Our child was accepted and we did accept the spot, but I went to the county-wide informational meetings back in early fall, and at that presentation it was said that approximately 75% of families accept. If that's the case, then lots of spots would open up for people on the waiting list.

April 20th was date by which kids admitted to the HGCs have to accept or decline the spot. Per MCPS, when there are open spots, they pull names randomly from the wait pool to fill them. My child is in the waitpool so am hoping that we'll be lucky and get a call. If anyone has info going forward about numbers of decliners, numbers in the waitpool, timing of notifications, please share.

On the issues of race playing a part in selection in any magnet process. Under the SC decision Eisenberg, that is patently illegal. Neither race nor gender can play a part in the selection process. At all public meetings I have attended, magnet selection people have been very careful to acknowledge this reality.

If race and gender are playing a role "under the table," it would still be illegal, but, of course, much harder to prove. In general, FOIA and the appeals process together provide you with rights to see information about your child and the basis for decisions made. Any appealing family who was able to document that their child had higher scores on all instruments considered in the admissions process than another accepted candidate of a different race or gender would have a decent case that the acceptance was based on race or gender, which is illegal.

The way that MCPS has gotten around the Eisenberg decision in the non-competitive magnets is to use FARMS status as a factor in the decision-making. FARMS status is not taken into account in the HGC or middle school magnet selection. But, using FARMS status is legal because it is not race (although it is used as a proxy for race). MCPS may also legally use "geographic diversity" as a factor in the admit process, i.e. the idea that every school in the cluster should have some students admitted to the HGC (or middle school magnet). This would also be legal.

The MCPS statistics on percentage of kids applying and admitted by ethnic group would seem to indicate that race is not playing a role in any systematic way. These statistics show that some racial groups are admitted at a rate higher than their overall presence in the population, and some racial groups are under-represented compared to their overall population rate in the school system.

I am a parent of kids who have applied to TPES magnet, an HGC and middle school magnet, sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully. I think it's really important that diversity be increased in the magnets. But, I think it's a disservice to kids of every color to do that thru explicit admits on the basis of race. I think MCPS should be focusing more on recruiting a more diverse pool of kids to apply. They should also focus on the admissions process which really weights against minority/low income kids. And, they should focus on the financial and logistical reality of going to a magnet, which discourages many minorities/low income families from applying.

To be clear, I don't believe admits on the basis of race or gender happen, but if people have information that it is they should be explicit about naming officials or meetings where this has been described.

Anonymous wrote:Although I have more knowledge of/personal experience with moving from the middle school magnet waitpools (Eastern and TP) than the HGC (b/c my kid was accepted outright ) , the (very limited number of) kids/families I know who got into the HGC through the waitpool were the ones who had provided additional information like a sibling/twin had been accepted; an older sibling is currently in the program; etc. In contrast, I don't know of anyone (again, from among a handful of families) who thought his/her kid was moved from the waitpool simply because his/her name was selected through a lottery. But, I have no reasons of my own to believe that open HGC spots were not filled in whole or part through a lottery -- my point is only that the limited number of people I know who were in this situation seem to believe that their kid was moved from the waitpool into the program after they had provided additional reason(s) for why the placement into the WAITPOOL had not been warranted (e.g., the waitlisted sibling is just as capable/worthy as the accepted sibling). The only waitpool-to-program situation I know of which didn't involve some kind of "sibling" issue is one where the family successfully demonstrated that the particular kid's needs could not be met at the home school (due to funding/resource cuts) and that claim was supported by the home school's principal.

I know several children who got in off of wait pool last year (mine included) and none of them involved any of the issues that you mention. They were all simply the next names chosen.