their intended enrollment and accepted kids might be higher?
Is the number of applicants similar to CAP at Blair? If so that would mean about 50% accepted to CAP since they aim for about 100. Could that be right?

Yeah, that's the final class size so accepted is going to be higher I think. As for CAP, applications are higher because "Humanities" is a bigger bucket than Engineering or BioMed and Blair is more centrally located than Wheaton.

[Anonymous]

The number of accepted students for CAP is really high. Everyone we knew who applied got in the first round or off the wait list.

I think CAP has been around 100 to 125 in recent years.

[Anonymous]

Wheaton is really competitive. I don't think they accept a ton over 30. DC didn't make it to the open house but some friends did and said it might have been less than 50 accepted per program and they only accept that many knowing many of those students will be choosing Blair.

[Anonymous]

At the open house they told us that last year there were 250 applicants for Bio, 275 for Engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The number of accepted students for CAP is really high. Everyone we knew who applied got in the first round or off the wait list.

I think CAP has been around 100 to 125 in recent years.

My kid knew several classmates who didn't get into CAP and really wanted it. A few years ago there was an admissions snafu and they ended up with 125 so if you have a current senior that might be why you know so many who were accepted.

[Anonymous]

We have 2 Wheaton grads, 1 from each program. Their programs were each 30 students. I don’t know how many applied. Students can take 2 ap’s, Physics and APUSH in 9th grade. It is a DCC only program.

My grads were in the class of 23 and 21.
They are terrific programs if your students like the content. The programs limit your electives so that is unfortunate.

[Anonymous]

Where did your two kids matriculate after graduating from Wheaton? Interested for my DCC kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have 2 Wheaton grads, 1 from each program. Their programs were each 30 students. I don’t know how many applied. Students can take 2 ap’s, Physics and APUSH in 9th grade. It is a DCC only program.

My grads were in the class of 23 and 21.
They are terrific programs if your students like the content. The programs limit your electives so that is unfortunate.

My kid got waitlisted for the magnet and wound up doing the academy. The experience seems pretty similar. He still took MVC, tons of engineering classes with the same teachers as the magnet (Bates and ONeil, etc?), I think. But he didn't have to take ALL of the magnet classes (he skipped the AP Comp Sci and AP Chem classes for ex) so he got to take other AP classes. It was nice to have the flexibility. If given the choice, however, he probably would have liked to have done the magnet to be with that peer cohort.

I think his STEM education has been excellent. He got five on all of his STEM APs. The writing instruction was pretty lacking, despite taking AP English, AP Social Sciences, etc. Not sure any other MCPS writing instruction is any better, however.