Why w school students not preferred in Blair magnet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no racial or gender consideration. Those are illegal. Extracurriculars are not considered, except insofar as they are mentioned in the recommendation process.

Just stop. You are embarrassing yourself here. You want to think the standards are lower for Blacks/Latinos, or that girls have a better shot, but those are not factors under consideration.

Why is it so hard to believe that, in one of the highest educated counties in the country, there were kids who were slightly more impressive than your own child?

Do you really believe there is no racial or gender bias in this county/ country? Then you are fooling yourself. It starts from the school level and doesn't end all through your professional/ working life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no racial or gender consideration. Those are illegal. Extracurriculars are not considered, except insofar as they are mentioned in the recommendation process.

Just stop. You are embarrassing yourself here. You want to think the standards are lower for Blacks/Latinos, or that girls have a better shot, but those are not factors under consideration.

Why is it so hard to believe that, in one of the highest educated counties in the country, there were kids who were slightly more impressive than your own child?

Do you really believe there is no racial or gender bias in this county/ country? Then you are fooling yourself. It starts from the school level and doesn't end all through your professional/ working life.

PP is not saying that there is no racial or gender bias. PP is saying that MCPS does not explicitly consider race or gender in its decisions about magnet admissions.

[Anonymous]

OP - I know you are not going to believe this but magnets are HARD to get in. No more, no less. And guess what, wait until your kid is ready to apply to colleges, it gets x1000 worse than HS magnet process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC will be in 9th grade in a W high school. Did not make it to Blair SMAC magnet. Talking to others I get a feeling that very few (2 or 3) students from MS made it to Blair though MS is one of the very good schools, with so many bright kids. Why is it that the screening committee would prefer to select a student from non w school area over the one from w school with former having equal or lesser scores? Why is this assumption made that a student from silver spring would benefit more from Blair magnet than the one who would go to Churchill or Walter Johnson or Wooten.

OP, you are basically saying this:

1. My child, in one of the middle schools in Bethesda or Potomac, was not accepted to the Blair SMAC magnet.
2. Only a few children in that middle school were accepted.
3. There are a lot of smart children in that middle school.
4. Therefore the Blair magnet admissions are biased against children from middle schools in Bethesda or Potomac.

+1

Plus, many or most Whitman parents think Whitman is so good that it doesn't make sense to send their kid to Blair.

+2 Here's the thing folks may not know about Silver Spring, Kensington, Takoma Park, and other places on the eastern side of the county - there are A TON of college professors, NIH and other government scientists, public and private school teachers, etc. We care about our children's education as much as you do. We help our kids achieve their potential as much as you do.

Your kids are not smarter or more motivated by virtue of attending a "W" school. You just need to accept that your child, like many other kids, was beaten fair and square. There's no conspiracy. Very few kids make the cut, and yours didn't. Be glad you have a good program to fall back on.

This - this is WHY you bought a house in a W Cluster so you WOULDN'T depend on getting into a magnet for a good education. Don't bitch when your kid is going to get a better education than 98% of the kids in U.S. public schools. It's unseemly and ungracious.

OP here. Exactly that us my point. When a student from so called 'W' has performed way and beyond all through the seventh plus first sem eighth grade, very good recommendations not only from home school but from others too, has shown excellence not online in academics, and did not make in the first 100, but is still under consideration, the factors that weigh in are - is this student going to be ok in home school which is consider done of the very good high schools in mont county or another student with an equally good record or even a little less but from a home school which does not have a good rating in the county should be considered if there are any slots that might open up. This is first hand experience of parents who are NIH / govt/ DC officials with high education and from the neighborhood boundaries of Kensington/ Silver spring/ north Bethesda regions of this county. My point is that why there is a regional/high school bias on selection of kids to STEM program of magnet schools. Why the merit can not be determined based only on the magnet test score and /or the combined report card of sixth and seventh grade. Why to bring in race/ region/ gender/extra curricular activities/ other certifications and even the recommendations to determine the top 100. Why the county doesn't assign some slots for sports/ race/ school boundary based categories apart from the top 100 to bring diversity. How magnet is a magnet if so many other factors that the academic merit decides who gets in.

OK, OP, you are correct. When they assign spots they do consider will child be fine or not in home school if not selected. THis is not on the paper, but it is "official" and I have heard it several times from teachers who participated in selection. You child is fine, and will be fine. My understanding he/she is on waitlist, and still has hope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC will be in 9th grade in a W high school. Did not make it to Blair SMAC magnet. Talking to others I get a feeling that very few (2 or 3) students from MS made it to Blair though MS is one of the very good schools, with so many bright kids. Why is it that the screening committee would prefer to select a student from non w school area over the one from w school with former having equal or lesser scores? Why is this assumption made that a student from silver spring would benefit more from Blair magnet than the one who would go to Churchill or Walter Johnson or Wooten.

OP, you are basically saying this:

1. My child, in one of the middle schools in Bethesda or Potomac, was not accepted to the Blair SMAC magnet.
2. Only a few children in that middle school were accepted.
3. There are a lot of smart children in that middle school.
4. Therefore the Blair magnet admissions are biased against children from middle schools in Bethesda or Potomac.

+1

Plus, many or most Whitman parents think Whitman is so good that it doesn't make sense to send their kid to Blair.

+2 Here's the thing folks may not know about Silver Spring, Kensington, Takoma Park, and other places on the eastern side of the county - there are A TON of college professors, NIH and other government scientists, public and private school teachers, etc. We care about our children's education as much as you do. We help our kids achieve their potential as much as you do.

Your kids are not smarter or more motivated by virtue of attending a "W" school. You just need to accept that your child, like many other kids, was beaten fair and square. There's no conspiracy. Very few kids make the cut, and yours didn't. Be glad you have a good program to fall back on.

This - this is WHY you bought a house in a W Cluster so you WOULDN'T depend on getting into a magnet for a good education. Don't bitch when your kid is going to get a better education than 98% of the kids in U.S. public schools. It's unseemly and ungracious.

OP here. Exactly that us my point. When a student from so called 'W' has performed way and beyond all through the seventh plus first sem eighth grade, very good recommendations not only from home school but from others too, has shown excellence not online in academics, and did not make in the first 100, but is still under consideration, the factors that weigh in are - is this student going to be ok in home school which is consider done of the very good high schools in mont county or another student with an equally good record or even a little less but from a home school which does not have a good rating in the county should be considered if there are any slots that might open up. This is first hand experience of parents who are NIH / govt/ DC officials with high education and from the neighborhood boundaries of Kensington/ Silver spring/ north Bethesda regions of this county. My point is that why there is a regional/high school bias on selection of kids to STEM program of magnet schools. Why the merit can not be determined based only on the magnet test score and /or the combined report card of sixth and seventh grade. Why to bring in race/ region/ gender/extra curricular activities/ other certifications and even the recommendations to determine the top 100. Why the county doesn't assign some slots for sports/ race/ school boundary based categories apart from the top 100 to bring diversity. How magnet is a magnet if so many other factors that the academic merit decides who gets in.

OK, OP, you are correct. When they assign spots they do consider will child be fine or not in home school if not selected. THis is not on the paper, but it is "official" and I have heard it several times from teachers who participated in selection. You child is fine, and will be fine. My understanding he/she is on waitlist, and still has hope.

OP is not correct. I am close to someone who serves on the selection committee every year, and these factors play zero role in the admissions. Zero.

[Anonymous]

How would anybody even assess this anyway?

[Anonymous]

OP - are you having issues because you smart kiddo couldn't get in? And you think the reason for his rejection is because he is from a W school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The W's are Winston (Churchill), Walter (Johnson), Walt Whitman, and (Thomas) Wootton.

I haven't heard of Winston HS or Walter HS. Where are they?

While no one calls Wootton by its full name, Walter Johnson is always called by its full name, and Whitman and Churchill are called by their full names at least 1/3 of the time.

Contrary to popular belief the Ws are not a creation of DCUM. My DC played sports and every preseason we had something called the "Ws Playday", which was a series of scrimmages among the 4 schools. These 4 plus BCC tend to have more rivalries with each other in sports, primarily due to proximity and strength in comparable sports. I have heard the Ws used by others at school, definitely by people who have not heard it from DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The W's are Winston (Churchill), Walter (Johnson), Walt Whitman, and (Thomas) Wootton.

I haven't heard of Winston HS or Walter HS. Where are they?

While no one calls Wootton by its full name, Walter Johnson is always called by its full name, and Whitman and Churchill are called by their full names at least 1/3 of the time.

Contrary to popular belief the Ws are not a creation of DCUM. My DC played sports and every preseason we had something called the "Ws Playday", which was a series of scrimmages among the 4 schools. These 4 plus BCC tend to have more rivalries with each other in sports, primarily due to proximity and strength in comparable sports. I have heard the Ws used by others at school, definitely by people who have not heard it from DCUM.

Then I must only be hearing the other 2/3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The W's are Winston (Churchill), Walter (Johnson), Walt Whitman, and (Thomas) Wootton.

I haven't heard of Winston HS or Walter HS. Where are they?

While no one calls Wootton by its full name, Walter Johnson is always called by its full name, and Whitman and Churchill are called by their full names at least 1/3 of the time.

Contrary to popular belief the Ws are not a creation of DCUM. My DC played sports and every preseason we had something called the "Ws Playday", which was a series of scrimmages among the 4 schools. These 4 plus BCC tend to have more rivalries with each other in sports, primarily due to proximity and strength in comparable sports. I have heard the Ws used by others at school, definitely by people who have not heard it from DCUM.

Then I must only be hearing the other 2/3.

You mean like "..itman" and "..rchill"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You mean like "..itman" and "..rchill"?

No, like "Whitman" (which starts with a W) and "Churchill" (which starts with a C).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - are you having issues because you smart kiddo couldn't get in? And you think the reason for his rejection is because he is from a W school?

The discussion is not about my kiddo, or anybody's kiddo. The discussion is a general one like any other discussion on this forum you dumbo. All these kids, snowflakes or not, waitlisted or selected or rejected will be perfectly fine and achieve what they will strive for, passing all the hurdles presented to then, because they are all smart. Q in discussion is about the system, the protocol that is used to select or reject these kids from certain programs.

[Anonymous]

According to MCPS, the W high schools are Watkins Mill, Wheaton, Whitman (Walt), and Wootton (Thomas S.).

Churchill (Winston) is a C high school, along with Clarksburg.

Blair (Montgomery) is actually a B high school, not an M school. The other B schools are Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Blake (James Hubert). The M high schools are Magruder (Col. Zadok) and Montgomery (Richard).

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/globalContent/documents/List-Of-Schools.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - are you having issues because you smart kiddo couldn't get in? And you think the reason for his rejection is because he is from a W school?

The discussion is not about my kiddo, or anybody's kiddo. The discussion is a general one like any other discussion on this forum you dumbo. All these kids, snowflakes or not, waitlisted or selected or rejected will be perfectly fine and achieve what they will strive for, passing all the hurdles presented to then, because they are all smart. Q in discussion is about the system, the protocol that is used to select or reject these kids from certain programs.

True but yours was rejected, right?

- dumbo

[Anonymous]

Perhaps because there are plenty of smart and capable students at non-W schools. I know, OP, it's a tough thing for a one-percenter in MoCo to wrap her mind around.