The lists have number applied and number accepted, not matriculated. It is not just ivy league schools. It's all types of colleges. For example, American University. Much higher acceptance rate from the other schools included.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Bear in mind also that the ivies (I assume OP is carping about Blair's ivy matriculation rates) by agreement don't offer merit aid. So at ivies you can only get income-based financial aid, which generally isn't available to families with incomes under $100k barring special circumstances (or if the college has a huge endowment, like Harvard).

Wait, what? You mean income-based generally isn't available to families with incomes OVER $100k, don't you?

Also I'm not sure that's true -- at least not at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, which all have no-loan financial aid policies.

So you're arguing that there are no financial considerations that separate Blair and Whitman kids? That's just silly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Bear in mind also that the ivies (I assume OP is carping about Blair's ivy matriculation rates) by agreement don't offer merit aid. So at ivies you can only get income-based financial aid, which generally isn't available to families with incomes under $100k barring special circumstances (or if the college has a huge endowment, like Harvard).

Wait, what? You mean income-based generally isn't available to families with incomes OVER $100k, don't you?

Also I'm not sure that's true -- at least not at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, which all have no-loan financial aid policies.

Yes, over $100k.

It's true at the top ivy my kid attends. We're full pay, but we're in a very tiny minority at Blair.

Anonymous wrote:

Bear in mind also that the ivies (I assume OP is carping about Blair's ivy matriculation rates) by agreement don't offer merit aid. So at ivies you can only get income-based financial aid, which generally isn't available to families with incomes under $100k barring special circumstances (or if the college has a huge endowment, like Harvard).

Wait, what? You mean income-based generally isn't available to families with incomes OVER $100k, don't you?

Also I'm not sure that's true -- at least not at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, which all have no-loan financial aid policies.

Anonymous wrote:12:58 - Keep in mind that the CAP list indicates the schools students chose to attend, not where they were accepted. There are many kids who were accepted into bigger name schools than UM but they or their families could not justify paying full private school tuition. As a result UM got exceptional kids from CAP, magnet,and the rest of Blair. That is both good for UM and the parent who don't want their student's to be in debt when they graduate.

This. There is a difference between acceptance rates and matriculation rates.

Bear in mind also that the ivies (I assume OP is carping about Blair's ivy matriculation rates) by agreement don't offer merit aid. So at ivies you can only get income-based financial aid, which generally isn't available to families with incomes under $100k barring special circumstances (or if the college has a huge endowment, like Harvard). Also, more and more these days, FA packages carry a big component of student loans, which can be unappealing and for good reason. I know several kids from Blair who were accepted by ivies but turned them down and are now going to SLACs (not UMD in these particular cases, interestingly) that offered merit aid. For most middle class families, paying $50-60k for full tuition at an Ivy is not doable, but a SLAC that offers $10k and often more in merit aid to well-qualified kids is going to look like a great deal. I'm not surprised that the ability to foot $60k/year tuition bills without help from merit or financial aid differs between the western and eastern parts of MoCo.

Many students are graduating from mcps not college ready.these students may be applying to Maryland or other universities, but the reality is, many students will be at MC taking remedial writing and math classes until they can test in to college level, credit bearing classes.

Personally, I think we need to raise the bar for graduation. I think it is nearly impossible to not graduate if a student keeps showing up, even if showing up means goofing around, or only attending a few days a week. Administrators don't want to see graduation rates go down, so they press teachers to do what it takes to help the kid "pass" the class. They are in no way ready for college, but they graduated from high school, so they think there's not an issue.

Another issue recently was published. I am not sure if it is explained by the students not being able to afford higher priced schools. The numbers in the magazine indicate that students ARE applying but aren't getting in. And this is across the board at a variety of colleges and univiersities.

12:58 - Keep in mind that the CAP list indicates the schools students chose to attend, not where they were accepted. There are many kids who were accepted into bigger name schools than UM but they or their families could not justify paying full private school tuition. As a result UM got exceptional kids from CAP, magnet,and the rest of Blair. That is both good for UM and the parent who don't want their student's to be in debt when they graduate.

3:50 has some good points, I think. First of all, lots of kids at Blair are not well off, so if the kid is going to college (not a given), UMD is doable whereas a private university/Ivy school would not be.

Another thing to consider is that magnet kids are applying to MIT and CalTech, not necessarily to Ivies.

The acceptances for the CAP program were very good last spring - a good number of Ivies in the list sent out by the coordinator. I'm going to venture that acceptances for the math/science magnet kids were good as well, although I don't know.

Sometimes I wonder whether colleges cherry pick a few kids from the Blair magnet and CAP programs, and likewise they take a few kids each from Churchill, Whitman and Wooten et cetera. If Yale takes 2-5 kids from each of these schools (I'm making this up, but for argument's sake), this is a small percentage of the 800 kids in a Blair class, but a larger percent of a smaller school.

I'm a current student and really, I'm not surprised. MCPS consists of schools such as Churchill, Wootton, QO, and more. Obviously those schools would have high acceptance rate because well...they don't have to worry about finances. A lot of students at Blair aren't so well-off except for like Magnets and CAPs. So a lot of them have half-day schedule where they work during the rest. However, compare Blair to schools like Wheaton or Paint Branch. I'm sure Blair would have higher acceptance rate. After all, isn't that the reason why they created the Magnet and CAP programs?

I wonder if this is a bad year - like all the Sidwell parents complaining that not one kid got into Harvard last year?

keep in mind that the acceptance rates are "as reported" by students. as a parent of a blair 2011 graduate, its my understanding that the acceptances were very inconsistently reported. so basically, the information is inaccurate.

I don't think basic demograhics explains it. These kids are actually applying and not getting in. Are the guidance counselors steering them to the wrong schools?

I haven't seen the magazine story but I suspect it is basic demographics. The school is huge (I think the largest MC high school?) and diverse (34% FARMS, 56% BL and HI). There is the science magnet of course but it's fewer than 400 of the 2800 students.

A recent issue of Bethesda Magazine listed the college acceptances at various (though not all) MCPS high schools. Blair acceptance rates were terrible across the board compared to other MCPS schools. The % accepted from Blair was consistently significantly lower than from other schools- by consistent, I mean that Blair rates were lower than other MCPS schools regardless of whether the school overall had a low, middle, or high acceptance rate. Any insight? As a parent of elementary school students in the downcounty consortium, I was troubled by these charts.