Middle school magnets - criteria-based

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

You'd need to back out the 100 non-catchment magnet seats, so 25 of 280, or about 9 percent of the overall catchment population gets in. That compares to 100 seats there for over 7000 6th grade students from the rest of the lower portion of the county, closer to 1.5 percent of the population. So it's about 6 times more likely to end up in the magnet if you are within the TPMS bounds. That's without considering the relative proportions of those who might qualify based on grades, reading level and locally-normed MAP percentiles (the result is less than the top 15% of MAP scorers). Your estimate of an over 44% chance for pool qualifiers may be on the low side.

As a PP said, it was done that way to make TP a more attractive place to buy back when the program was set up. Problem is, a good portion of the SFH area in TP already was desirable, and was the most likely place for folks magnet-hunting to land. I think it's also outlived its purpose. Politics. What's really a shame, though, is that they didn't expand the program to meet the need, or even to keep pace with population growth.

The set aside for Eastern was smaller (12), but King and Clemente had 25 in-catchment reserved seats to compare with only 50 for out-of-catchment. A real head-scratcher was the set-aside for Potomac for the Chinese Immersion program. Did they need their area made more attractive?
Was it to assuage the already-well-to-do about the influx of hoi palloi from out-of-bounds? Those with outsized influence get everything...

Interesting discussion. You are right about taking out the magnet kids so you have more like 280 TPMS kids in-bounds. 15 percent of that is 42 kids. 25 spots for 42 kids in the lottery means that 60 percent get in. Could this be correct? 60 percent of kids in the TPMS catchment area with lottery qualifying scores get into the magnet?

No that's not right. Look at the at a glance #s. It's more than 280.

As an inboundary parent, I can tell you it's not that clear there are precisely 25 in boundary spots. In years past I had heard there were typically around 15 kids from PBES about half of which came from the CES, but in the first year of the lottery, for example, we only knew of 5 or 6 kids in total that were selected from PBES. Maybe the lottery selected the other 20 from the other TPMS in boundary school, you got me. Lotteries are funny that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

You'd need to back out the 100 non-catchment magnet seats, so 25 of 280, or about 9 percent of the overall catchment population gets in. That compares to 100 seats there for over 7000 6th grade students from the rest of the lower portion of the county, closer to 1.5 percent of the population. So it's about 6 times more likely to end up in the magnet if you are within the TPMS bounds. That's without considering the relative proportions of those who might qualify based on grades, reading level and locally-normed MAP percentiles (the result is less than the top 15% of MAP scorers). Your estimate of an over 44% chance for pool qualifiers may be on the low side.

As a PP said, it was done that way to make TP a more attractive place to buy back when the program was set up. Problem is, a good portion of the SFH area in TP already was desirable, and was the most likely place for folks magnet-hunting to land. I think it's also outlived its purpose. Politics. What's really a shame, though, is that they didn't expand the program to meet the need, or even to keep pace with population growth.

The set aside for Eastern was smaller (12), but King and Clemente had 25 in-catchment reserved seats to compare with only 50 for out-of-catchment. A real head-scratcher was the set-aside for Potomac for the Chinese Immersion program. Did they need their area made more attractive?
Was it to assuage the already-well-to-do about the influx of hoi palloi from out-of-bounds? Those with outsized influence get everything...

Interesting discussion. You are right about taking out the magnet kids so you have more like 280 TPMS kids in-bounds. 15 percent of that is 42 kids. 25 spots for 42 kids in the lottery means that 60 percent get in. Could this be correct? 60 percent of kids in the TPMS catchment area with lottery qualifying scores get into the magnet?

No that's not right. Look at the at a glance #s. It's more than 280.

The numbers came from at a glance minus 100 kids for out of bounds magnet kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

Your math is wrong. That 380 per grade (I thought it was 400) includes the magnet kids, 100 of whom are from outside the TPMS area.

The math isn't wrong but just forgot to back out the magnet kids which makes it even more likely that in bounds kids from TPMS will get in.

Er forgetting to remove 100 kid means your math is wrong!!

You sound very literal. It's not helpful to be a jerk. People are trying to be helpful by doing back of the envelope calculations and the crowdsourcing is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

You'd need to back out the 100 non-catchment magnet seats, so 25 of 280, or about 9 percent of the overall catchment population gets in. That compares to 100 seats there for over 7000 6th grade students from the rest of the lower portion of the county, closer to 1.5 percent of the population. So it's about 6 times more likely to end up in the magnet if you are within the TPMS bounds. That's without considering the relative proportions of those who might qualify based on grades, reading level and locally-normed MAP percentiles (the result is less than the top 15% of MAP scorers). Your estimate of an over 44% chance for pool qualifiers may be on the low side.

As a PP said, it was done that way to make TP a more attractive place to buy back when the program was set up. Problem is, a good portion of the SFH area in TP already was desirable, and was the most likely place for folks magnet-hunting to land. I think it's also outlived its purpose. Politics. What's really a shame, though, is that they didn't expand the program to meet the need, or even to keep pace with population growth.

The set aside for Eastern was smaller (12), but King and Clemente had 25 in-catchment reserved seats to compare with only 50 for out-of-catchment. A real head-scratcher was the set-aside for Potomac for the Chinese Immersion program. Did they need their area made more attractive?
Was it to assuage the already-well-to-do about the influx of hoi palloi from out-of-bounds? Those with outsized influence get everything...

Interesting discussion. You are right about taking out the magnet kids so you have more like 280 TPMS kids in-bounds. 15 percent of that is 42 kids. 25 spots for 42 kids in the lottery means that 60 percent get in. Could this be correct? 60 percent of kids in the TPMS catchment area with lottery qualifying scores get into the magnet?

No that's not right. Look at the at a glance #s. It's more than 280.

As an inboundary parent, I can tell you it's not that clear there are precisely 25 in boundary spots. In years past I had heard there were typically around 15 kids from PBES about half of which came from the CES, but in the first year of the lottery, for example, we only knew of 5 or 6 kids in total that were selected from PBES. Maybe the lottery selected the other 20 from the other TPMS in boundary school, you got me. Lotteries are funny that way.

The wait pool may pull more acceptances from inbounds kids. That's how it is for all the magnets in that area. The original admits may be more geographically diverse but by the time the kids show up in the fall it more skewed towards families that live closer to the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TPMS actually got more than 25. They participated in the first 100 lottery, then the 25 reserved.

Says who? Where do you get that info? TBH, I doubt there are many more than 25 in the pool looking at the numbers. Anyone here in bound for TPMS and in the pool but didn’t win the lottery? I don’t know of any. My own kid was in the pool and got a spot.

I know several kids who were inbounds and in the pool and didn't get in, including one kid who was a wild outlier by any standards. It was just back luck, but it absolutely happens.

Which year is this?

The first year of the lottery at least I know there were several exceptional in-boundary kids that were passed over. It's the nature of lotteries. They don't guarantee that the most qualified are picked.

My DC is friends with that kid. They were one of only 2 or 3 kids in their grade at TPMS to make the varsity math team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TPMS actually got more than 25. They participated in the first 100 lottery, then the 25 reserved.

Says who? Where do you get that info? TBH, I doubt there are many more than 25 in the pool looking at the numbers. Anyone here in bound for TPMS and in the pool but didn’t win the lottery? I don’t know of any. My own kid was in the pool and got a spot.

I know several kids who were inbounds and in the pool and didn't get in, including one kid who was a wild outlier by any standards. It was just back luck, but it absolutely happens.

Which year is this?

The first year of the lottery at least I know there were several exceptional in-boundary kids that were passed over. It's the nature of lotteries. They don't guarantee that the most qualified are picked.

My DC is friends with that kid. They were one of only 2 or 3 kids in their grade at TPMS to make the varsity math team.

And that is why the lottery is one of the dumbest ideas that came out of MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

You'd need to back out the 100 non-catchment magnet seats, so 25 of 280, or about 9 percent of the overall catchment population gets in. That compares to 100 seats there for over 7000 6th grade students from the rest of the lower portion of the county, closer to 1.5 percent of the population. So it's about 6 times more likely to end up in the magnet if you are within the TPMS bounds. That's without considering the relative proportions of those who might qualify based on grades, reading level and locally-normed MAP percentiles (the result is less than the top 15% of MAP scorers). Your estimate of an over 44% chance for pool qualifiers may be on the low side.

As a PP said, it was done that way to make TP a more attractive place to buy back when the program was set up. Problem is, a good portion of the SFH area in TP already was desirable, and was the most likely place for folks magnet-hunting to land. I think it's also outlived its purpose. Politics. What's really a shame, though, is that they didn't expand the program to meet the need, or even to keep pace with population growth.

The set aside for Eastern was smaller (12), but King and Clemente had 25 in-catchment reserved seats to compare with only 50 for out-of-catchment. A real head-scratcher was the set-aside for Potomac for the Chinese Immersion program. Did they need their area made more attractive?
Was it to assuage the already-well-to-do about the influx of hoi palloi from out-of-bounds? Those with outsized influence get everything...

Interesting discussion. You are right about taking out the magnet kids so you have more like 280 TPMS kids in-bounds. 15 percent of that is 42 kids. 25 spots for 42 kids in the lottery means that 60 percent get in. Could this be correct? 60 percent of kids in the TPMS catchment area with lottery qualifying scores get into the magnet?

Yes, except less than 15 percent, because not everyone who is in the top 15 percent will have all As. The pool could be considerably smaller than 42.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

Your math is wrong. That 380 per grade (I thought it was 400) includes the magnet kids, 100 of whom are from outside the TPMS area.

The math isn't wrong but just forgot to back out the magnet kids which makes it even more likely that in bounds kids from TPMS will get in.

Er forgetting to remove 100 kid means your math is wrong!!

You sound very literal. It's not helpful to be a jerk. People are trying to be helpful by doing back of the envelope calculations and the crowdsourcing is helpful.

I was just correcting an error and then you/PP denied you’d made an error!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TPMS actually got more than 25. They participated in the first 100 lottery, then the 25 reserved.

Says who? Where do you get that info? TBH, I doubt there are many more than 25 in the pool looking at the numbers. Anyone here in bound for TPMS and in the pool but didn’t win the lottery? I don’t know of any. My own kid was in the pool and got a spot.

I know several kids who were inbounds and in the pool and didn't get in, including one kid who was a wild outlier by any standards. It was just back luck, but it absolutely happens.

Which year is this?

The first year of the lottery at least I know there were several exceptional in-boundary kids that were passed over. It's the nature of lotteries. They don't guarantee that the most qualified are picked.

My DC is friends with that kid. They were one of only 2 or 3 kids in their grade at TPMS to make the varsity math team.

And that is why the lottery is one of the dumbest ideas that came out of MCPS.

The following year AEI placed that kid in the magnet. Maybe it was the wait list, I don't know... but I guess the system works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got an email from TPMS that my kid is in!! Notification letters are also on ParentVue, which is great because our mail had not arrived.

Kid was in the pool for both lotteries, accepted at TPMS which is his home school.

I think a certain percentage of spots at TPMS are reserved for home school students. I am not sure if it's the same for Eastern.

25 are set aside for those in the TPMS catchment, so there is something of a separate lottery for them (same criteria, different pool). I think the ratio of seats to total MS population ends up being about 3 times greater.

That sounds really wrong. The odds of getting in have to be significantly higher.
TPMS has roughly 380 kids in each grade each year. If the top 15 percent are in the pool that's 57 kids. If there are 25 inbound set-aside seats that's a 44 percent chance of getting in!

You'd need to back out the 100 non-catchment magnet seats, so 25 of 280, or about 9 percent of the overall catchment population gets in. That compares to 100 seats there for over 7000 6th grade students from the rest of the lower portion of the county, closer to 1.5 percent of the population. So it's about 6 times more likely to end up in the magnet if you are within the TPMS bounds. That's without considering the relative proportions of those who might qualify based on grades, reading level and locally-normed MAP percentiles (the result is less than the top 15% of MAP scorers). Your estimate of an over 44% chance for pool qualifiers may be on the low side.

As a PP said, it was done that way to make TP a more attractive place to buy back when the program was set up. Problem is, a good portion of the SFH area in TP already was desirable, and was the most likely place for folks magnet-hunting to land. I think it's also outlived its purpose. Politics. What's really a shame, though, is that they didn't expand the program to meet the need, or even to keep pace with population growth.

The set aside for Eastern was smaller (12), but King and Clemente had 25 in-catchment reserved seats to compare with only 50 for out-of-catchment. A real head-scratcher was the set-aside for Potomac for the Chinese Immersion program. Did they need their area made more attractive?
Was it to assuage the already-well-to-do about the influx of hoi palloi from out-of-bounds? Those with outsized influence get everything...

Interesting discussion. You are right about taking out the magnet kids so you have more like 280 TPMS kids in-bounds. 15 percent of that is 42 kids. 25 spots for 42 kids in the lottery means that 60 percent get in. Could this be correct? 60 percent of kids in the TPMS catchment area with lottery qualifying scores get into the magnet?

No that's not right. Look at the at a glance #s. It's more than 280.

As an inboundary parent, I can tell you it's not that clear there are precisely 25 in boundary spots. In years past I had heard there were typically around 15 kids from PBES about half of which came from the CES, but in the first year of the lottery, for example, we only knew of 5 or 6 kids in total that were selected from PBES. Maybe the lottery selected the other 20 from the other TPMS in boundary school, you got me. Lotteries are funny that way.

The wait pool may pull more acceptances from inbounds kids. That's how it is for all the magnets in that area. The original admits may be more geographically diverse but by the time the kids show up in the fall it more skewed towards families that live closer to the schools.

At the time of selection, we had no idea who was selected. The numbers I used from PBES were based on what we observed the following fall after the wait list selections. We only knew of maybe a half dozen kids from PBES that year.

[Anonymous]

what is AEI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what is AEI?

The group within MCPS that is responsible for what they used to call gifted education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TPMS actually got more than 25. They participated in the first 100 lottery, then the 25 reserved.

Says who? Where do you get that info? TBH, I doubt there are many more than 25 in the pool looking at the numbers. Anyone here in bound for TPMS and in the pool but didn’t win the lottery? I don’t know of any. My own kid was in the pool and got a spot.

I know several kids who were inbounds and in the pool and didn't get in, including one kid who was a wild outlier by any standards. It was just back luck, but it absolutely happens.

Which year is this?

The first year of the lottery at least I know there were several exceptional in-boundary kids that were passed over. It's the nature of lotteries. They don't guarantee that the most qualified are picked.

My DC is friends with that kid. They were one of only 2 or 3 kids in their grade at TPMS to make the varsity math team.

And that is why the lottery is one of the dumbest ideas that came out of MCPS.

The following year AEI placed that kid in the magnet. Maybe it was the wait list, I don't know... but I guess the system works.

Not necessarily. I don’t know this particular kid, but AEI does look at peer cohort. If essentially all the other math oriented tpms kids got into the magnet (because, as others established, the odds are quite high for in bounds), this kid may not have had enough peers outside the magnet to provide a cohort. If this student were not in bounds, he’d never get a spot offered the following year, let alone a second look. So I wouldn’t say the system works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what is AEI?

The group within MCPS that is responsible for what they used to call gifted education.

And what do they do ?
Can they fix the problem of Advanced English for all if you weren't lucky enough to get into Eastern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TPMS actually got more than 25. They participated in the first 100 lottery, then the 25 reserved.

Says who? Where do you get that info? TBH, I doubt there are many more than 25 in the pool looking at the numbers. Anyone here in bound for TPMS and in the pool but didn’t win the lottery? I don’t know of any. My own kid was in the pool and got a spot.

I know several kids who were inbounds and in the pool and didn't get in, including one kid who was a wild outlier by any standards. It was just back luck, but it absolutely happens.

Which year is this?

The first year of the lottery at least I know there were several exceptional in-boundary kids that were passed over. It's the nature of lotteries. They don't guarantee that the most qualified are picked.

My DC is friends with that kid. They were one of only 2 or 3 kids in their grade at TPMS to make the varsity math team.

And that is why the lottery is one of the dumbest ideas that came out of MCPS.

You're assuming MCPS prioritizes gifted education. That's not their top priority. Regardless, the lottery kids seem to be just as able to do the work which makes me think a lot more kids could benefit from these programs.