Magnet MS results - Takoma Park & Eastern - anyone heard today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Cold Spring HGC has 20+ students went to either of the magnets in the past years. It's 0 this year. Are you saying that they were all wrongfully identified for HGC as well, none of them is good enough for middle magnet?

When my kids were in an HGC (not Cold Spring), half of the group wasn't admitted to the middle school magnets. One of the teachers told me that was the usual result -- half weren't admitted. Did that make those kids retroactively wrongfully-identified for the HGC as well? How about the kids who were admitted to the middle school magnets but not admitted to the HGCs? Was there wrongful identification there too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Are you saying that in the past decade, the magnet programs have been wrongfully left out the best and the smartest students. All those students that have brought MCPS glory wouldn't have been selected if not because of the laid-back parents of those real top students? My! MCPS's incompetence is beyond me.

We know that they've left out good, smart students who would have been good candidates for the magnet programs. There's no need to be sarcastic about it. Yes, they shouldn't have done that. But now they've identified the problem and are trying to address it. That's a good thing.

Cold Spring HGC has 20+ students went to either of the magnets in the past years. It's 0 this year. Are you saying that they were all wrongfully identified for HGC as well, none of them is good enough for middle magnet?

It's not 0, for crying out loud!! but definitely fewer than before.

Then how many? You don't know. And MCPS won't want you to know. but we'll soon find out after the open house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Cold Spring HGC has 20+ students went to either of the magnets in the past years. It's 0 this year. Are you saying that they were all wrongfully identified for HGC as well, none of them is good enough for middle magnet?

When my kids were in an HGC (not Cold Spring), half of the group wasn't admitted to the middle school magnets. One of the teachers told me that was the usual result -- half weren't admitted. Did that make those kids retroactively wrongfully-identified for the HGC as well? How about the kids who were admitted to the middle school magnets but not admitted to the HGCs? Was there wrongful identification there too?

was there more from HGC or from regular class? If fewer or similar rate to middle magnets from HGC than from regular class, yes, the HGC identification failed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, all you can assume there are too many capable students for the number of slots available. Magnet selection has never been about finding a perfect ranking of the applicants and selecting them solely on that ordering and has never been strictly by test score. If the medians are that high, the selected students had high scores, not across the board perfect scores, but high scores.

Is there even a meaningful difference between a kid with a high 98th-percentile score and a kid with a low 99th-percentile score?

Not really, just a couple of questions on CogAt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, all you can assume there are too many capable students for the number of slots available. Magnet selection has never been about finding a perfect ranking of the applicants and selecting them solely on that ordering and has never been strictly by test score. If the medians are that high, the selected students had high scores, not across the board perfect scores, but high scores.

Is there even a meaningful difference between a kid with a high 98th-percentile score and a kid with a low 99th-percentile score?

I don't know the answer to your question, but I do think there are big differences between the 98% percent kind of kid and the high end of 99% kind of kid, because I have both. And what seems to have happened this year is that the high end of the 99% group was left out -- we can't tell from the COGAT test because we don't have the raw scores, but anecdotally that seems to be what happened, because UMC kids with lower MAP M scores and headed to the same MS are getting in or being waitlisted compared to ones who were excluded.

[Anonymous]

I understand the disappointment of those who feel unfairly excluded, but the expansion of the pool was to eliminate the barrier to entry that only those students/parents "in the know" and with parents who could shepherd kids through essays and write their own essays, too, were able to access these magnet programs.

No selection system is perfect, but the system was not "fair" before - not enough slots, not enough access for ALL students in MCPS.

Channel your anger to fix the problem: Fight for more enriched programming in all MSes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Are you saying that in the past decade, the magnet programs have been wrongfully left out the best and the smartest students. All those students that have brought MCPS glory wouldn't have been selected if not because of the laid-back parents of those real top students? My! MCPS's incompetence is beyond me.

We know that they've left out good, smart students who would have been good candidates for the magnet programs. There's no need to be sarcastic about it. Yes, they shouldn't have done that. But now they've identified the problem and are trying to address it. That's a good thing.

Cold Spring HGC has 20+ students went to either of the magnets in the past years. It's 0 this year. Are you saying that they were all wrongfully identified for HGC as well, none of them is good enough for middle magnet?

It's not 0, for crying out loud!! but definitely fewer than before.

Okay, it's not 0, it's 2. 3% of the kids who got into the most competitive magnet ES in the county versus up to 50% in previous years. Cold Spring is known for its very high-achieving program. Only 2 of those kids deserved MS magnet admission, really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand the disappointment of those who feel unfairly excluded, but the expansion of the pool was to eliminate the barrier to entry that only those students/parents "in the know" and with parents who could shepherd kids through essays and write their own essays, too, were able to access these magnet programs.

No selection system is perfect, but the system was not "fair" before - not enough slots, not enough access for ALL students in MCPS.

Channel your anger to fix the problem: Fight for more enriched programming in all MSes!

I don't think the real anger is because of the rejection. The way MCPS hiding the raw scores kinda suggests that it's not because the rejected have lower end of 99% and the accepted higher end. If MCPS release all the data, and it supports that it's the smartest who were accepted, parents will have to accept the results happy or not. Now it's more like MCPS dictates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess the real question is why MCPS would report the applicant's percentile scores in which 99% covers ~130 - 160 raw scores when they have the raw score. It's unlikely an accident because it had always been the raw score that was reported in the old 3rd grade HGC test which also used Cogat. In the past, the medians of the accepted were also given in the decision letter. Now, it would be three 99%'s, and the accepted or rejected would never know where their standing is in the test. I understand MCPS is trying to tune down the importance of the test or any test, but without clearly listing any criteria that the decision was based upon, one can only guess it was something that can't be openly stated.

I don't have kids applying, but the way MCPS handles it's policy changing and decision making is very worrisome, and many changes such as the elementary grading system in recently years have been deemed failures and had to be rolled back the old way. I don't know if the changes to the magnet programs in the past couple of years will make the programs better? Maybe yes, more likely no. I feel MCPS is so desperate it would try anything randomly. Today it is the magnet programs which is irrelevant to most, tomorrow it might be something that will impact you.

Great point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Okay, it's not 0, it's 2. 3% of the kids who got into the most competitive magnet ES in the county versus up to 50% in previous years. Cold Spring is known for its very high-achieving program. Only 2 of those kids deserved MS magnet admission, really?

According to anonymous posts on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand the disappointment of those who feel unfairly excluded, but the expansion of the pool was to eliminate the barrier to entry that only those students/parents "in the know" and with parents who could shepherd kids through essays and write their own essays, too, were able to access these magnet programs.

No selection system is perfect, but the system was not "fair" before - not enough slots, not enough access for ALL students in MCPS.

Channel your anger to fix the problem: Fight for more enriched programming in all MSes!

I don't think the real anger is because of the rejection. The way MCPS hiding the raw scores kinda suggests that it's not because the rejected have lower end of 99% and the accepted higher end. If MCPS release all the data, and it supports that it's the smartest who were accepted, parents will have to accept the results happy or not. Now it's more like MCPS dictates.

Yes, exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, all you can assume there are too many capable students for the number of slots available. Magnet selection has never been about finding a perfect ranking of the applicants and selecting them solely on that ordering and has never been strictly by test score. If the medians are that high, the selected students had high scores, not across the board perfect scores, but high scores.

Is there even a meaningful difference between a kid with a high 98th-percentile score and a kid with a low 99th-percentile score?

If it's Cogat, the raw scores is more differenciating. My HGC students 2 years ago had 141/132/158. It'll be all 99% in percentiles. MCPS should have the raw scores, but they chose to use percentile scores instead and everyone's scores look very similar. Why? you can only guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Okay, it's not 0, it's 2. 3% of the kids who got into the most competitive magnet ES in the county versus up to 50% in previous years. Cold Spring is known for its very high-achieving program. Only 2 of those kids deserved MS magnet admission, really?

According to anonymous posts on DCUM.

you wanna bet?

[Anonymous]

After reading these posts, I now understand why there are about 5 testing and tutoring centers within a mile radius of the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, all you can assume there are too many capable students for the number of slots available. Magnet selection has never been about finding a perfect ranking of the applicants and selecting them solely on that ordering and has never been strictly by test score. If the medians are that high, the selected students had high scores, not across the board perfect scores, but high scores.

Is there even a meaningful difference between a kid with a high 98th-percentile score and a kid with a low 99th-percentile score?

If it's Cogat, the raw scores is more differenciating. My HGC students 2 years ago had 141/132/158. It'll be all 99% in percentiles. MCPS should have the raw scores, but they chose to use percentile scores instead and everyone's scores look very similar. Why? you can only guess.

Why? Apparently they cannot tell you the raw score nor raw median score this year. That gives them no reason to reject almost all HGC kids in W clusters