Montgomery Blair HS- Why are the college acceptance rates so terrible?

[Anonymous]

And every year the counselors send out notices begging kids to say where they were accepted. The counselors know who they wrote recommendations for and to where. If it was an early decision app they probably know if the kid was accepted because the counselor has to pull the kid's other apps and/or not bother sending recs for the kid's January regular decision apps. They may or may not know that Johnny will matriculate at Amherst, because they have no way to compel Johnny to tell them. Johnny has even less incentive to tell them be also got into UVA and UConn but is turning those down. As I said, they send out reminders for this info, but all they can't make kids provide it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would imagine there are mroe families at the W schools are are wrapped up in these stats enough to make sure their kids' information gets reported. I can see lots of folks at Blair not bothering to report, because they are not so hung up on these competitive comparisons.

I'm a Whitman parent and I can assure you that this is not the case. I assume this data comes out of Naviance, which is run by the college counseling office. Parents have no role in updating it, reporting it or whatever. The schools know where the applications are going because they send all the transcripts and recommendations.

Do the schools also get notified about which schools end up accepting the students?

They must -- don't colleges require final transcript and proof of degree? I assume a student only requests that be sent to the college he/she's actually planning on attending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The magazine doesn't list matriculation rates, just acceptances (as reported by the schools.) I don't know much about Blair, but I always thought the discrepancy was simply related to the small relative size of the magnets there as compared to the regular student body. I assume (maybe wrongly) that Blair magnet kids do very well in competitive college admission but that the overall student body does less well than other area schools (also maybe a wrong asumption, although the Bethesda mag stats seem to bear it out.)

Also consider that the Bethesda mag stats besides being subject to the vagaries of self reporting, also only include the. Ounty's most competititive HD - the Ws and BCC.

Just an FYI as posted to our school listserve today. Apparently the Sept/October lists are wrong:

Dear MCPS high school principals and counselors:

We at Bethesda Magazine were deeply chagrined to learn today that the headings for our annual college chart were inadvertently switched in our September/October issue. Because of that, the information provided by your schools was listed under the wrong high school. We know how popular this chart is with our readers, and how much effort you all put into providing us with the information. So please accept our deepest apologies.

We'll be putting the corrected chart on our website and rerunning the corrected chart in our November/December print issue.
Again, please accept our apologies.
Best,

Lisa Shroder
Editor
Bethesda Magazine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The magazine doesn't list matriculation rates, just acceptances (as reported by the schools.) I don't know much about Blair, but I always thought the discrepancy was simply related to the small relative size of the magnets there as compared to the regular student body. I assume (maybe wrongly) that Blair magnet kids do very well in competitive college admission but that the overall student body does less well than other area schools (also maybe a wrong asumption, although the Bethesda mag stats seem to bear it out.)

Also consider that the Bethesda mag stats besides being subject to the vagaries of self reporting, also only include the. Ounty's most competititive HD - the Ws and BCC.

Just an FYI as posted to our school listserve today. Apparently the Sept/October lists are wrong:

Dear MCPS high school principals and counselors:

We at Bethesda Magazine were deeply chagrined to learn today that the headings for our annual college chart were inadvertently switched in our September/October issue. Because of that, the information provided by your schools was listed under the wrong high school. We know how popular this chart is with our readers, and how much effort you all put into providing us with the information. So please accept our deepest apologies.

We'll be putting the corrected chart on our website and rerunning the corrected chart in our November/December print issue.
Again, please accept our apologies.
Best,

Lisa Shroder
Editor
Bethesda Magazine

This is hilarious. All this angst! We should just ignore these stupid magazine lists.

[Anonymous]

LOL!

[Anonymous]

I don't see it up on the website yet but I will certainly be on the look out. Hopefully it will be accurate this time.

[Anonymous]

More kids from Blair got in HYP if you look at the website than the 4 Ws.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what the data from other magnet programs look like.

[Anonymous]

Here's the link to the corrected data: http://bethesdamagazine.com/College_Chart.pdf

It looks like Blair did better than the Ws for many colleges. Go figure!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the link to the corrected data: http://bethesdamagazine.com/College_Chart.pdf

It looks like Blair did better than the Ws for many colleges. Go figure!

Yes, and had good (relatively) acceptance for MIT etc. Plus the Blair kids aimed high -- lots of apps to Ivy and other highly ranked colleges.

[Anonymous]

That's great! I was the OP and my post was about the 2011 data.

[Anonymous]

Wow, so the major criteria on which high schools should be judged (prepping kids for strong college acceptance) shows that basically all MCPS high schools are VERY similar. I'm not totally surprised, but I suspects much angst will be had in certain parts of Bethesda and Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so the major criteria on which high schools should be judged (prepping kids for strong college acceptance) shows that basically all MCPS high schools are VERY similar. I'm not totally surprised, but I suspects much angst will be had in certain parts of Bethesda and Potomac.

To be fair, this table just shows 5 MCPS high schools, and these are the ones that are generally considered among the best. Except for dark horse Blair, which despite the magnets seems to be surprising people here.

[Anonymous]

I've heard it said that it might be easier to get in from a school where fewer students are applying to top schools. Is that true?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard it said that it might be easier to get in from a school where fewer students are applying to top schools. Is that true?

Possibly but it you look at Blair, lots of kids are applying to top schools, in some cases more than the W schools.