Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

This page shows "Grade 8 High School Regional and Countywide Programs Timeline 2024- 2025" and "Grade 9-11 Part-Time High School Regional and Countywide Programs 2024-2025 Timeline"

Does students go through this application process every year in HS?

Only if you want to change to a different program in a later year, for programs that allow late entry.

Interesting. Students can change to different program after they are enrolled? This is not something that they talk about in the open house. They also say that once you accept, you have to commit to a program unless you cannot maintain certain level of GPA and go back to homeschool. If this is an option, I think students have many choices to make changes if the program does not fit their needs. Does this applies to criteria based programs as well?

Check out the HS Special Programs website: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

There are programs open to incoming 10th-12th graders. Mostly vocational, but also Middle College and the Visual Arts Center at Einstein: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1onvWPD9apFV6WX1MIjmrXewi6vt6OcJGUu6-3o-Lo1s/preview?tab=t.0

And there are programs open to incoming 9th graders:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kww20_552tnY8jPTKhnjI04ZxBF-m66zk6RPJOea8R0/preview?tab=t.0

Except for the VAC, the criteria-based programs mainly don't take kids after 9th grade because they have special curricula starting from the beginning and you can't jump in midstream.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

This page shows "Grade 8 High School Regional and Countywide Programs Timeline 2024- 2025" and "Grade 9-11 Part-Time High School Regional and Countywide Programs 2024-2025 Timeline"

Does students go through this application process every year in HS?

Only if you want to change to a different program in a later year, for programs that allow late entry.

Interesting. Students can change to different program after they are enrolled? This is not something that they talk about in the open house. They also say that once you accept, you have to commit to a program unless you cannot maintain certain level of GPA and go back to homeschool. If this is an option, I think students have many choices to make changes if the program does not fit their needs. Does this applies to criteria based programs as well?

Anonymous wrote:https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

This page shows "Grade 8 High School Regional and Countywide Programs Timeline 2024- 2025" and "Grade 9-11 Part-Time High School Regional and Countywide Programs 2024-2025 Timeline"

Does students go through this application process every year in HS?

Only if you want to change to a different program in a later year, for programs that allow late entry.

Anonymous wrote:Invited - Student is invited to attend one or more program. Student may accept one or decline all invitations. When one invitation is accepted, all other invitations, if there are any, are deemed declined.
Wait List - Students are on this list waiting for their invitation.
Wait Pool - What is Wait Pool? How is this different from Wait List?

Wait pool is for the criteria based programs. You don’t get a number like with waitlist (where the number gives some indication of the likelihood of being offered a spot)

For the criteria programs, in addition to the letter in ParentVue, before it is posted in ParentVue, successful candidates Weill start getting acceptance emails from the programs they’ve been accepted to, sent to both the parents and the kid. They don’t all come in immediately but within an hour or two.

Invited - Student is invited to attend one or more program. Student may accept one or decline all invitations. When one invitation is accepted, all other invitations, if there are any, are deemed declined.
Wait List - Students are on this list waiting for their invitation.
Wait Pool - What is Wait Pool? How is this different from Wait List?

Anonymous wrote:It’s not contradictory. If accepted to multiple programs, they select which one they want and thus give up their seats to others.

If accepted to some and waitlisted on others, they choose one acceptance, give up other acceptances but may remain on the waitlist for other programs if they were placed on the waitlist.

That makes sense. We hope MCPS will update FAQ to bring consistency and clarity. For someone who is looking at it for the first time will easily get confused.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

This page shows "Grade 8 High School Regional and Countywide Programs Timeline 2024- 2025" and "Grade 9-11 Part-Time High School Regional and Countywide Programs 2024-2025 Timeline"

Does students go through this application process every year in HS?

No

It’s not contradictory. If accepted to multiple programs, they select which one they want and thus give up their seats to others.

If accepted to some and waitlisted on others, they choose one acceptance, give up other acceptances but may remain on the waitlist for other programs if they were placed on the waitlist.

PP here. Answer to Question 21. creates more confusion "Students can only accept and enroll in one program. If a student is invited to multiple programs, they may only accept one invitation to enroll. They will need to decline the other program(s). Students may accept an invitation to a program and remain on the waitlist/wait pool for another program(s). "

Anonymous wrote:All of your questions are answered on the FAQ doc on the mcps website - you may want to read it over: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/high

Thank you for the link. Read the FAQ and some of the answers appears to be contradictory. For instance, Answer to Question 19 shows "The deadline to accept or decline a regional/countywide application program is February 14, 2025. Invited students may accept only one program. If students accept more than one program, the timestamp on the bit.ly accept/decline link for the most recent acceptance will be the program the student is placed in. Once the student accepts one program, any other INVITED seat(s) will be made available to another student. If a student is invited to a program and would like to remain on the waitlist for another program, they may accept one program. They will continue to remain on the waitlist and in the wait pool for other programs. On June 1, students who have accepted a program will have their name removed from other waitlists."

Answer to Question 20 shows "Students invited to more than one program may only accept one program by the February 14, 2025 deadline. Use the online acceptance link provided on your letter to accept the program of greatest interest. Unfortunately, students invited to more than one program may not be placed in the wait pool or be added to the waitlist for the programs to which they received an invitation."

Will students remain on wait list if they accept 1 program? Is there anything that DC needs to do to remain on waitlist?