New thread -- actual MS magnet results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heard at the TPMS open house tonight that approximately 80 students were invited to both the TPMS and Eastern programs.

That is high! There will be movement on the wait pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And I want to hear from parents of a non-CES child, currently attending a W-feeder ES, who is accepted to either of the magnets.
Please tell me that unicorns do exist!

There are. I know a local non CES w-feeder school has 5 admits.

[Anonymous]

DC is accepted to Eastern, not CES kid, W feeder school. Scores are not as good as the stats posted here. We are surprised and confused.
He will get the two enrichment classes at home school. Is the two hour commute each day worth it?

[Anonymous]

I think Eastern has a fantastic program, and my kid would have been very happy there. We turned it down for Takoma, so I can’t speak to the actual program. But if you have a decent middle school, no, I don’t think a commute from the west side of town is worth it, for three magnet classes. It’s only middle school after all. The kid should have lots of free time. If a smaller commute, absolutely. If leaving a mediocre middle school, yes. Just my two cents. Different families will come to different conclusions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is accepted to Eastern, not CES kid, W feeder school. Scores are not as good as the stats posted here. We are surprised and confused.
He will get the two enrichment classes at home school. Is the two hour commute each day worth it?

Lots of folks car pool in the a.m. to reduce total bus time. Ask around and talk to some families in your immediate area that attend, also some that turned it down. You have time. Easy to say yes and then decide later it isn't what you want. Some who post in response here will no doubt be focused on improving their waitlist chances. Same dance goes on next month over on the private school forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone else have a child who consistently scores at the top on standardized tests but did very poorly on the CogAT? Our DC (currently in a DCC CES) bombed the nonverbal and quantitative sections, and his verbal was lower too. He didn't get into either magnet. We weren't counting on his getting in, but it was disconcerting to see the scores so much lower.

DC consistently gets 97-99% on MAP-R and always 99% on MAP-M. Consistently has among highest MAP scores in CES. On CogAT, DC got (MCPS) 83%V, 94%Q, 99%Q. Rejected.

I also want to note that MAP-R scores among DC's CES for the winter were surprisingly low, and many showed little or no growth, or even went down in scores compared to the fall, according to DC's discussions with friends.

DC who is in a CES didn't have that much growth either - his fall score was lower than last year's spring score, and his winter score went back up to that spring score, no higher.

It's all mysterious to me.

Totally conjecture here, but I wonder if MCPS is looking at ratios between Cogat and MAP scores to identify children who need enrichment. So a child with a MAP score that was average in relation to their very high Cogat would be marked as in more need of enrichment than a child with a pretty high Cogat and super-stellar MAP scores - second child would be seen as already receiving enrichment in some way as opposed to first child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is accepted to Eastern, not CES kid, W feeder school. Scores are not as good as the stats posted here. We are surprised and confused.
He will get the two enrichment classes at home school. Is the two hour commute each day worth it?

We were you last year. My daughter decided to go to Eastern. I personally don't think it's worth it, but she's happy there. It really depends if your kid handles the bus ride OK. My child has a good friend on her ride and does get some work done. It is a pain having their school so far away for activities, forgotten lunches, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is accepted to Eastern, not CES kid, W feeder school. Scores are not as good as the stats posted here. We are surprised and confused.
He will get the two enrichment classes at home school. Is the two hour commute each day worth it?

For my child it certainly was. He has had a fantastic experience that has permanently shaped who he is. His writing is excellent, and his critical thinking skills are sharp. His brother is in a W-feeder MS and I don't see the rigor in the humanities that Eastern has. He has made strong friendships (which require me to lug him all over MoCo but that's another story). There are downsides - the science program at Eastern is weak, and the languages are not great. The commute, as you said, is long (although my child likes the bus and the camaraderie on the bus). These are the tradeoffs. We made them, and we would gladly make them again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is accepted to Eastern, not CES kid, W feeder school. Scores are not as good as the stats posted here. We are surprised and confused.
He will get the two enrichment classes at home school. Is the two hour commute each day worth it?

For my child it certainly was. He has had a fantastic experience that has permanently shaped who he is. His writing is excellent, and his critical thinking skills are sharp. His brother is in a W-feeder MS and I don't see the rigor in the humanities that Eastern has. He has made strong friendships (which require me to lug him all over MoCo but that's another story). There are downsides - the science program at Eastern is weak, and the languages are not great. The commute, as you said, is long (although my child likes the bus and the camaraderie on the bus). These are the tradeoffs. We made them, and we would gladly make them again.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is accepted to Eastern, not CES kid, W feeder school. Scores are not as good as the stats posted here. We are surprised and confused.
He will get the two enrichment classes at home school. Is the two hour commute each day worth it?

If your're primarily concerned with the long bus ride, it's not worth it from what my coworker whose kid went there (from W feeder) said. I've been hearing good things about next year's English curriculum for regular schools, and I can only imagine that the W-feeder schools will be very good at implementing it. (It's better at providing enrichment to advanced students than old curriculum; it's also better at reaching the slower kids in the homogenized classes.) I'm not sure how the W-feeders have been implementing the magnet-level world history class, but most people are choosing Eastern for the writing and English program, not history class. Also, the math at Eastern is regular math, not the magnet-level math that may be available at the W-feeder if your child was not in the TPMS group.

I'm surprised that science is weak at Eastern, as when we applied to CES, we were told that science was considered part of the "humanities" and it's not unusual that kids that are good in humanities at the elementary school level are also good in math/science (at our local CES, only 1 out of 54 kids is not in the compacted math).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sorry some folks seem to be making light of the Lee MS situation. Look up the stats, people! The PPs have every reason to be concerned.

Rent a condo/ apartment in Parkwood or in any of the many buildings that feed Ashburton. MBMS is great - strong cohort.

Definitely a viable option.

Or, see if you can use a friend's address as your kid's mailing address.

We are at a non-W school, and there are several families that do this. Most friends would be happy to let you use their address.

This is especially useful when your child is in a CES already since these ES's take kids from around the county. It's a strategy that will definitely help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Eastern has a fantastic program, and my kid would have been very happy there. We turned it down for Takoma, so I can’t speak to the actual program. But if you have a decent middle school, no, I don’t think a commute from the west side of town is worth it, for three magnet classes. It’s only middle school after all. The kid should have lots of free time. If a smaller commute, absolutely. If leaving a mediocre middle school, yes. Just my two cents. Different families will come to different conclusions.

I totally agree. (Also have 2 kids who got into both and chose TPMS). Wise words here.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if this helps, but lots of kids from HS magnets (Blair and RM) are in the Honors program with our W-school grad at UMD. They are all about the same academically in the end. Some of the Blair kids were able to take one additional advanced math class, but then end up having to take a super-advanced math as a freshman but not sure that’s a good thing. It all works out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people are comparing CogAT scores in detail, but only mentioning PARCC scores in passing (saying their child got 5s). My child isn’t an outlier on CogAT, but is an outlier on PARCC (over 840 out of a possible 850 on both sections and got an 849 ELA first time taking the test; scored far higher on the reading portion than the MCPS average). My point is that not all kids who got 5s on PARCC actually scored the same. If we take MCPS’s word that they don’t give more weight to any one data point than any other, this may explain how my child was recommended for the program at MLK without having the highest CogAT scores (although child was 99% nationally and 93% compared to MCPS on verbal reasoning). It’s just a theory; I’ll never really know why my kid was offered a magnet seat.

840/850 PARCC is not that impressive. Many kids score perfect on those tests.

Of course it’s not unheard of, but no, there aren’t “many” who do. Take a look at the published statistics.

+1 in addition to parcc scores, there are report card grades, district assetments, cohort studies, cogat (both national and mcps percentiles), several years worth of maps scores, in all honesty it's the whole package, mcps is looking for a well rounded kid with consistent high scores to accept into the middle school magnet program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
+1 in addition to parcc scores, there are report card grades, district assetments, cohort studies, cogat (both national and mcps percentiles), several years worth of maps scores, in all honesty it's the whole package, mcps is looking for a well rounded kid with consistent high scores to accept into the middle school magnet program.

I can understand the rest of items above pointing to a well rounded child but how do Cohort studies factor in? Isn't that just a wiggle room for them to pick for diversity?