Blair Magnet vs. Richard Montgomery IB vs. BCC IB

[Anonymous]

My DS is a rising 8th grader at a BCC feeder middle school. He is interested in applying to the Blair STEM magnet in the fall for 9th grade. I was poking around the MCPS website regarding the Blair application, but it looks like it isn't available yet for 2019. Can any parent who has been through the process provide some information regarding what the application involves? I see references on the MCPS website and in other DCUM searches to the CogAT test. When is that test administered for high school magnet testing?

Also, is there any difference between the IB program at BCC vs. the IB program at Richard Montgomery? Meaning, if DS wasn't accepted at Blair and decided to do an IB program, wouldn't he just do the one at BCC?

I know MCPS will have some meetings on some of this in the fall, but any information before then would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

There'll be a whole new process starting this fall. They're going to be doing a universal review of 8th graders. See this presentation from May board meeting: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/BCTNFN56E29F/$file/Choice%20Update%20HS%20Prog%20Options%20190530%20PPT.pdf

[Anonymous]

MCPS will start to use “Cohort”to reject qualified students next year. Students from Churchill and Wooton HS clusters will see greatly reduced chance to get into the Magnets but Kennedy, Northwood or other HSs will see more students attending Blair or RM Magnet. Each school may send 5-10 students.

[Anonymous]

Only in MoCo, with its economic woes and growing poverty, would the school system RESTRICT the number of kids who want to challenge themselves with a truly rigorous education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS will start to use “Cohort”to reject qualified students next year. Students from Churchill and Wooton HS clusters will see greatly reduced chance to get into the Magnets but Kennedy, Northwood or other HSs will see more students attending Blair or RM Magnet. Each school may send 5-10 students.

Without the strong magnet what is Blair? A GS4 maybe ... a 3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS will start to use “Cohort”to reject qualified students next year. Students from Churchill and Wooton HS clusters will see greatly reduced chance to get into the Magnets but Kennedy, Northwood or other HSs will see more students attending Blair or RM Magnet. Each school may send 5-10 students.

Qualified students get rejected every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only in MoCo, with its economic woes and growing poverty, would the school system RESTRICT the number of kids who want to challenge themselves with a truly rigorous education.

Are they reducing the number of magnet/IB seats?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only in MoCo, with its economic woes and growing poverty, would the school system RESTRICT the number of kids who want to challenge themselves with a truly rigorous education.

That's silly. Every application program does this, except application programs that accept everybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only in MoCo, with its economic woes and growing poverty, would the school system RESTRICT the number of kids who want to challenge themselves with a truly rigorous education.

Are they reducing the number of magnet/IB seats?

Just the opposite, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS will start to use “Cohort”to reject qualified students next year. Students from Churchill and Wooton HS clusters will see greatly reduced chance to get into the Magnets but Kennedy, Northwood or other HSs will see more students attending Blair or RM Magnet. Each school may send 5-10 students.

Has this actually been stated?

[Anonymous]

MCPS may implement universal testing which is good IMO. They will not extend the cohort proxy to reduce asian Americans though with the discrimination investigation going on. MCPS lawyers would have heart failure.

[Anonymous]

Wootton kids are nerdy. They study for everything and can't bring themselves not to try as hard as they can on any test so they take PARCC seriously.

Whitman kids are goal oriented. They prep like heck for years to do well on the SAT and could care less about district or state wide testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS will start to use “Cohort”to reject qualified students next year. Students from Churchill and Wooton HS clusters will see greatly reduced chance to get into the Magnets but Kennedy, Northwood or other HSs will see more students attending Blair or RM Magnet. Each school may send 5-10 students.

Has this actually been stated?

No. Read this memo to see what has actually been stated.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/BCDLPL55BB9C/$file/Choice%20Update%20HS%20Prog%20Options%20190530.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS may implement universal testing which is good IMO. They will not extend the cohort proxy to reduce asian Americans though with the discrimination investigation going on. MCPS lawyers would have heart failure.

If the cohort factor is a proxy for being Asian-Americans, then it's a really, really terrible proxy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS may implement universal testing which is good IMO. They will not extend the cohort proxy to reduce asian Americans though with the discrimination investigation going on. MCPS lawyers would have heart failure.

If the cohort factor is a proxy for being Asian-Americans, then it's a really, really terrible proxy.

It is bad for the country ---

U.S. Places First at 2019 International Mathematics Competition in U.K. --- 5 out of 6 US team members are Asian-Americans

https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/july/us-first-in-math-competiton.html