Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The posters who worry about the children of people “who couldn’t bother to fill out an application” struggling in the magnets without adequate parental support, as well as the posters who express such anguish over these children “watering down” this once magnificent program, are really something. You fail to grasp the impact of universal screening.

We weren’t going to apply to the CES (then HGC) for our dd two years ago, but our school was part of the pilot program that did away with applications and teacher input. We didn’t opt out of the testing because half the kids in dd’s grade were being tested and we didn’t want dd to feel like she wasn’t a good student when we knew she was very bright, and, I admit, we were curious about how she would stack up against her peers. DD got into the CES. It’s much harder to turn down a spot after it’s offered than it is to skip the application process. DD has thrived in the CES.

I had serious doubts that dd could get into a magnet because they have so few seats and we have a strong cohort at our home middle school. Especially without the CES experience, I don’t think we would have applied to a magnet. However, DD just got into a magnet, and so, once again, she benefited from universal screening.

DD is white, UMC, doesn’t have a 504/IEP, and has never prepped through special classes, a tutor, workbooks or practice tests. Her home middle school has a strong cohort. Her parents are educated, value education and are supportive. And dd STILL benefited from universal screening.

Sound alike you really like to go with the flow and let others make decisions for you (ie so hard socially to “give up a spot so we went”). Hmmm.

Anonymous wrote:The posters who worry about the children of people “who couldn’t bother to fill out an application” struggling in the magnets without adequate parental support, as well as the posters who express such anguish over these children “watering down” this once magnificent program, are really something. You fail to grasp the impact of universal screening.

We weren’t going to apply to the CES (then HGC) for our dd two years ago, but our school was part of the pilot program that did away with applications and teacher input. We didn’t opt out of the testing because half the kids in dd’s grade were being tested and we didn’t want dd to feel like she wasn’t a good student when we knew she was very bright, and, I admit, we were curious about how she would stack up against her peers. DD got into the CES. It’s much harder to turn down a spot after it’s offered than it is to skip the application process. DD has thrived in the CES.

I had serious doubts that dd could get into a magnet because they have so few seats and we have a strong cohort at our home middle school. Especially without the CES experience, I don’t think we would have applied to a magnet. However, DD just got into a magnet, and so, once again, she benefited from universal screening.

DD is white, UMC, doesn’t have a 504/IEP, and has never prepped through special classes, a tutor, workbooks or practice tests. Her home middle school has a strong cohort. Her parents are educated, value education and are supportive. And dd STILL benefited from universal screening.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What makes me more angry than anything is that if someone is rejected, and they appeal the BEST outcome is that they get placed in the wait pool, and then it's a lottery from there with low odds. They will never admit they made a mistake and should have admitted someone outright. The wait pool is not only unranked (so there's absolutely no ability for anyone in the pool to make secure plans for the future until the first day of school in September), it doesn't even take into account the possibility that there will no longer be a "cohort" remaining after people make middle school choices.

At last night's TMPS open house, the director said that 80 kids were selected for BOTH Eastern and TPMS, so there will be an aggregate of 80 spots opening up because those kids have to pick one or the other. 80 spots is enough to kill quite a few "cohorts" at the local middle schools.

No, there won’t be 80 spots open. MCPS sent out more acceptance letters over capacity to fill some of the spots.

How do you know that?

Anonymous wrote:Just found out that a kid who stayed back at the local ES and had decent scores, but not nearly as high as my CES kid (about 20 point MAP-M difference, lower CogAT), got accepted to TPMS. There are other kids in my DC's CES who had the same or similar scores to the local kid (so other student at CES may be in "cohort" with local kid), so I really want to know why that kid was sent to the magnet as an "outlier," but my kid, who was an outlier among the CES kids heading to the same middle school, was not?

No one will provide data on how "cohort" was defined for students presumably denied entry to any CES, who were recommended for local magnets, and presumably were rejected for that reason.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What makes me more angry than anything is that if someone is rejected, and they appeal the BEST outcome is that they get placed in the wait pool, and then it's a lottery from there with low odds. They will never admit they made a mistake and should have admitted someone outright. The wait pool is not only unranked (so there's absolutely no ability for anyone in the pool to make secure plans for the future until the first day of school in September), it doesn't even take into account the possibility that there will no longer be a "cohort" remaining after people make middle school choices.

At last night's TMPS open house, the director said that 80 kids were selected for BOTH Eastern and TPMS, so there will be an aggregate of 80 spots opening up because those kids have to pick one or the other. 80 spots is enough to kill quite a few "cohorts" at the local middle schools.

No, there won’t be 80 spots open. MCPS sent out more acceptance letters over capacity to fill some of the spots.

Anonymous wrote:What makes me more angry than anything is that if someone is rejected, and they appeal the BEST outcome is that they get placed in the wait pool, and then it's a lottery from there with low odds. They will never admit they made a mistake and should have admitted someone outright. The wait pool is not only unranked (so there's absolutely no ability for anyone in the pool to make secure plans for the future until the first day of school in September), it doesn't even take into account the possibility that there will no longer be a "cohort" remaining after people make middle school choices.

At last night's TMPS open house, the director said that 80 kids were selected for BOTH Eastern and TPMS, so there will be an aggregate of 80 spots opening up because those kids have to pick one or the other. 80 spots is enough to kill quite a few "cohorts" at the local middle schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your child benefited from universal screening because you convinced yourself she wouldn’t get in if she/you had elected to apply.

Um, ok.

Next time: Think Like A Man.

LOL..... I was thinking the same thing - Mom of the year right there.

Hi, it’s the “Mom of the year,” here. We decided not to apply to the CES two years ago because we had a family situation that made having all of our children at the same elementary school preferable...but once universal screening was implemented and dd actually got into a CES, it was harder to let things such as the logistical difficulties of having our children at different schools or the difference between a short walk to the excellent neighborhood school versus a long bus ride to a special program at a different school stand in the way of sending our child to a CES. Feelings change once getting in is no longer theoretical. Yes, I did say that I thought my dd had a slim chance of getting into a middle school magnet (which everyone does, even if they have high test scores!), but the point I was trying to make was that knowing dd would be considered automatically again, I didn’t even have to think about whether to apply to a magnet. I don’t know whether we would have applied under the old system, but it doesn’t matter under the new system.

Anonymous wrote:What makes me more angry than anything is that if someone is rejected, and they appeal the BEST outcome is that they get placed in the wait pool, and then it's a lottery from there with low odds. They will never admit they made a mistake and should have admitted someone outright. The wait pool is not only unranked (so there's absolutely no ability for anyone in the pool to make secure plans for the future until the first day of school in September), it doesn't even take into account the possibility that there will no longer be a "cohort" remaining after people make middle school choices.

At last night's TMPS open house, the director said that 80 kids were selected for BOTH Eastern and TPMS, so there will be an aggregate of 80 spots opening up because those kids have to pick one or the other. 80 spots is enough to kill quite a few "cohorts" at the local middle schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just found out that a kid who stayed back at the local ES and had decent scores, but not nearly as high as my CES kid (about 20 point MAP-M difference, lower CogAT), got accepted to TPMS. There are other kids in my DC's CES who had the same or similar scores to the local kid (so other student at CES may be in "cohort" with local kid), so I really want to know why that kid was sent to the magnet as an "outlier," but my kid, who was an outlier among the CES kids heading to the same middle school, was not?

No one will provide data on how "cohort" was defined for students presumably denied entry to any CES, who were recommended for local magnets, and presumably were rejected for that reason.

This happened to my kid last year as well. I'm sorry, I know it's frustrating not to understand the process. There really is no explanation for how MCPS differentiates among the kids they do let into the magnet, for certain groups and certain schools. The way you have to think of it is that being selected to go to a magnet does not mean that a certain kid is an outlier compared to your child. Your kid is being told he is not an outlier, given the large cohort at his school, but that doesn't mean the other kid from your home middle school that got invited is an outlier. The various tests being used are not meant to differentiate among the 99th percentilers, or maybe even the 97-99 percentilers, and so MCPS is simply picking almost at random among the large group of qualified kids. I'm saying at random because MCPS doesn't have that much information to differentiate among the UMC kids, without special needs, from a school with a large cohort of qualified kids - there's no application, no essay, no teacher recommendations -- they just have the various test scores. Good luck if you decide to appeal.

Anonymous wrote:Just found out that a kid who stayed back at the local ES and had decent scores, but not nearly as high as my CES kid (about 20 point MAP-M difference, lower CogAT), got accepted to TPMS. There are other kids in my DC's CES who had the same or similar scores to the local kid (so other student at CES may be in "cohort" with local kid), so I really want to know why that kid was sent to the magnet as an "outlier," but my kid, who was an outlier among the CES kids heading to the same middle school, was not?

No one will provide data on how "cohort" was defined for students presumably denied entry to any CES, who were recommended for local magnets, and presumably were rejected for that reason.

Anonymous wrote:Just found out that a kid who stayed back at the local ES and had decent scores, but not nearly as high as my CES kid (about 20 point MAP-M difference, lower CogAT), got accepted to TPMS. There are other kids in my DC's CES who had the same or similar scores to the local kid (so other student at CES may be in "cohort" with local kid), so I really want to know why that kid was sent to the magnet as an "outlier," but my kid, who was an outlier among the CES kids heading to the same middle school, was not?

No one will provide data on how "cohort" was defined for students presumably denied entry to any CES, who were recommended for local magnets, and presumably were rejected for that reason.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your child benefited from universal screening because you convinced yourself she wouldn’t get in if she/you had elected to apply.

Um, ok.

Next time: Think Like A Man.

LOL..... I was thinking the same thing - Mom of the year right there.

Anonymous wrote:So your child benefited from universal screening because you convinced yourself she wouldn’t get in if she/you had elected to apply.

Um, ok.

Next time: Think Like A Man.