High school magnets by the numbers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. 12:58 you've put it in great perspective for me in that it's somewhat similar to concepts of college applications, wherein your competition is supposed to be school specific and not county specific. It's *your child's* middle school that you're being compared against, not those of a radically different MCPS MS. Thanks again all for a civilized conversation and food for thought.

+1 (not PP)

Another aspect to the magnets that is often overlooked is that if there are enough high achieving students at their home ES/MS, then those schools can cohort them together and adapt programming to meet their academic needs. That’s why MS now offer some of the advanced courses being taught in the MS magnet (and yes, there are various implementation problems with this.) For schools without enough advanced students to offer certain advanced classes, sending them to a magnet program creates the critical mass to form a class.

What magnet courses are offered at the local schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. 12:58 you've put it in great perspective for me in that it's somewhat similar to concepts of college applications, wherein your competition is supposed to be school specific and not county specific. It's *your child's* middle school that you're being compared against, not those of a radically different MCPS MS. Thanks again all for a civilized conversation and food for thought.

It's not "competition". It's matching kids to programs they need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone point me to a site or pdf whereby MCPS breaks down the number of applicants and acceptances to the lottery and criteria-based high school magnets? Any chance they’re also transparent on the feeder middle schools as well? Looking for tangible data. Thanks.

For criteria-based HS magnets, they determine selections heavily by GPA and MAP scores, and try to find a reasonable balance in numbers between the feeders. So, a low FARMS MS will have a lower cut-off for consideration than a W HS feeder, where you have a good number of straight A 99%ers. When you have a large pool of the latter kinds of students, the application essays help differentiate. It's basically a nebulous process by definition, so difficult to quantify. Lottery is just that, a lottery. Presumably you can look up the number of seats; the number of applications will vary in a given year.

It will vary but not by much. What are we talking about: 3, 5, 10, 20, 50 applications per seat? I bet the ballpark ratio is pretty stable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just accept that it is a lottery. Trust me-- you'll save yourself and your child a lot of stress in the long run.

Just because your kids couldn't make it to the magnet, doesn’t make HS magnet a lottery. It's not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just accept that it is a lottery. Trust me-- you'll save yourself and your child a lot of stress in the long run.

Just because your kids couldn't make it to the magnet, doesn’t make HS magnet a lottery. It's not

+1 All the really high stats kids we know got in, just maybe not to their first choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. 12:58 you've put it in great perspective for me in that it's somewhat similar to concepts of college applications, wherein your competition is supposed to be school specific and not county specific. It's *your child's* middle school that you're being compared against, not those of a radically different MCPS MS. Thanks again all for a civilized conversation and food for thought.

Unfortunately, 12:58 was completely wrong. What they said is true for ES and MS magnets. HS magnet admissions are school blind and are not lotteries (although there is clearly some randomness just because so many kids have similar scores).

[Anonymous]

19:01 (this is OP) can you point to where it states that? Now that I'm thinking on it, I believe in the essay students aren't supposed to make mention of which middle school they attend.

[Anonymous]

My kid got in from a private school to Blair SMCS. That said, she would have zoned to a high achieving, Western MoCo school. I think the stat is 1 in 8 kids get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:19:01 (this is OP) can you point to where it states that? Now that I'm thinking on it, I believe in the essay students aren't supposed to make mention of which middle school they attend.

From last year’s FAQ: “The essays are redacted to keep the name blind, school blind, race blind integrity of the process.”

Find the FAQ and additional info here: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone point me to a site or pdf whereby MCPS breaks down the number of applicants and acceptances to the lottery and criteria-based high school magnets? Any chance they’re also transparent on the feeder middle schools as well? Looking for tangible data. Thanks.

For criteria-based HS magnets, they determine selections heavily by GPA and MAP scores, and try to find a reasonable balance in numbers between the feeders. So, a low FARMS MS will have a lower cut-off for consideration than a W HS feeder, where you have a good number of straight A 99%ers. When you have a large pool of the latter kinds of students, the application essays help differentiate. It's basically a nebulous process by definition, so difficult to quantify. Lottery is just that, a lottery. Presumably you can look up the number of seats; the number of applications will vary in a given year.

Not true, they don’t look at middle schools nor do they have that info. You are just making this up. The process is school blind and race blind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. 12:58 you've put it in great perspective for me in that it's somewhat similar to concepts of college applications, wherein your competition is supposed to be school specific and not county specific. It's *your child's* middle school that you're being compared against, not those of a radically different MCPS MS. Thanks again all for a civilized conversation and food for thought.

OP, please don’t let PP steer you incorrectly. This info is absolutely, resolutely incorrect. The selection process do not know which school your child attended unless they invite the name in the essay (which would be weird). You are competing against the entire pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. 12:58 you've put it in great perspective for me in that it's somewhat similar to concepts of college applications, wherein your competition is supposed to be school specific and not county specific. It's *your child's* middle school that you're being compared against, not those of a radically different MCPS MS. Thanks again all for a civilized conversation and food for thought.

+1 (not PP)

Another aspect to the magnets that is often overlooked is that if there are enough high achieving students at their home ES/MS, then those schools can cohort them together and adapt programming to meet their academic needs. That’s why MS now offer some of the advanced courses being taught in the MS magnet (and yes, there are various implementation problems with this.) For schools without enough advanced students to offer certain advanced classes, sending them to a magnet program creates the critical mass to form a class.

You are all confusing the middle school magnet process with the high school process. If you don’t know what you are talking about just stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. 12:58 you've put it in great perspective for me in that it's somewhat similar to concepts of college applications, wherein your competition is supposed to be school specific and not county specific. It's *your child's* middle school that you're being compared against, not those of a radically different MCPS MS. Thanks again all for a civilized conversation and food for thought.

+1 (not PP)

Another aspect to the magnets that is often overlooked is that if there are enough high achieving students at their home ES/MS, then those schools can cohort them together and adapt programming to meet their academic needs. That’s why MS now offer some of the advanced courses being taught in the MS magnet (and yes, there are various implementation problems with this.) For schools without enough advanced students to offer certain advanced classes, sending them to a magnet program creates the critical mass to form a class.

You are all confusing the middle school magnet process with the high school process. If you don’t know what you are talking about just stop.

It's because many of the posters are trolls and private school parents

[Anonymous]

Thanks all, OP here, I realize they misspoke and it's not compared to your home school. The essay part asking for redacted school/personal name clarified.

[Anonymous]

Do they redact the names of the elite level extracurricular academic awards mentioned in the essay/blurb? If not that's a pretty clear tell that the kid is from a WPMS.