Best HS Math Magnet Program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you should buy/rent in Wootton and then apply to Blair. You could do this at Churchill too but I've heard that Churchill is not as math focused. Wootton is the largest feeder cluster to Blair SMAC. Wootton kids don't seem to be afraid to travel to Blair like Churchill kids so if he gets in he'll have peers from Wootton.

There is preferential admission to the middle school magnet but at least so far the high school magnet is still merit based. You'd have an equal chance getting in from any eligible school. If this changes then you want to be in the very worst cluster - Kennedy, Wheaton, Einstein, Gaithersburg High School etc where you would have very little competition.

PP, your info is a little out-of-date. The high school magnet is changing this year. Peer-cohort will be considered in admission.

Do you have a linK for that? It has come up on DCUM before and the only thing people have found is that there will be universal screening and they are expanding the number of IB magnet seats. Unless you can provide a link, please do not spread rumors.

I disagree. Rumors are what I come to DCUM for. Once it's on the MCPS websites, we can just find the info here. Here is where people can report what they heard in the school orientation sessions, in conversation with an administrator, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

The regular math program at W and other MCPS high schools does not compare to the one in Blair. Apples and oranges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

The regular math program at W and other MCPS high schools does not compare to the one in Blair. Apples and oranges.

Nah, more like McIntoshes and Honeycrisps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

The regular math program at W and other MCPS high schools does not compare to the one in Blair. Apples and oranges.

Nah, more like McIntoshes and Honeycrisps.

I have one kid at Whitman and another who graduated from the Blair magnet last year.

There is no comparison. None.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

The regular math program at W and other MCPS high schools does not compare to the one in Blair. Apples and oranges.

Nah, more like McIntoshes and Honeycrisps.

I have one kid at Whitman and another who graduated from the Blair magnet last year.

There is no comparison. None.

Yah one is in a good school and the other is a fancy class put in Blair to prop it up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

The regular math program at W and other MCPS high schools does not compare to the one in Blair. Apples and oranges.

Nah, more like McIntoshes and Honeycrisps.

I have one kid at Whitman and another who graduated from the Blair magnet last year.

There is no comparison. None.

Yah one is in a good school and the other is a fancy class put in Blair to prop it up

A fancy class? You are not very up on the program. I have to say I have a child at Blair and one at our neighborhood school. We are impressed by lots of things at Blair, PTA, activities, parent involvement. Our child does a sport and we have met lots of neighborhood families through that...a really committed involved group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

Here is a profile for Wooton. SAT mean math score is 633
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/woottonhs/counseling/school-profile-updated-2016.pdf

Blair’s mean math score for the entire class is 576
https://mbhs.edu/departments/counseling/BlairProfile.pdf
The mean score is for the entire senior class of course (approximately 700 students).
If memory serves me I believe the average Math SAT score for the 100 Blair Magnet students is typically between 780 and 790

Your comparison is simpleminded since the schools have dissimilar demographics. A more granular way to look at this is to examine the scores of the largest demographic common to both schools as a proxy for SES differences that affect these averages.

Wooton's average math SAT score for that group was 627
whereas Blair's average was 659

Scores were taken from page 16 of this report the county released.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

[Anonymous]

Blair accelerates the math by combining classes to speed it up. That may not be great for all kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving next month and DC wants the strongest math program available (High School level). Some parents said Blair, while others said 3W's (topped by Wooton). I've heard a lot of opinions (some not even relevant), but very few facts. Is there any way to look up actual school SAT scores? Or maybe which school had the greatest number of technology institute admissions? Or what advanced math courses are offered?

Here is a profile for Wooton. SAT mean math score is 633
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/woottonhs/counseling/school-profile-updated-2016.pdf

Blair’s mean math score for the entire class is 576
https://mbhs.edu/departments/counseling/BlairProfile.pdf
The mean score is for the entire senior class of course (approximately 700 students).
If memory serves me I believe the average Math SAT score for the 100 Blair Magnet students is typically between 780 and 790

Blair SMACS class of 2027 has averaged SAT math of 781 and reading/writing of 751. TJ average SAT total is around 1528 (according to google). That's a rough apple-to-apple comparison.

Your comparison is simpleminded since the schools have dissimilar demographics. A more granular way to look at this is to examine the scores of the largest demographic common to both schools as a proxy for SES differences that affect these averages.

Wooton's average math SAT score for that group was 627
whereas Blair's average was 659

Scores were taken from page 16 of this report the county released.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2017/1771102HS%20Princ_SAT%20Partic_Perf%20Class%20of%202017.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the point of a magnet if only local kids go? The whole point of the program is to get smart kids from the better parts of town to self desegregate to boost the host school’s local reputation & test scores. Just pandering the the few smart local kids changes noting and just wastes the money the program costs

Well MCPS thinks that didn’t work since magnet programs resulted in full of Asian/white kids. Using the new process (i.e., cohort approach) will ensure more acceptable mix of students.

That was the intended mix all along. Importing black and Hispanic kids to black and Hispanic areas doesn’t help much with desegregation. The programs were intended to be so irresistible to upper middle class families that they would opt into schools they would never otherwise live IB for. By raising the rep of the local school the hope was to prevent white flight of the remaining IB families.

There is a reason there are no magnet schools in Bethesda or Potomac. But what happened with the carrot approach is local poor minorities were left to wonder why they never got carrots (groups that don’t typically garner recruitment initiatives outside of sports) . Can’t win for losing sometimes

The "peer cohort" criteria mostly benefits the white/Asian kids in non W clusters.

If you look at the demographics for the ES/MS magnets where they used peer cohorting, one of the biggest jump was white.

[Anonymous]

This is a 4 year old thread.

[Anonymous]

https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/schools/high-schools/r-w/rmhs/ib/2021-2022-rm-electronic.clubs--9.30.21.docx.pdf

RM profile

Mathematics 648

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a 4 year old thread.

lol.. I never pay attention to the posting date. Where did OP end up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a 4 year old thread.

Noting for the record that FOUR YEARS AGO folks were claiming that changes were coming to high school admissions, based on rumours, and that change never arrived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is the Blair magnet student profile

https://mbhs.edu/departments/magnet/ParentResources/MagnetProfile.pdf

TL;DR: "MCPS refuses to educate its talented and capable students, except for a few anointed to the elite. Please continue tradition by excluding unprivileged students from your college as well. Give last students' eliteness weight in favor of current students"

It's disgusting that MCPS allows an employee to send a letter like that, using Blair's privileged inequality of opportunity as a justification for giving their kids even more privileged inequality in college.