Magnet Middle School Thread: MAP scores and results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS to 98 percent is 90 percent in MCPS. We are such a large district we have to revert towards mean.

Agree. MCPS and national averages are only apart by one percentage point as stated on the MAP report. But my bigger issue is that people peg so much on a particular MAP score when 1) they correlate to SES, 2) fall MAP scores are suspect due to kids having taken them at home over zoom, and 3) their reliability is tainted by tutors, outside classes and other such exposures. Outlier scores are suspect because MAP tests knowledge, not potential.

They used to publish a bar graph with the MAP scores that compared county to national mean. MCPS was always about 3% higher. So 98% would be more like 95% if the data that MCPS published was accurate.

That sounds a lot like 99% national on the CogAT being in the range from 97%-99% for MCPS.

For the CogAT 98% National was more like 92%-95% MCPS.

No, the CogAT 98% National was 92-95% of the selected MCPS students who took the test, who had already been screened before being invited to test. You're not comparing the same types of pools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know what everyone's yammering on about. It's been established several times already that the magnet cutoffs were higher in previous years. Sheesh.

I don't think there's a hardline but 240 being tossed around seems about right for the STEM magnet and a bit lower for the Humanities. In past years it seemed much higher.

In past years the pool was about the same the difference was how selection worked. Other years students were selected from the pool based on their scores relative to their home ms cohort This year they used a random lottery.

This is the key detail that people are missing and explains why one kid with 248 gets in while others with 270 and 280+ don't. They determined who they believed were good candidates and put them in a pool. They did not want to split hairs and just picked randomly from the pool. This is exactly what they said they would do this year. It isn't complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know what everyone's yammering on about. It's been established several times already that the magnet cutoffs were higher in previous years. Sheesh.

I don't think there's a hardline but 240 being tossed around seems about right for the STEM magnet and a bit lower for the Humanities. In past years it seemed much higher.

In past years the pool was about the same the difference was how selection worked. Other years students were selected from the pool based on their scores relative to their home ms cohort This year they used a random lottery.

This is the key detail that people are missing and explains why one kid with 248 gets in while others with 270 and 280+ don't. They determined who they believed were good candidates and put them in a pool. They did not want to split hairs and just picked randomly from the pool. This is exactly what they said they would do this year. It isn't complicated.

Did they use the home school cohort only for CES or was it also used for MS selective magnets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know what everyone's yammering on about. It's been established several times already that the magnet cutoffs were higher in previous years. Sheesh.

I don't think there's a hardline but 240 being tossed around seems about right for the STEM magnet and a bit lower for the Humanities. In past years it seemed much higher.

In past years the pool was about the same the difference was how selection worked. Other years students were selected from the pool based on their scores relative to their home ms cohort This year they used a random lottery.

This is the key detail that people are missing and explains why one kid with 248 gets in while others with 270 and 280+ don't. They determined who they believed were good candidates and put them in a pool. They did not want to split hairs and just picked randomly from the pool. This is exactly what they said they would do this year. It isn't complicated.

Did they use the home school cohort only for CES or was it also used for MS selective magnets?

No one knows for sure but if I had to wager, I'd guess each home MS was allotted a number of seats that were filled by a random pool draw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS to 98 percent is 90 percent in MCPS. We are such a large district we have to revert towards mean.

Agree. MCPS and national averages are only apart by one percentage point as stated on the MAP report. But my bigger issue is that people peg so much on a particular MAP score when 1) they correlate to SES, 2) fall MAP scores are suspect due to kids having taken them at home over zoom, and 3) their reliability is tainted by tutors, outside classes and other such exposures. Outlier scores are suspect because MAP tests knowledge, not potential.

They used to publish a bar graph with the MAP scores that compared county to national mean. MCPS was always about 3% higher. So 98% would be more like 95% if the data that MCPS published was accurate.

That sounds a lot like 99% national on the CogAT being in the range from 97%-99% for MCPS.

For the CogAT 98% National was more like 92%-95% MCPS.

No, the CogAT 98% National was 92-95% of the selected MCPS students who took the test, who had already been screened before being invited to test. You're not comparing the same types of pools.

Regardless, it aligns with the data that MCPS published showing that their mean was a few points higher than the national percentile.

[Anonymous]

Everyone can debate about it but its pretty pointless as MCPS will do what they want. My kid got 250's and his middle school was surprised he wasn't even in pool for one school and waitlisted another. There is no rhyme or reason but thankfully they provide higher level math. You really need to look at the programs. We were waitlisted for Eastern but it really only gave one additional class but that meant my child couldn't do an elective they wanted which was really disappointing if they choose a foreign language. So, while you get a similar cohort, you also lose electives, like foreign language or arts.

MCPS should provide regular and real honors classes at each MS and HS for the rest of our kids. But, they don't so not much you can do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone can debate about it but its pretty pointless as MCPS will do what they want. My kid got 250's and his middle school was surprised he wasn't even in pool for one school and waitlisted another. There is no rhyme or reason but thankfully they provide higher level math. You really need to look at the programs. We were waitlisted for Eastern but it really only gave one additional class but that meant my child couldn't do an elective they wanted which was really disappointing if they choose a foreign language. So, while you get a similar cohort, you also lose electives, like foreign language or arts.

MCPS should provide regular and real honors classes at each MS and HS for the rest of our kids. But, they don't so not much you can do.

That's the nature of random pool draw. Once in the pool for your home MS cohort it had nothing to do with your kid's scores. The data provided on this thread supports this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[
This is the key detail that people are missing and explains why one kid with 248 gets in while others with 270 and 280+ don't. They determined who they believed were good candidates and put them in a pool. They did not want to split hairs and just picked randomly from the pool. This is exactly what they said they would do this year. It isn't complicated.

Did they use the home school cohort only for CES or was it also used for MS selective magnets?

No one knows for sure but if I had to wager, I'd guess each home MS was allotted a number of seats that were filled by a random pool draw.

This makes sense. Also would help equalize across county for schools where tutoring is widespread.

[Anonymous]

This makes sense. Also would help equalize across county for schools where tutoring is widespread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't know what everyone's yammering on about. It's been established several times already that the magnet cutoffs were higher in previous years. Sheesh.

I don't think there's a hardline but 240 being tossed around seems about right for the STEM magnet and a bit lower for the Humanities. In past years it seemed much higher.

In past years the pool was about the same the difference was how selection worked. Other years students were selected from the pool based on their scores relative to their home ms cohort This year they used a random lottery.

This is the key detail that people are missing and explains why one kid with 248 gets in while others with 270 and 280+ don't. They determined who they believed were good candidates and put them in a pool. They did not want to split hairs and just picked randomly from the pool. This is exactly what they said they would do this year. It isn't complicated.

Also 280 and 248 are both 99%. In the past I've read some claim they only looked at the percentage and not the score. That could also be a key detail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone can debate about it but its pretty pointless as MCPS will do what they want. My kid got 250's and his middle school was surprised he wasn't even in pool for one school and waitlisted another. There is no rhyme or reason but thankfully they provide higher level math. You really need to look at the programs. We were waitlisted for Eastern but it really only gave one additional class but that meant my child couldn't do an elective they wanted which was really disappointing if they choose a foreign language. So, while you get a similar cohort, you also lose electives, like foreign language or arts.

MCPS should provide regular and real honors classes at each MS and HS for the rest of our kids. But, they don't so not much you can do.

That's the nature of random pool draw. Once in the pool for your home MS cohort it had nothing to do with your kid's scores. The data provided on this thread supports this.

Except there isn't much of a cohort at our MS. Maybe a dozen kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This makes sense. Also would help equalize across county for schools where tutoring is widespread.

We have always supplemented. Nothing wrong with getting tutors given how poor MCPS curriculum has been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS to 98 percent is 90 percent in MCPS. We are such a large district we have to revert towards mean.

You get MCPS scores and National scores in your Map reports. We all know there is a few percentage point difference with MCPS scores being higher.
If you have a child in 5th last year you got MCPS scores for your SES and national scores for Cogat. There is a huge gap between MCPS scores and national percentiles in the highest SES group. DC was 99th percentile nationally but only 95th in MCPS for that group. A friend had 98th percentile scores and I think her parent said it was 90th for MCPS for that group.

Remember that not all 5th graders took the CogAT last year, so the MCPS percentiles were skewed; students were invited to test after a universal review of grades, MAP, etc. If only the top 25% or so of students took the test, then a student that might have been a 99th nationally could still be 98th or 99th in MCPS as a whole, but 95th for that top group of students that tested.

That universal review included about 6k students, so more than half.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS to 98 percent is 90 percent in MCPS. We are such a large district we have to revert towards mean.

You get MCPS scores and National scores in your Map reports. We all know there is a few percentage point difference with MCPS scores being higher.
If you have a child in 5th last year you got MCPS scores for your SES and national scores for Cogat. There is a huge gap between MCPS scores and national percentiles in the highest SES group. DC was 99th percentile nationally but only 95th in MCPS for that group. A friend had 98th percentile scores and I think her parent said it was 90th for MCPS for that group.

I'm looking at my child's MAP Progress Report. Can someone tell me where it shows the SES? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

It doesn't show SES. Why and how would they know your income???!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS to 98 percent is 90 percent in MCPS. We are such a large district we have to revert towards mean.

You get MCPS scores and National scores in your Map reports. We all know there is a few percentage point difference with MCPS scores being higher.
If you have a child in 5th last year you got MCPS scores for your SES and national scores for Cogat. There is a huge gap between MCPS scores and national percentiles in the highest SES group. DC was 99th percentile nationally but only 95th in MCPS for that group. A friend had 98th percentile scores and I think her parent said it was 90th for MCPS for that group.

I'm looking at my child's MAP Progress Report. Can someone tell me where it shows the SES? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

It doesn't show SES. Why and how would they know your income???!

There seem to be a couple of misconceptions here.

For the past few years, when kids have taken the CogAT for CES and MS magnet admissions, MCPS has reported the raw score as well as two different percentiles - the national percentile and the "MCPS percentile." The MCPS percentiles showed how your child's scores compared to the scores of kids attending MCPS schools with similar SES profiles (not kids whose families have similar SES profiles to yours). They don't specifically tell you which SES band your school is in, and no one knows exactly how the schools are grouped. The best guess I heard is that the three groups are Title I, Focus, and everyone else. The MCPS percentile is the one used for admission to ES and MS selective programs. This process did not happen this year because CogAT was not administered.

The MCPS percentile has never been calculated for MAP tests, although the MAP report will show both the national and district averages for your child's grade level.