Reply to Yet another magnet thread. What are the personalities of the students at various magnets?

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Reply to "Yet another magnet thread. What are the personalities of the students at various magnets?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not exactly “personalities” but there are some very obvious demographic differences between CAP (largely upper middle class, white students) and magnet (many from Indian, Chinese, Korean and other Asian backgrounds often children of immigrants including the few who are white) at Blair. Nice kids either way. [/quote]

Why is this? Why are there so few wealthy white families in SMCS relative to CAP, and why so many in CAP? Are the upper middle class white kids not as good in STEM or are their families less interested?[/quote]

Both Blair magnet and CAP are predominantly UMC. This is not NYC, where the test-in magnets are dominated by working class first-generation kids whose parents work in restaurants and dry cleaners. The parents of both sets of kids tend to be feds, or journalists, or attorneys, or scientists, or college professors.

I have an upperclassman in CAP who attended the TPMS STEM magnet, so some visibility on both groups and while Blair magnet does have more first and second generation immigrant kids, they are just as wealthy or wealthier than the CAP kids. [/quote]

Agree only the wealthiest families can afford to prep their kids sufficiently to get into these programs. I'm told it takes years of AoPS or RM to get to where one might have a shot at SMCS.[/quote]

You were told wrong. Stop trying to create a myth.

Parent of a kid in SMCS who doesn’t even know what AOPS or RM are.[/quote]

Another Blair magnet parent here. It's not totally a myth. Many kids have done these, and some don't. I think magnet leans Asian because Chinese,  Korean and Indian cultures place more value on academic advancement in STEM than Humanities. MC, UMC and immigrant families often sacrifice for additional stem enrichment like aops, A++, Dr. Li, Hopkins cty, etc. I know one mom who did those things while on a postdoc salary here on h1 visa from China. There are communal support networks too. Humanities were not an option for many of my kid's cohort in magnet. Not all of course. And, this is a few years ago.
I also see a lot of white umc lawyers in my neighborhood who will drop lots of money for Humanities enrichment. 
My magnet kids had significant enrichment in arts because I am a professional in the arts. I also used to tutor math, so I helped them with that (to a point). Stem magnets liked the arts kids who could hold their own at math.
I do wish there wasn't an emphasis on pre program enrichment. I don't know how we really get around that though.[/quote]

PP whose kid doesn’t know what those programs are, I’m an NP who also has a kid in the Blair magnet who not only didn’t prep but doesn’t know what those programs are. I guess we should be very proud that our kids got in based only on their hard work and not parental pressure and outside tutoring?[/quote]

PP here. I don't know about that. I think all the kids in the magnet are really bright and bring acumen and talent to the table, and I honestly think there should just be more seats. But, I also think these programs might be more important to those of us who haven't invested heavily in STEM enrichment.  I'm in arts and can't really afford cty etc, so having the magnet instruction has been really wonderful.  But, I also have a grad degree and have helped my kids in other ways. There are other kids/families who benefit more than us.
All this to say, let's not make this a pissing match.
Also,  all the other responses on this line of the thread were not me! It's a little nutty, all the claim staking and grand standing.[/quote]

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