Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

CS at UMD has limited spots. You can get into UMD but you may not get into CS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

No. I know some magnet students who did fairly well (1500 SAT) who were denied at UMD for CS.

My DC goes there for CS and was from a magnet, but not everyone who chose CS or engineering for that matter from their peer group got into UMD.

This is a meaningless statement -- there is so much that goes into admit/deny. If you are an extremely bright Blair magnet kid, you might apply to UMD and they might deny you because they can see that UMD is a safety for you, or you applied late or didn't indicate any interest in UMD offerings, etc. You also don't know what is in peer's records. Maybe they are in the magnet but don't have as good grades or tested poorly or turned in a shitty application or have some other true interest that makes it obvious that they will likely go somewhere other than UMD.

Wheaton is the #2 engineering source school for Clark Engineering at UMd and the #1 source school in MoCo.Go Knights!

I think the answer to the OP's question is probalby yes. I know people with very high SATs and GPAs at Wootton who didn't get into UMD at all (nevermind CS). Because they don't want to fill their class from Wootton. The score/GPA threshold from Rockville is lower (possibly a lot lower). But I don't know how the magnet part fits in. I do think that they treat the RM magnet differently from their non magnet population. i.e., a person typically zoned for RM might get in with a lower score than an IM student from RM. But that's just rumor.

Almost half of Blair magnet goes to UMD and the rest go to more selective schools. The education and EC opportunity Blair magnet gives you outweighs the benefit of kneecapping your education to gain advantage in in-school competition.

Going to a different high school isn't a ticket to the incredibly over-applied limited admission CS major.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

No. I know some magnet students who did fairly well (1500 SAT) who were denied at UMD for CS.

My DC goes there for CS and was from a magnet, but not everyone who chose CS or engineering for that matter from their peer group got into UMD.

1500 SAT is below average in SMCS. The average is 1550 or so as far as I can recall. You are always compared to your peers.

Right, that's my point. You'd think a 1500 to UMD CS would be a shoe in, but from a magnet, it's not. I was addressing a PP who stated: "If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out ".

It's not an autoadmit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

No. I know some magnet students who did fairly well (1500 SAT) who were denied at UMD for CS.

My DC goes there for CS and was from a magnet, but not everyone who chose CS or engineering for that matter from their peer group got into UMD.

1500 SAT is below average in SMCS. The average is 1550 or so as far as I can recall. You are always compared to your peers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

We are not in the Wootton cluster but in Region 5. Gaithersburg HS which will host the STEM magnet has poor ratings. How would that affect a kid who goes to the magnet in that school?

There are already advanced kids at Gaithersburg who get into top colleges. It’s just not a lot because many are siphoned away to other magnet programs. If you are in the top academic program at the school and doing well, you will be at the top of the applicant pool to colleges. GHS score averages are low because there is such a high ELL population. The school is fine and advanced students are in completely separate academic programs.

-GHS parent

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

No. I know some magnet students who did fairly well (1500 SAT) who were denied at UMD for CS.

My DC goes there for CS and was from a magnet, but not everyone who chose CS or engineering for that matter from their peer group got into UMD.

That's because uninformed high schoolers / parents are hyper fixated on undergrad CS major, not realizing that their goal of "get rich in tech" doesn't depend on an undergrad CS major at all, and in fact it's probably better to major in something else and learn software as an interdisciplinary skill.

Make sure you balance against commute, pool of kids your child can aspire to be like, be friends with, learn from, not be distracted by. Being in a stronger school means better teachers, better classmates, more advanced courses to choose from (in every subject area), less chaos and nonsense, more activities, etc etc.

Personally I’d never choose a weaker school just to try to game the system. If you have to choose it, things will probably be fine, but all else equal I’d choose the stronger high school if you can.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

No. I know some magnet students who did fairly well (1500 SAT) who were denied at UMD for CS.

My DC goes there for CS and was from a magnet, but not everyone who chose CS or engineering for that matter from their peer group got into UMD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

We are not in the Wootton cluster but in Region 5. Gaithersburg HS which will host the STEM magnet has poor ratings. How would that affect a kid who goes to the magnet in that school?

Anonymous wrote:What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?

Colleges don't care about your "focus" in high school. Colleges don't want you do college in high school. They want you to show you are capable at academics and community engagement.

If you want to study CS at UMD and are qualified for success in a magnet program, you're an auto admit so don't freak out

College AOs look first at your HS ranking or special programs. Blair SMCS, RMIB, Poolsville SMCS and GE, are well-known among top college AO offices, and students will be automatically separated from the rest applicants from the same HS and only be compared with their peers in the same program. Otherwise, higher school ranking would help unless you are truly phenomenal or did some phenomenal things in lower-ranking HSs.

With the regional model, top colleges will soon realize the student body changes because every school/program is required provide school/program stats. Once the credibility is gone, it's hard to build it back, and it will take any other program a decade or so to build their names. So short answer is, it's always better to be the top among your peers if college admission is your pure driver.

Mr. O repeats it every year in the information session that if your goal is top college admission or getting 5 in as many as AP tests, don't join SMCS. This is a program to challenge yourself and make you reach your potential. It's so sad that to see the program being forced to water down.

What the title says. If colleges take only X number of students per school, will there be an advantage by going to a magnet (interest based or criteria based) in an overall poorly performing high school?

Lets say you are in the Wootton cluster and your kid wants to study CS in UMD- instead of going to Wootton's CS magnet programs which will be very competitive, would going to Rockville but doing the other non related courses in that magnet help - do colleges care about what your focus was in high school before admitting to that program?