IB magnet at RM

[antonello09]

Hello,

My son applied to the IB program this year he is really nervous because he didn't finish the application test, but he has straight A's, and he is fluent in spanish and is taking spanish 3 because his middle school doesn't offer french or chinese. He thinks that he will not make it because he is in algebra I and most of the applicants are in algebra II/ geometry. Does anyone have kids enrolled in the magnet program? Did any of your kids apply? Is the math placement that important?

[Anonymous]

My daughter's in the IB program at RM; as a freshman, she, like about 1/3 of her class, took Geometry (having taken Algebra I in 8th Grade); the majority of her class started in Algebra II or (a smaller number than those starting with Geometry) in PreCalculus. In other words, your son should not fret about his math level because it won't have any impact on whether he's admitted to the program, and if he is, there will be at least enough fellow magnet students to fill a Geometry class.

Your son also shouldn't worry about not finishing the application test because, assuming he completed a significant portion of the test, it's more important that he answered the questions correctly -- for example, if the median score of accepted students turns out to be 35 correct answers out of 50 questions, it won't matter if he arrived at the "magic number" by answering 35 of 35 questions correctly versus answering 35 of 50 questions correctly; or, if he doesn't hit the "magic number" he may be looked at more favorably (for admission or the waitpool) if he were to have answered 34 of 35 questions correctly versus another applicant also getting 34 but who attempted all 50 questions (and so would end up with a significantly lower correct-to-incorrect percentage score (68%) than your son's (97%)).

Best wishes for your son's acceptance into the program -- he sounds like a very strong applicant but so all the other hundreds applying . . . so getting into RM is a crap shoot for everybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's in the IB program at RM; as a freshman, she, like about 1/3 of her class, took Geometry (having taken Algebra I in 8th Grade); the majority of her class started in Algebra II or (a smaller number than those starting with Geometry) in PreCalculus. In other words, your son should not fret about his math level because it won't have any impact on whether he's admitted to the program, and if he is, there will be at least enough fellow magnet students to fill a Geometry class.

Your son also shouldn't worry about not finishing the application test because, assuming he completed a significant portion of the test, it's more important that he answered the questions correctly -- for example, if the median score of accepted students turns out to be 35 correct answers out of 50 questions, it won't matter if he arrived at the "magic number" by answering 35 of 35 questions correctly versus answering 35 of 50 questions correctly; or, if he doesn't hit the "magic number" he may be looked at more favorably (for admission or the waitpool) if he were to have answered 34 of 35 questions correctly versus another applicant also getting 34 but who attempted all 50 questions (and so would end up with a significantly lower correct-to-incorrect percentage score (68%) than your son's (97%)).

Best wishes for your son's acceptance into the program -- he sounds like a very strong applicant but so all the other hundreds applying . . . so getting into RM is a crap shoot for everybody.

Thank you so much this is just what I needed.