I went to the TPMS meeting tonight. The coordinator mentioned that they look at gender but are legally prohibited from taking into account race. They admit 50/50
But more boys accept.

Anonymous wrote:Gender is absolutely considered as is SES. To determine SES they look at sending and receiving schools.

This is correct

Gender is absolutely considered as is SES. To determine SES they look at sending and receiving schools.

I suspect that they balance by HS cluster. Nobody would try to look up to much info. They just use things that are clearly on applications.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
Have you seen at the top of application form, check from what cluster you are.
This is not only to make sure that you applied for correct magnet, it is for using that Geography balancing mentioned above.
I believe there is check for gender somewhere too, but I do not remember.

The child's name is also on the application, that doesn't mean the admissions panel sees it. They do pay attention to which cluster students are taken from. This was explained at the info meetings, by saying taking too many students from a single school could cause that school to loose a teacher. Anyway, balancing by cluster was discussed in the choice study. It's news to me if they pay attention to gender when making offers.

Does balancing by cluster mean making sure there aren't too many from a particular home middle school? Or do you mean the high school cluster (if there is more than one middle school that feeds into the high school)? Are these kids competing against the other kids in their assigned middle school?

It's against the law to consider gender or ethnicity in magnet selection!

Anonymous wrote:^^^
Have you seen at the top of application form, check from what cluster you are.
This is not only to make sure that you applied for correct magnet, it is for using that Geography balancing mentioned above.
I believe there is check for gender somewhere too, but I do not remember.

The child's name is also on the application, that doesn't mean the admissions panel sees it. They do pay attention to which cluster students are taken from. This was explained at the info meetings, by saying taking too many students from a single school could cause that school to loose a teacher. Anyway, balancing by cluster was discussed in the choice study. It's news to me if they pay attention to gender when making offers.

^^^
Have you seen at the top of application form, check from what cluster you are.
This is not only to make sure that you applied for correct magnet, it is for using that Geography balancing mentioned above.
I believe there is check for gender somewhere too, but I do not remember.

There is no quota. They are just asked to balance classes.
So nobody will be upset with 60% boys and 40% girls.
When they see equal boy and girl, they probably will pick girl.
If they see stronger boy they will pick the boy.
They cannot legally choose based on race, gender etc.
So to go around they are trying to make sure that representatives from all areas of MOCO are taken.
As a result, if you have too many W cluster candidates, only few will be picked even if they are the best.
They have to pick from all clusters...

Is it quotas to consider gender as one of many factors?

Wouldn't quotas based on a protected class be illegal?

Anonymous wrote:PP again, while there may be more boys, it is not a noticeable difference. The imbalance may be more apparent at Blair.

Wait... Are you saying that Asian boys and girls all look alike <wink>

Anonymous wrote:Is it really true that they don't balance for gender?

"balance" is probably not the right word. i think they try to make sure incoming class is not lopsided but i wouldn't call it "balancing" it.

Eastern is really skewed girls to boys, especially in the current 7th grade. Very few boys.

We were told by Blair admissions that they aim to admit 50% girls /boys..but the acceptance rate for girls is typically lower so they end up with more boys.