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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

You clearly haven’t followed the process for admission to these two magnets this year. The test was a secret, so no one could prep. The director even said several times during the parent meeting that there would be no math component, which turned out to be completely false.

It was only a secret for the group that tested in December. Word got out quickly that it was Cogat and rushed to test prep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


MCPS should hire you as their PR, they probably don't even know how to explain to the shocking parents. Is it really so hard to state in the rejection letter that " although your kid show strength in this and that test, but she/he lacks this/ that to meet the selection criterion...". It's certainly much easier for MCPS if parents accept whatever they get and never make a fuss. However, you really don't know what you'll get until you make a fuss. The crying baby gets the milk, that's the rule here.

How many students applied? 3,000?

Your kid's college rejection letters (if your kid gets any) won't have this information either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody ever said COGAT scores, or even grades, were the primary criteria for admission. They gave a whole list of factors they were considering, and explicitly said that no one factor weighed more strongly than the others.

It sounds like they're assuming that kids who already show consistently high scores and perfect grades in all areas will be OK in a traditional academic environment. That these kids will always be at the top of their class, one way or another—whether it's a challenge for them to get there or not.

It sounds like they were looking for kids with super-high scores in one area, and more "garden-variety gifted" in the others. Or kids whose test scores were much higher than their home-school environment might predict. In other words, kids whose talents might otherwise get lost in the shuffle in a more traditional type of program, or in their particular home school.

Sure, the 99%-and-perfect-grades kids would benefit, too, no doubt about that. But with only 200 spots, they chose a different focus this year. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, good or bad, so don't yell at me; but that's what it seems they've done.

But the point is, it was *never* stated that the highest test scores across the board would get in. Maybe that was the case in the past, and everyone assumed it would still be the case; and maybe that's the way it should really be. But that doesn't mean they cheated anyone this year, or that it's "fishy," as one poster put it. It's just...different.

It actually wasn't the case in the past. That's why I don't understand all the complaining. It has never been just about test scores.

Then tell what you think causes the difference from last year to this year: Cold Spring HGC admission 25 last year to 2 this year. And very similar thing happened to at least Oakview and Barney HGC as well as reported in this thread. Not offensive but just try to see what peoples' opinion on interpreting such a huge difference.

Strongest out of 800 vs. out of 4000. My math is weak but...

Others point to new test, no essay, different test approach to math.

Oh and DCUM old posts show 12 from Cold Spring in 2015, why no statistical crisis that it doubled to 25 in two years?

[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.

Exactly. If they are not providing raw scores for each section and the median score it definitely looks like they are rejecting high scoring kids based on where they live
I think we need to demand a third middle school magnet for the south western part of the county.
Middle school “honors “ classes are just not going to cut it for many of the kids who might have been rejected because of affirmative action

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody ever said COGAT scores, or even grades, were the primary criteria for admission. They gave a whole list of factors they were considering, and explicitly said that no one factor weighed more strongly than the others.

It sounds like they're assuming that kids who already show consistently high scores and perfect grades in all areas will be OK in a traditional academic environment. That these kids will always be at the top of their class, one way or another—whether it's a challenge for them to get there or not.

It sounds like they were looking for kids with super-high scores in one area, and more "garden-variety gifted" in the others. Or kids whose test scores were much higher than their home-school environment might predict. In other words, kids whose talents might otherwise get lost in the shuffle in a more traditional type of program, or in their particular home school.

Sure, the 99%-and-perfect-grades kids would benefit, too, no doubt about that. But with only 200 spots, they chose a different focus this year. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, good or bad, so don't yell at me; but that's what it seems they've done.

But the point is, it was *never* stated that the highest test scores across the board would get in. Maybe that was the case in the past, and everyone assumed it would still be the case; and maybe that's the way it should really be. But that doesn't mean they cheated anyone this year, or that it's "fishy," as one poster put it. It's just...different.

It actually wasn't the case in the past. That's why I don't understand all the complaining. It has never been just about test scores.

Then tell what you think causes the difference from last year to this year: Cold Spring HGC admission 25 last year to 2 this year. And very similar thing happened to at least Oakview and Barney HGC as well as reported in this thread. Not offensive but just try to see what peoples' opinion on interpreting such a huge difference.

Strongest out of 800 vs. out of 4000. My math is weak but...

Others point to new test, no essay, different test approach to math.

Oh and DCUM old posts show 12 from Cold Spring in 2015, why no statistical crisis that it doubled to 25 in two years?

Because 12 was a "low" year. 25 +/- 5 has been pretty standard admit rate for years, including the past two years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, mcps doubled the applicant pool by identifying kids who should be applying to the magnets. As a result, making admission that much more elusive.

Unfortunately, they did not stop at that. In addition they also added a peer group criterion in their evaluation, and as a result, admission was even *more* elusive for some kids.

Folks, they have ALWAYS had a peer-group at home school component to the selection; I was told this by MCPS a number of years ago when oldest child was applying. They have just made it more formal maybe this year.

+1 The peer group question has always been in play, but what MCPS did this year was remove the other element, which was parents gaming the system by prepping, and/or "editing" the essay.

Not true - MCPS may have intended to use it (or may have even used for occasional tie breaking) but never a wholesale rejection of this scale.

I heard some rumors a few months ago about MCPS intending to do "cluster grouping" and making some magnet curriculum material available to the other clusters where there was a critical mass. I hope the second part also turns out to be true. The magnet curriculum needs to be widely available and not just in one school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Because 12 was a "low" year. 25 +/- 5 has been pretty standard admit rate for years, including the past two years.

Was there soul-searching, recrimination, and conspiracy-theorizing that anomalous year?

[Anonymous]

Can someone spell it out for non-gifted me? 3% of all 5th graders in the relevant areas get in? 7%? 10?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can call AEI for median percentiles for pool, and median for accepted students at each program. I was trying to get Cogat scores for an application to another program, but they would not release over the phone.

Median percentiles of accepted students for TPMS are:

V: 97
Q: 99
NV:97
Composite: 99

So can I infer that those straight 99% with high MAP and PARCC scores HGC students are rejected solely because that they have a "peer group" in their home school now? Any logic flaw?

Folks at these 'peer group' middle schools should start advocating for mini magnets similar to the home school CSS that was rolled out this year. And kids won't have to decide between humanities/stem programming.

Yes, agreed. But there's a rock/hard place argument - if the county does this, then you won't get the white kids into historically underserved areas, which was the whole purpose of the magnet program when it began, and desegregation become a historic artifact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can call AEI for median percentiles for pool, and median for accepted students at each program. I was trying to get Cogat scores for an application to another program, but they would not release over the phone.

Median percentiles of accepted students for TPMS are:

V: 97
Q: 99
NV:97
Composite: 99

So can I infer that those straight 99% with high MAP and PARCC scores HGC students are rejected solely because that they have a "peer group" in their home school now? Any logic flaw?

Folks at these 'peer group' middle schools should start advocating for mini magnets similar to the home school CSS that was rolled out this year. And kids won't have to decide between humanities/stem programming.

Yes, agreed. But there's a rock/hard place argument - if the county does this, then you won't get the white kids into historically underserved areas, which was the whole purpose of the magnet program when it began, and desegregation become a historic artifact.

Right, but it seems as though one side effect of this new evaluation system is that more lower income, URM kids will end up in the magnet program. Not a bad thing, IMO, but it does likely leave a bunch of smart kids underserved at their home schools. Really, the best answer seems to be to expand tracking in classes, so even if a kid doesn't make the cut for the magnet program, he/she will still be able to have accelerated/enriched instruction for most, if not all, of ES and MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone spell it out for non-gifted me? 3% of all 5th graders in the relevant areas get in? 7%? 10?

200/4000=0.5%, bite the craziness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Right, but it seems as though one side effect of this new evaluation system is that more lower income, URM kids will end up in the magnet program. Not a bad thing, IMO, but it does likely leave a bunch of smart kids underserved at their home schools. Really, the best answer seems to be to expand tracking in classes, so even if a kid doesn't make the cut for the magnet program, he/she will still be able to have accelerated/enriched instruction for most, if not all, of ES and MS.

Under the previous system, there were also evidently a bunch of smart kids underserved at their home schools -- it's just that those home schools weren't in Bethesda or Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Right, but it seems as though one side effect of this new evaluation system is that more lower income, URM kids will end up in the magnet program. Not a bad thing, IMO, but it does likely leave a bunch of smart kids underserved at their home schools. Really, the best answer seems to be to expand tracking in classes, so even if a kid doesn't make the cut for the magnet program, he/she will still be able to have accelerated/enriched instruction for most, if not all, of ES and MS.

Unfortunately, fact is that MCPS is suffering from billions of budget cut so expanding accelerated/enriched instructions in local schools is technically day-dreaming. Then rich and high-educated people start to think of moving out of the county, house price declines and less property tax, and more deficit of education budget. So on and so forth.

[Anonymous]

^. You do realize that curriculum, teacher training and per student spending is the same in ALL MCPS schools right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Unfortunately, fact is that MCPS is suffering from billions of budget cut so expanding accelerated/enriched instructions in local schools is technically day-dreaming. Then rich and high-educated people start to think of moving out of the county, house price declines and less property tax, and more deficit of education budget. So on and so forth.

I haven't noticed any house price declines in the areas where rich people live. Or anywhere else in the county.