Reply to Did MCPS do a sneaky thing for the magnet lotteries?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

NP. Our experience in the magnets for the past few years, at middle magnet and regional CES, is that there is a very significant immigrant population attending. Most kids have at least one parent who is a first generation immigrant. They have families who value education as a path to stability and prosperity, and most are definitely not affluent. [/quote]

It depends on how you define "affluent"...

In my west-county/upcounty anecdotal experience, most of the immigrant parents of children in the application magnet programs come from the more affluent parts of society in their countries of origin, have college degrees (either from their country of origin or from the colleges they came to the US to attend), and work in professional jobs in the US.[/quote]

At least in my book if you can afford to drop $10k on prep classes to ensure your kid gets the scores necessary to appear gifted and access these limited opportunities then you're affluent.[/quote]

Can we just set the "prepping" issue to the side, please? It's a vague word that does more harm than good and encompasses all sorts of activities, from Russian School of Math to STEM classes to robotics club, to Outschool book clubs. [/quote]

+1. I think this person who keeps bringing up prepping has never had a kid in the middle school magnets. I have older kids, so two went through the pre-universal screening process, one went through the universal screening with COGAT, and then the last one went through the lottery.

There is really no way to know how many kids "prepped" for the magnet. My own anecdotal data after having one in TP and two in Eastern is that only first gen immigrant families prep (as in attending weekly prep classes for many months such as APlus) and these folks are really after TP, not Eastern.  Not all kids who prep get into the magnets. These parents know this. They see these prep classes as an activity that is time better spent than sports--and, it is a social thing since all their friends are doing it. They are intense, involved parents, but also very nice and willing to share information about study tips, programs, internships, etc.

I never met an American or European family (of any race) who would admit to going to one of the weekly schools to prep, though I'm sure plenty of these families do enrichment too. We prefer to pretend to be shocked and delighted that our kids are "naturally" gifted even though they are most likely receiving enrichment of some sort at home or through various extra-curricular activities (just not something as blatant as APlus).

My own thoughts are that even in the pre-universal screening days, I doubt a majority of the kids prepped at places like APlus. I might believe that a significant portion (15% percent of so) of kids at TP prepped at some sort of specific program (if you showed me actual data), but I don't think a significant portion at Eastern were prepped this way.[/quote]

Actually it's a safe bet that over 50% of those getting in attended the various prep mills. A year or two ago there was the whole Curie scandal in VA when just one of the prep centers posted the last names of 30% of TJ's entering class as their alumni,. This stuff is very common in this area and it's a safe bet if it's going on a few miles from here in VA it goes on here too. [/quote]

I’d take that bet because there is NO way you are correct! My kid is at TPMS. He also got into Eastern and he certainly didn’t prep and neither did any one else. He also has never had any extra curriculars that would give him a leg up for either magnet, though he was academically precocious. He’s just a normal kid and so is his peer group.[/quote]

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